Well, when I was cleaning the burrs yesterday, I managed to lose one of the 4 bolts holding the bell housing that contains the top burr, to the grinder body. I was convinced it had hit the floor so spent much of the day with a torch. I have a black and white floor and it is a bugger for trying to find things on. If you drop a black tablet it is guaranteed to land on a black bit and a white tablet on white!
So, with only 3 bolts in place I made my first cuppa. It sprayed grounds all over so this morning I will replace the clump crusher. But the taste was very good. I have been out and back in and finding the missing bolt which I put back in. For the benefit of those members who have not used a dosed grinder I will explain how I set it up.
Initially, I bung a load of beans in the hopper, then select a random amount of time (5 seconds) for it to grind for and a random grind setting. At this point I am not bothered about how long it grinds for. I grind into the pf which is all weighed. I might have to take coffee out or put more coffee in. Then when for arguments sake it dispenses 17 gms or so I forget the time and concentrate of the grind size. Assuming my initial calculations are not a million miles out I visually decide if there is too much coffee or not enough coffee in the basket. So that after a few attempts you can insert the pf (using a dosing ring until I change the clump crusher tidies up the mess nicely), activate the grinder button, count to 4.45 seconds and find you have a beautifully fluffy, clump free grind.
Now, I have been as guilty as anyone as since lockdown I have entered the single dosing world. This means faff! You weigh out beans to a minuscule decimal point, you then worry about retention and how much of that input becomes output. You RDT, WDT, stir, level, tamp with an auto tamper because you think it does a better job than a proper tamper (remembering to lift the tamp plate and remove the built up grinds regularly)…….what a lot of donkey doos!
How many cafes that you visit follow that procedure? A lot of folks then put milk in and pretend that they taste from the procedure they have just endured is somehow better!! A decent commercial grinder will always out perform a home grinder. The Mythos is a good example of this. Enormous, ugly but with a fantastic motor and the Mahlkonig 75mm burrs are second to none. The coffee that I am using in the Zero was fairly bland but in the Mythos it has come alive. No, I cannot explain it. I have always considered myself a conical man yet I have always said the shots the Mythos produces match anything I have produced.
I still have a little way to go in getting it set up to how I want. For anyone who worries that they might end up with 16.45 gms or 17.12 gms in the pf, then this is not for you! I carry no such baggage!