The grinder arrived in perfect shape in what was surely a gold medal packing
performance by Grant at The Coffee Philter. The original grinder box had been
repacked inside a much larger box filled with assorted paper and air
packing thingies. “Did you buy a fridge?” my visiting parents asked. Then there were those moments of trepidation when you unpack a new item; I wasn’t really sure what it would look like. It was a spur of the moment purchase, and though I had a rough idea, I wasn’t really sure and had never seen one in real life; and I was a little nervous over having bought a demo model (what kind of condition was it in?).
Looks:
A semi-matte black tower with silver and glass highlights. In my humble opinion, it is an item of beauty with a 50′s inspired art-deco industrialism – all smoothness with no edges. The dosing
lever is a sweep of sturdy black metal that snaps back into place with a
solid clack – nothing wimpy about it at all – it exudes gravitas.
Assembly/dialing in:
First I needed to assemble it. Putting on the hopper wasn’t as easy as it
looked. A threaded screw holds it in place – just choose one of four screw
holes (following the instructions here). So I choose one. Now lets set the grind level: push down the grind adjustment lever and turn the grind adjustment ring -
the screw holding the hopper protrudes and bangs into the adjustment ring
lever – what? This causes a problem, because while the grind adjustment
ring could in theory go around and around and around several times, the
screw limits it to a single 360 revolution, and the placement of the screw
(which hole you put it in) determines what range of grind you have
available to you. What retard thought this system up. Why can’t the screw be screwed in till it is flush? It is also not clear
why the hopper needs to be held in by a screw, all the screw does is keep
the hopper on, there is enough play that it can’t be for vibration
purposes.
As far as I can tell, you somehow have to guess where the general grinding
range that you want to use is located by adjusting the grinding ring, then
attach the hopper placing the screw in the hole that best supports the
grinding range you want to access. Removing the hopper requires undoing the
screw, which might now be pointing towards the back of the unit, not something
you want to do on a regular basis.
Using:
Ok, the unit is set up, but how do I use this damm thing. Compared to my
Rancilio Rocky doserless, this machine is a little more daunting. I had my Rocky
routine down: add beans and grind straight into the portafilter or basket
for drip. Now with this unit, there is a hopper with a sliding trap door at the bottom, and a dosing chamber with adjustable doses – so how do I just get grinds into the portafilter? Things just got a lot more complicated.
Things I have noticed after a week’s use. First, I need to recreate my
routine, so that I can grind just enough coffee for my drip in the morning and then switch to a different setting for my espresso after dinner. Still working on fine-tuning this.
The sliding trap door at the bottom of the hopper is a pain. When retracted
(allowing access to the grinders), there is a small ledge which beans
collect on. In fact the bottom of the hopper also has a small ledge all the
way round that collects beans, so one has to find a way to nudge them all
into the grinding chamber (bang unit on side or use a small brush to push
them in). You can’t use your fingers due to a safety guard fastened about midway in the hopper. I stole one of my daughters small paint brushes – it works fine. A couple of quick sweeps and all the beans are pushed into the grinding area.
Getting the grinds out of the dosing chamber also requires a little extra work.
Again, the paint brush comes in handy to sweep out the path from the grinders
to the dosing chamber, and to generally remove all the grinds that cling to
the central pillar, ledges, etc. While all the sweeping sounds like a lot of work, it only takes a couple of seconds and has already become second nature.
I still haven’t tackled the adjustable dosing yet, that and other thoughts will have to wait till the next part of the review
Nice review on the Macap. I suspected its failings would be on scaling down from commercial to home use. Small flaws become magnified when you deal with them repeatedly. Espresso is already labor intensive – it’s funny we spend more and more time brewing smaller and smaller amounts. Anyway, I read your review after I already purchased a used Macap stepped grinder (rebadged as LaSpaziale.) Anyway tonight I finally got around to cleaning the grinder prior to firdt use. It was a late night disassemble and clean… and I couldn’t figure out how to get the adjustment ring back to zero point. As you pointed out, the adjustment ring was spinning 360′s endlessly. You see, my hopper had been broken in shipping so I took out the set screw thinking it wasn’t very important becuase I was going hopperless for the time being. Thanks to your description all is well tonight. I will test her tomorrow with first cafe of the day. Take care and thanks. I like your focus on the blog – nothing better than good food, good coffee, and good lit.
Thanks for the thoughtful comment – glad my description was of help. Totally agree on the inverse relationship between time and equipment and the resulting product, but it is all gold – right? Still getting the hang of blogging; it just happens that there has been a lot of coffee and recipes in my life so far, or at least it has been the easiest stuff to write about – still getting my feet wet. Hopefully I can expand on that. Good luck with the grinder.
very interesting.
i’m adding in RSS Reader