I thought it would share my thoughts after a week with my DF64 gen2 with standard burrs. I’ve been making about 3 coffee’s a day and didn’t season the burrs so I’ve not put much through it yet .
It came well packaged and first impressions were that it seems very well built and well designed, I’ve not used the previous DF64 but I’ve read a lot about its issues and the new version seems to have addressed the obvious ones. I’ve checked retention and it holds about 0.15g without bellows and that drops to zero with gentle use of the bellows. I haven’t yet taken it apart to check the grind chamber and burrs. I’ve also not experienced any crazy inconsistencies that can sometimes be associated with unseasoned burrs.
I’m currently using some Django beans which tend to be light and generally quite hard. I’m still a reasonable amount away from burr touch point for espresso and the motor doesn’t seem to be struggling at all. This is always cold starting. I don’t think I will run out of adjustment based on my current experience.
+Ve
-Low retention
-Fast grinding
-Low static- the plasma generator seems to do it’s job (but I wish they had just called it an anti static device)
-No clumping- assume the new anti clump device works well compared to the old model
-No popocorning- anti popcorn disc works well
-Good workflow
-Build quality- no real plastic and solidly built
-Ve
-Noisy, not the motor specifically, without any beans it just has a gentle hum but when grinding anyone with sensitive ears won’t enjoy it.
-The grind cup extension piece. It does well to fill the gap between the catch cup and the exit chute but it is a bit narrower than the cup so if I try to pour directly into the portafilter, coffee gets caught around the join between the cup and the extension. This means the best option for me is to grind with the extension in place, then remove it to put the coffee in my portafilter. Not a big issue but an additional step which feels a bit annoying and could have been avoided of the extension piece was the same size as the catch cup.
-Did I say it was noisy…
Overall, I’m happy with my purchase so far and only really find the noise as a big negative but I can live with it.
You will notice that I haven’t mentioned taste as this is so subjective that it seems a little pointless. I’m not a super taster and I haven’t used a vast array of other grinders or burrs to have much of an informed opinion. All I will say is that the coffee tastes good (always milk drinks), I could compare it to my Knock Aergrind at some point but I’m enjoying the speed of an electric grinder at the moment!
