The Super Jolly arrived last Friday and the Kony arrived late Monday afternoon. This post documents my initial impressions and the approach I'll be using for the next few days.

First of all, I'm impressed by the Super Jolly. A couple years ago I bought one of the TagEx grinders for a mere $125 and gave it to Lino for repainting. A year later, I was still waiting my turn, so when he said his buddy wanted to buy one, I sold it. Now I regret it, the Super Jolly produces a grind that's noticeably more even than the Mazzer Mini. In an offline conversation, Michael (k7qz) brought related comments to my attention from CoffeeGeek:

Ben C. wrote:We have the chance to have all 3 grinders (mini, jolly, major) in the same room and observed that, as you step up with size:

- shot to shot consistency improves
- grinds gets fluffier
- which results in less clumping and improves dosing/distribution
- the clarity of the shot improves (i.e. flavors become more distinct and layered)
- pop-corning becomes more severe

(link)

I used to wonder about Billy Wilson and his preference for the Super Jolly:


From SCAA Barista Competition - USBC 2006

He could bring any grinder he wanted to the competition, why not a conical as practically ever competitor did? Evidently he prefers the Super Jolly's flavor profile. I agree, it pulls a darn good shot, and it handles grounds distribution nicely too.

Once I had the weekend with the Super Jolly, I wanted to dry run a few "blind" tests when the Kony arrived. Since there's only me for testing, I prepared two baskets with one discreetly marked under the rim and put them on a lazy susan. To randomize the selection, I spun it for awhile with my eyes closed and then groped for one of the two baskets without looking, placed it in the portafilter, then locked in and pulled with spouted portafilter. This process worked well enough; I genuinely had no idea which basket was selected and the spouted portafilter masked visual differences.

For the first go-around yesterday, I selected Counter Culture Coffee's Toscano espresso blend and applied a simple thumbs up/thumbs down vote on overall preference. Kony won 3 out of 4 against the Super Jolly, though the difference for this blend wasn't nearly as obvious as Dave/John reported. The texture was a larger tell than the flavor profile, with the Kony's having slightly more body and lighter mousse-like texture, despite having sat for 30+ seconds before sampling.

Interesting side-note: The Kony won the last round, though it wasn't really a fair comparison. I had to transfer some beans to the Jolly and forgot to reopen the hopper's trap on the Kony, so the beans didn't have the pressure of the coffee above. Dave mentioned that the grind was uneven if there wasn't some constant pressure; indeed, the shot ran faster than the prior ones and I cut it off ~five seconds earlier. At the time I didn't connect the reason for the faster extraction and rated them anyway.

Today I focused exclusively on the Kony. The blend was Intelligentsia Coffee's Black Cat:

«missing video»

Nice easy extractions, good chocolates and thick body. I should have made a machiatto!

Interesting, I thought the Super Jolly produced more body with my selection of coffees.

The Mazzer Robur and Macap MXK are with me now. In addition Jim P sent me the larger Macap conical and the Fiorenzato conical, both with 68mm burrs. The smaller Macap and Kony weigh in at 62mm, while the Robur is king of the conical hill at 72mm.

After some testing, I could not detect any difference at all in taste between the Fiorenzato and the larger Macap. This is unsurprising, since the burrs look identical, and the motors are similarly sized. So for the remainder of my shift, I'll be testing the Robur and the two Macaps:



I have removed the hoppers, so I can single dose conveniently. However, the grind characteristics change if one just dumps beans into the throat and covers, so I rigged up some cylindrical 55mm diameter "nano-hoppers" where I can push the beans through with a shot glass that fits. The grind is now close to identical as what one gets with a regular filled hopper.

So far, I've just been getting acquainted with the grinders. I'm using Black Cat for this phase, of which I had 2 pounds, now mostly gone. This year's formulation is slightly smokier than it was in the past, even though the roast is lighter; and poorly pulled shots will taste ashy. Good shots will have chocolate, a mild citrus twist, that sassafras-like flavor one gets from Brazilian coffees, and a clean hint of smokiness.

Two days of shot pulling showed clear differences between the grinders. I had dialed all the grinders in for 15 gram dose normales. The little Macap's shots were all over the place, with unbalanced, excessive flavors, sometimes all chocolate, sometime all citrus, with no hint of smokiness. The Robur shots were well balanced, although still varied, and displayed the profile of the blend very well. The larger Macap shots were utterly flat and perfectly consistent.

So is the Robur great, the little Macap OK, and the big Macap awful?

Not even close.

I've come to recognize these taste variations as caused by differing solids extraction. The big Macap is classically over-extracting, with the taste dulled by melanoidins. The Robur is extracting properly, and the taste is responding smoothly to small variations in the way I'm pulling. The little Macap is classically under-extracting, the flavors are unbuffered by caramels, and on a knife edge, so their balance is almost impossible to control.

Today I changed my MO, doing 13.5 gram shots on the little Macap, 15 gram shots on the Robur, and 16.5 gram shots on the larger Macap. This did the trick, and the shots came out tasting correct from all three grinders. If there are quality differences, they will require a long series of blind testing to discern.

