Hey all,

After 2 years of owning an EK43S and complaining about it, I decided to sell it and pick up a Weber Workshops EG-1 v2. I'm running this paired with a Lelit Bianca, and have also been using it to brew half batches of filter coffee on my Ratio Six. I'm starting a new thread because the old one was locked (from 2018).



Here are my observations...

The good:

1) This has the best grind quality and taste in the cup of any grinder I have ever worked on or owned. Even with unseasoned CORE burrs I am getting some beautiful shots. It's actually great for filter coffee as well, and in terms of taste, I am super happy with it. I bought the ULTRA burrs at the same time because they were discounted, but honestly I may never need to throw them in. I am that pleased with it.

2) Cleaning this thing is A BREEZE. I love how the burr chamber snaps on and off with magnets. It's a really ingenious design.

3) Having variable RPM is great; although I have found my sweet spot to be around 700.

4) Alignment out of the box has been great, and with the sweetness being where it is in my coffee I do not think that any parallel misalignment exists. Axial alignment is a breeze to check and fix on burr swaps.

5) In terms of design in general; it really is a piece of art.

The not so good:

1) I can't stand the blind shaker. It's just not for me. The rings and dings and trying to get the coffee off of the piston to drop into the portafilter has been a challenge for me. This is probably technique related, but it seems fiddly and I am having a hard time with it.

2) There is no easy way to dose for filter with this grinder. I have tried every cup I've ever owned to dose for filter and nothing fits properly underneath the grinder. With the ring attached, my large dosing cups don't fit. My small dosing cups sit to low. I have to move the ring up and down or off and on every day when I go between espresso and filter. I'll probably design my own filter coffee catch up and machine it to match the tumbler just with a solid bottom.

3) Static is crazy right now. I know this will get better once the burrs season, but it has been challenging.

4) I was not able to switch between grinding for filter coffee and grinding for espresso easily. The adjustment mechanism would bind, and I would have to purge the grinder every quarter turn to get from filter to espresso. If I didn't do that, the motor would stall. This is supremely annoying. To get around this, I just adjust with the grinder on now. Doug explained that coffee remnants in the burrs get compacted, and you have to purge. Speaking of the dial, it is not super easy to switch from filter to espresso and vice versa. You have to use two hands, and it's a bit fiddly and slow. I will say that in trying to rotate this and getting binding with the machine off, I hit a point where the burrs slightly chirped on startup. Luckily the CORE burrs have a flat area so I am in the clear, but not having a true zero sucked when the mechanism wasn't working properly. You really have to recall where you're at with this thing.

5) I am getting 1-2 beans stuck in the throat between every grind, and they will fly out during the next adjustment. Not ideal for a single dosing grinder, and I am hoping to find a solution to this that doesn't involve a $5 plastic air plunger.

I will say that Doug has been great in terms of answering my questions. Even with it's flaws it's still the best grinder I've ever owned, and I will deal with the fiddly-ness and mess it currently gives me because the coffee is just excellent.

If anyone else is a recent buyer I would love to hear your workarounds for this stuff.

Thanks.

Nick

Of the not so good:

2. I found the smaller metal cup from a boston shaker serves well to catch filter grinds. I have also used a tea tin that is about 2.5 inches in diameter.

and

4. I find rotating the ring with one or two hands easy for back and forth grind settings. I am surprised it can be adjusted on the spin. Perhaps that is a change with v2.

With this low retention grinder one reads proclamations of "zero" retention. Between static and beans catching, in my experience anyway, it is a low retention grinder, not the holy grail of single dosing for that reason. It does seem like a really tall order, but I've never touched a VL or Titus or Kafatek grinder to compare.

Thanks a lot for this feedback, that's been a while we read about the EG-1.

Alignment out of the box has been great

Would you mind sharing some pictures of ground coffee on a piece of white paper?

I can't stand the blind shaker. It's just not for me. The rings and dings and trying to get the coffee off of the piston to drop into the portafilter has been a challenge for me.

I have the Blind Tumbler that came with my HG-1, it's super smooth to use. I even considered to buy the Shaker since I kinda prefer the process of shaking over WDT. What do you mean « to get the the coffee off of the piston to drop the into the portafilter »? I just grind into the tumbler, then place the tumbler on top of the portafilter and pull the plug and the coffee drop directly into the portafilter. You may have to ding ding to get the remaining stuff but that's pretty much it.

Static is crazy right now.

How do you deal with that? Is there some kind of puffer delivered with the HG-1 like the Monolith or Ceado?

I was not able to switch between grinding for filter coffee and grinding for espresso easily. The adjustment mechanism would bind, and I would have to purge the grinder every quarter turn to get from filter to espresso.

Woh this is crazy. I never read that about any of the top tier grinders, I'm super surprised.

Do you think it's because the motor is not powerful enough or something else?

I am getting 1-2 beans stuck in the throat between every grind, and they will fly out during the next adjustment.

Again super surprising for a grinder that aims at competing with Monolith and other same class grinders.

I would have assumed you get the regular .1 or .2 ground coffee retention, not whole beans! Where are they getting stuck exactly? Do you have pictures?

I have one of the EG-1 from the original first run. I have never had a bean stuck in the throat, nor had any issue adjusting the grind. I do use the blind shaker and have to tap the lid a once to get the stuck grounds to fall into the shaker. Other than that, I have never had any problem with this grinder in the four years of ownership. I'm sure you will be very happy once you get used to it.

To be honest I didn't know beans were getting stuck until I started adjusting the grind size with the grinder on. I routinely go from filter to espresso, and apparently enough grounds stay between the burrs to compact and not allow for adjustment. When I mentioned this to Doug he seemed to know about it. Now that I am changing grind sizes with the unit on this is no longer an issue, as the compacted grounds just fly out.

In terms of the shaker, I think that the problem may just be static. When I try and pull the center piston up, the coffee just stays glued to it. I have to hit it a bunch of different ways to get the coffee off of it.

Other touch points from the previous post:

1) Next time I grind I can take some shots of what the coffee looks like.

2) I mentioned my issues with the shaker above.

3) No puffer included.

4) I believe that the adjustment mechanism can bind with the motor off because the burrs are not sideways like the EK; so if any coffee is on any of the teeth and you try and adjust the grind finer, coffee will stop the mechanism from moving. With the motor on, the coffee just flys out from between the teeth and you can adjust fine. I almost always adjusted my EK while on, so this isn't a big deal to me. Someone told me to never adjust the EG-1 while on, so I was following that advice. I think it's silly. As long as you don't smash the burrs together you should be fine. Even if you had a mishap like I did, the outer surface is a non cutting surface; so a brief tap for a moment will not be harmful.

Nick

I'don't make drastic changes in the grind, as I only do espresso. There may be a difference there.

Needing to adjust the grind finer with grinder running has been a fact of life with almost all coffee grinders for years. Same with a Monolith Flat, if you adjust more than a small amount finer, turn on the grinder. The Bunzillia never seemed to care but it like the EK has high speed vertical burrs.

Ira

Why? Is that because those grinders just lock when you try to adjust without the burrs running just like the description of the EG-1 above?

If there is coffee left in the burrs and tightening the cab means the grinder has to break a bean in order to move, the startup torque might not be sufficient to break that bean particle and start moving. For most grinders, it not necessary to have a motor strong enough to be able to deal with that as once the burrs are spinning, inertia will get past any difficult spots.

Ira

Oh I see. I didn't know it was that common among grinders, that's the first time I read about it and in all videos I saw people are adjusting their grinders while burrs are not running.