DF83 - first impressions

dutchy101 I think the DF83 comes with Italmil burrs (like the DF64 / Solo) as stock and not Mazzer burrs.

This is true — the DF83 comes with Italmil burrs. SSP HU burrs are an option at this point in time. There have been reports that other 83 mm burrs will fit.

FadedFrontiers wilburpan thanks for the write up of the machine, have you tried it for filter yet?

Sorry — I really only make espresso.

wilburpan I’m finding that I almost have the opposite problem from my Virtuoso+

I think that’s expected. The Virtuoso+ is a toy grinder, mainly designed for pour overs, and tweaked for espresso and consequently (all purpose) with 40mm conical burrs. This is hand grinding territory really. I’d be scared the grinder would stop working if I look at it the other way. 🤣

The DF83 is a beast in comparison.

I’d be curious to know how much grinds it retains in the chute, and what’s the routine like in terms of using the bellows and how messy it gets in the end.

MediumRoastSteam oh lol, sorry, I meant the Kyle Roswell video

KyleT yeah I used to watch him as he touched on some lower end stuff. But after a while the reviews all sounded the same to me…

Very very very initial thoughts !

Solid and heavy, well finished on the outside without any imperfections. Quiet with and without beans .

Made sure it’s working and replaced burrs with mazzer t151a, checked alignment which looks fine without any shims (correct me if I’m wrong please). Turned manually with the burrs just touching.

First grind 10g in - 7.6g out at setting 10 (burrs touching at 0) with grounds fine as Turkish. Would choke the machine no doubt.

Second grind 10g in - 12g out at setting 20. Seems good starting point for espresso.

Third grind 8g in - 8g out without using the bellows.

Quite positive at this moment.

Alignment out of the box seems pretty good… especially if you got that without running the grinder (hand turning only)

CoyoteOldMan I should’ve done the same with the original italmil burrs to compare but couldn’t be bothered !

prezes My DF83 was very similar with the stock burrs in terms of alignment. The bottom burr was very well aligned, and the top one was pretty good. It only needed one round of shimming to get the top one aligned well.

Photo of grinds below. This has been ground straight to the portafilter. The static is acceptable with this bean although gets much worse when using the puffer hence the scattered grinds on the side of the dosing ring

Bottom carrier looks very mazzer.

I really don’t like bellows. Makes hell of a mess

MediumRoastSteam that’s next on the list to check. Might get around to doing it today

Cuprajake same here! Not a fan of them at all

Cuprajake I’ve always thought of bellows as more of a hack rather than a well designed solution for grind retention. Why people use silicone nipple suckers on a Niche is beyond me 😂

whinmoor85 He probably had it knocking around the bedroom and thought…I know…

Inspector It’s good to start them early!

Got around to see what’s inside and didn’t find a lot to be fair. Some grounds in the burrs as expected and a bit between the sweeper arms by the chute. I was expecting a large chunk by the chute screen. So hard to establish the weight. What I managed to weigh up was 0.6g but at least another 1g sitting inside if not more. Had about 600g through the grinder.

Couldn’t be bothered to removed the burrs from the carriers today so this might be packed lol

Little update on the grinder. Had just under 2kg of coffee through it now to try to at least touch the seasoning of those burrs.

I’ve been trying to match the grind settings to the niche to have some sort of reference of where to start etc. and what change does one mark make.

Tried using the spray bottle and noticed huge improvement with the grounds spraying. It’s not horrendous without it but stops pretty much completely using WDT.

What I noticed is although I tend to get what I put in weight wise when I adjust grind setting there’s a bit extra coming down so it has to be stuck somewhere. Due to that decided to remove the chute cover and see what’s going on in there.

Upon removing had some grinds scatter on the worktop so didn’t get a chance to weigh it but had to be in excess of 1g.

Left it without the cover and will watch what’s going on in there.