But first things first. I'm going to spend my time measuring the solids extraction from these grinders at different doses. This will take around 10 to 15 days, since I'll be doing multiple shots at each dose, using various coffees. People who are curious about the details can refer to my paper. John will also do a laser count on the various required grinds from each grinder. I suspect that a grinder that produces more fines requires a coarser grind to achieve the same flow for the same dose. The coarser grind will mean it extracts less at the same dose than a grinder that produces fewer fines.

If there are people in the Chicago area who are interested in coming down to Hyde Park to spend an afternoon blind tasting these grinders, I would like to set something up next week. Lunch and supper will be on me. Please PM me if you're interested.

So what does this imply for when people (including me in the past) claim one grinder is way better than another? It probably means they are wrong:
-- People have an SOP at their homes or cafes, and they slot the new grinder into that.
-- They are looking to get the profile they want on the blends they normally use.
-- If the new grinder happens to extract better according to these criteria, it's clearly "far better."
-- However, it could be that a change in dose, basket, etc, that altered the solids extraction, would have produced the same effect from any other grinder.

I actually think large grindstones may produce an absolutely better grind than small ones; and I'm certain well made commercial burrs produce better grinds than the funky burrs one sees in the sub-$100 home grinders. But before one can judge any of this for espresso, one needs to get a handle on the extraction differences among grinders that alter the taste balance without indicating anything about the underlying quality. That's what I'll be posting about.

Thanks for listening; happy 4th of July.

@another_jim:

Where do "MO" and "SOP" stand for? (MO=Modus Operandi? )(SOP= Standard Operating Procedure ?)

PS: Good to see that this thread is moving again, very interesting info!

another_jim wrote:I've come to recognize these taste variations as caused by differing solids extraction. The big Macap is classically over-extracting, with the taste dulled by melanoidins. The Robur is extracting properly, and the taste is responding smoothly to small variations in the way I'm pulling. The little Macap is classically under-extracting, the flavors are unbuffered by caramels, and on a knife edge, so their balance is almost impossible to control.

Today I changed my MO, doing 13.5 gram shots on the little Macap, 15 gram shots on the Robur, and 16.5 gram shots on the larger Macap. This did the trick, and the shots came out tasting correct from all three grinders. If there are quality differences, they will require a long series of blind testing to discern.

Jim, as ever, a tremendously insightful post. Just wanted to say that.

Jon

Thanks Jon.

Yeah, Matthew: SOP, standard operating procedure; MO, modus operandi.

another_jim wrote:Today I changed my MO, doing 13.5 gram shots on the little Macap, 15 gram shots on the Robur, and 16.5 gram shots on the larger Macap. This did the trick, and the shots came out tasting correct from all three grinders. If there are quality differences, they will require a long series of blind testing to discern...

So what does this imply for when people (including me in the past) claim one grinder is way better than another? It probably means they are wrong:
-- People have an SOP at their homes or cafes, and they slot the new grinder into that.
-- They are looking to get the profile they want on the blends they normally use.
-- If the new grinder happens to extract better according to these criteria, it's clearly "far better."
-- However, it could be that a change in dose, basket, etc, that altered the solids extraction, would have produced the same effect from any other grinder.

Thanks for listening; happy 4th of July.

As always, your insight into what makes great espresso is spot on, you bleedin' rebel!

I've single dosed the grinder for years, believing that keeping the beans dark and cool of paramount importance.

At SCAA, Greg Scace made an off-hand comment that a grinder required beans in the throat to control pop-corning. At the time, I didn't give it much thought.

FFW 2 months.

At home, Supreme Bean's Dolce Terra was never up to the taste of shots pulled in their shop. Rather muddy with an impossible to remove bitterness.

On a July 4th reactionary whim, I loaded the hopper with ½lb of Dolce Terra. The grind is now a full tooth finer for the same dose. The taste difference is nothing short of incredible. The bitterness completely gone, sweetness rampant and flavor focus, crisp.

Grazzi mille!

Jim, those are some fancy hoppers

But seriously, thanks for all the hard work and scientific approach.... let's hope it is all very revealing.

They come in a whole series of very cool designer colors to match your decor -- on sale at Kinkos.com

Not much to report today; I'm continuing to get to know the grinders.

I'd like to blind test the grinders. It's possible to test a pair of options by doing a basket shuffle after packing; but how does one test 4 different doses on three different grinders?

A few people have volunteered to do tasting next week. If there's more out there, please come. An alternative approach would be to do something like pods -- prepare the ground coffee ahead of time in anonymous packets, taste, take notes, and see which one scores best. The only problem is that pods suck, despite the nitrogen flushing, pressure packing, etc etc. So tomorrow, I'll be reporting on the great grind freezing experiment. That's right, there's three shots ground, one from each grinder in the fridge. I'll do them side by side with the fresh ground tomorrow.

Anyone who wants to make a very minor fortune, get your patent application ready -- it may just work!