• Grinders

  • Grinder consistency question, or is my Super Jolly not working as it should.

Got an interesting question but not totally sure how to phrase it so here’s the situation.

I’ve had an ex-commercial Super Jolly for about a year, it’s 8 years old and I removed the doser, fitted a Mazzer funnel and rewired it to run on a switch and not a timer. I also fitted a new set of factory burrs.

It’s great, and what I’d been impressed with was how the grind adjustments seems immensely forgiving. I tend to dose on-demand, on the odd occasion I leave beans in the hopper for a couple of days, the grind setting doesn’t need changing and I still get a decent enough shot. I’ve even had situations where I’ll get to the end of a bag of a roast, then open a new bag three weeks later of the same bean with a fresher roast date, and it doesn’t need adjusting….

Another slightly weird factor is that shots from the SJ seem palatable in a huge window of extraction time. I’ve pulled shots at like 10 second time differences on the same bean and they’re perfectly drinkable, if a little flat.

The x54 needs to be dialled right in perfectly to produce the enjoyable shots. However when dialled in they are very enjoyable.

Great, right? Well I thought so until I borrowed my Dad’s x54 this week. It was a pain to dial in, and seems more dependent on a consistent weight in the hopper but the resulting shots are more flavourful, with more pronounced flavour separation and a slightly thinner body. Which correlates with a lot of people (yet previously not mine) observations of flat burrs.

I tried the SJ again and as expected, easy to dial in, a thick smooth shot but far far more muddied flavours.

So now I’m wondering whether my SJ is somehow not functioning as it should, and if it is, how is a smaller burr on a far slower grinder producing better overall taste?!

This turned out to be more of a ramble but I don’t know enough about the mechanics/science of grinding to know why the above could be happening and whether it’s just how commercial grade grinders designed for high-volume espresso shops are.

    How heavily was the grinder used commercially? Could be the burrs are getting worn if they were used heavily before you bought it

    Coffee Roaster. Home: Sage Dual Boiler, Niche Zero, Ode v2 (SSP), 1zpresso ZP6 Work: Eagle One Prima EXP, mahlkonig e80s, Mazzer Philos and lots more

      InfamousTuba

      It was the sole grinder in a small-ish coffee shop for 7 years so pretty well used but I changed the burrs when I bought it so they’re pretty new. I didn’t know if misalignment would produce any of the above though. I literally screwed them in and that was that.

          Ernie1 It was the sole grinder in a small-ish coffee shop for 7 years so pretty well used but I changed the burrs when I bought it so they’re pretty new. I didn’t know if misalignment would produce any of the above though. I literally screwed them in and that was that.

          If you are getting the type of shots you describe the burrs might be misaligned, which then produce a lot of fines and the thick muddied shots you describe. It will also produce quite a wide window of grind (forgiving grind adjustment). This is not uncommon with the SJ as they are not massively accurately made grinders, they are a commercial workhorse.

          There are a couple of things to check:

          • Radial runout on the lower burr and any wobble
          • check the touch point (clean burrs) by gradually tightening grind, spin burrs back and forth with fingers till you feel hear them touch..then find an area where they don’t touch when you move them back and forth and tighten down till they just touch again…how large was that movement.
          • let the grinder spin down, open with nothing in it and see if the bearings rumble
          • Are the burrs actually Mazzer or Italmill clones, genuine Mazzer make a big difference. e.g. what’s written on the back of the burrs. If they were recently bought (in the last 10 years), they will be stamped.

          Contact me

            Ernie1 Another slightly weird factor is that shots from the SJ seem palatable in a huge window of extraction time. I’ve pulled shots at like 10 second time differences on the same bean and they’re perfectly drinkable, if a little flat.

            Ernie1 I tried the SJ again and as expected, easy to dial in, a thick smooth shot but far far more muddied flavours.

            Sounds great, if it is broken, are you sure you want to fix it? 😄

                Ernie1 So now I’m wondering whether my SJ is somehow not functioning as it should, and if it is, how is a smaller burr on a far slower grinder producing better overall taste?!

                I might question the assumption here — that size is the major/only factor that produces “better” overall taste. It seems to me that there are other factors that could contribute to how a grinder affects taste.

                A quick glance at the specs of the Super Jolly and the x54 shows that the x54 operates at a lower RPM. That coupled with the smaller diameter of the x54 burrs works out to a rotational speed of 5.94 m/s at the outer edge for the x54, and 10.05 m/s for the Super Jolly. That’s a 70% increase in speed. I’ve read that lower RPMs translates to “better” results, but lower RPMs doesn’t exist in a vacuum, and neither does the burr size. Maybe the real factor here is the linear speed of the burrs.

                I do want to note that I’m just talking off the top of my head here.

                One more thing to consider — according to the manufacturers website, the Super Jolley is described as “the premier choice for many small to mid-sized cafes”, whereas the x54 is said to be “the home barista’s gateway to pro-level grinding and more delicious coffee”. From a manufacturer’s standpoint, if they know what they are doing, a grinder is not a product in and of itself. It’s a solution to a problem that’s defined by the intended environment. And so these grinders may perform differently because that’s what the manufacturers intended.

                For a cafe, I can see how there would be an emphasis on consistency and the ability to provide a good tasting shot of espresso over and over all day long without taking too much time. Your description of the Super Jolly seems to fit that situation well, especially with the large window of settings that give you a good shot of espresso.

                In the home environment, however, the priorities may be different, especially with this crowd. Those of us here are probably happy to spend the time and effort to tweak the grinder in pursuit of that perfect shot of espresso. Your description of your dad’s x54 seems to align with that. But such an approach would probably result in a barista in a cafe being fired, because the customers are waiting too long.

                I do woodworking as a hobby, so here’s a comparable situation to illustrate my point. There are CNC machines that can quickly make a mortise and tenon joint to a high degree of accuracy. They are used in commercial environments. They are also less than ideal for a hobbyist like myself. These machines are big enough that they would be a bad fit for my shop space, they generate a lot of dust that requires heavy duty dust collection, and they are very expensive. This is also not the ideal tool for a one-off project, as there’s a fair amount of set up required.

                In my home shop, I’ll make the same sort of joint with a mortise chisel and a hand saw. These tools are certainly slower than the CNC machine, but they generate a lot less dust, they take up far less space, and are certainly less costly. And since I’m generally building any given project once, making the joint just requires me to make the lines of the joint, and cut to them. The CNC will have the advantage if I’m making a bunch of tables, for example. But as a hobbyist, I’m making just one table, and then I’m moving onto something else.

                  Great, many thanks for the replies.

                  @wilburpan that’s some very good points actually, it was a bit foolish to assume the x54 is inferior based on those specs alone.

                  @DavecUK

                  Thanks. The bearings seem ok, without the burrs in it spins down smoothly without any unusual sounds.

                  In terms of turning by hand then adjusting, from chirping to not chirping is about 1 notch on the Mazzer collar, so not much movement at all.

                  I’ve attached a photo of the burrs below, they have Mazzer on but it’s printed rather than stamped. Could they be reproductions?

                  There’s also some odd looking scoring inside the burr chamber, see photo. Not the large diagonal mark but around the inside edge where the burrs would spin. Definitely looks like it was caused by the lower carrier.