LMSC They were sent grinders from the first full production test run. Which is as close to final production as you can get.
The first look had me grinding my teeth a bit, as the live stream and Mr Hoons encouragement, led the user to do things that he absolutely had not been prepared to do. Clearly the instruction book hadn’t even been looked at. This is not the way to do things.
The guy started moving the grind indicator ring around after unlocking it. This is not good as they are factory calibrated. I then saw photos of the burrs removed, If indeed these were the burrs in the users grinder this shouldn’t really be done, unless you mark the burr and the carrier so it goes back absolutely the same way.
He then proceeded to set the zero point (calibration is the wrong word) as if it was a Niche zero you absolutely don’t set it that way with the duo. The grinder was then run with the burrs tightly together, due to the excitement of the live stream.
There are two types of calibration with the zero:
- Finding the burr touching point, which you might do if you accidentally unlock the black indicator ring and twiddle it about. This is your basic one, but it is factory set.
- If you remove the burr from either carrier and don’t mark it up, ideally you then need to find the “sweet spot”. This involves rotating the top burr into all three positions. Initially finding the touch point for position 1. Moving the pointer to zero, then for remaining 2 positions you see if you get a + or - touch point. Finally setting the zero at the lowest number you get (which may be minus.
e.g. Position 1, you set to zero, position 2 touches at -2 and position 3 touches at +1. You would choose position 2 as the sweet spot and place your up-per burr in position 2, remove the existing “set” sticker and place a new one at the 12 O clock position.
When you do this the burrs and grinder must be absolutely clean.
Pro Tip: For espresso, start at 10 on the Niche, not 20, if the grind time for 18g is around 20s then your in the right ball park, if it’s like 18s or less, you will get a fast shot.
