# Upgrade? to Mazzer Mini E from Eureka Mignon



## shin (Apr 17, 2014)

Hi coffee people,

I am new here and got some questions.

I currently brew espresso using Rocket Premium Plus v3 (the PID one) and Eureka Mignon.

I wanted to get a Mazzer when I bought the Rocket, but I had to get a Mignon for money reason.

After few month with Rocket and Mignon, now I have extra cash to spend on Mazzer Mini.

BUT I am quite happy with Mignon. It's well built, solid, very easy to make adjustment, nice looking and small. But obviously somehow Mazzer looks good. Probably because I see them in almost every corner of street.

My question is, is it worth selling the Mignon for about £200 (after owing it for only 3 month), then spend another £400 to get Mazzer Mini E?

Will it improve my coffee? Will I be able to taste the difference? Less clump compared to Mignon?

(with Mignon, I currently grind the coffee into a little glass and stair it with a chop stick to de-clump the grind, then pour into basket.)

I usually get weekly coffee from, Monmouth, Nude Espresso, All Press or Pact Coffee.

Thanks in advance.


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## jeebsy (May 5, 2013)

Sell the Mignon and get a second hand super jolly for another £50 odd quid.


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## 4085 (Nov 23, 2012)

The Mignon is a capable little grinder but the flavours you can get will be restricted by its small burr set. If you upgrade to anything in the 64 mm range, you ought to see a difference. You then have to consider which one. There are three spring to mind, that are doser less and on demand, the Mini E, the Quamar. M80 and the Eureka Club Zenith 65 that I think is currently on offer to forum members for £499 via Bella Barista


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## shin (Apr 17, 2014)

Thanks for the advice.

I was thinking of getting the on demand, Mini E, so I don't have to use the doser. But many second hand SJ I have seen is with doser. Is there much diffrence in actual coffee with on demand and doser?

I assume doser is a bit of pain to keep it clean?


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## Mrboots2u (May 10, 2013)

I am presuming you are putting in bag of coffee at a time into a hopper As opposed to a single dose at a time , Hence the need for an on demand grinder ?

A SJ from a forum member will usefully have been modded to have a clean sweep doser on it , hence little coffee left in it , so no real pain to clean .

A Doser will make the grinds fluffy and clump free into the basket

Some on demands grinders will clump ( do you notice this with a mignion ? )


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## shin (Apr 17, 2014)

Hi Mrboots2u.

I weigh the beans (18g) and put into hopper every time I grind so beans stay fresh in my sealed glass jar.

Mignon is clumpy. I have to de-clump them in a glass before putting into basket.

So maybe better getting a doser one, then grind one dose a time like I am doing now?


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## Mrboots2u (May 10, 2013)

shin said:


> Hi Mrboots2u.
> 
> I weigh the beans (18g) and put into hopper every time I grind so beans stay fresh in my sealed glass jar.
> 
> ...


If you are single dosing then I'm unsure you are getting best value from buying an on demand grinder ( or the best performance from it, they work better with a weight of beans in my opinion ) ,

Again a well looked after SJ with doser would be better suited to single dosing and have less retention and be less clumpy .

There are other grinders than mazzers though, that people will argue are equal if not superior to a super jolly ( anfim , Rossi, la cimbali ) .


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## garydyke1 (Mar 9, 2011)

don't bother with a mini-e for single-dosing , its a pain.


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## Dylan (Dec 5, 2011)

For your £600 you could hang about for a Mazzer Major to come up S/H which is meant to be just about the best bang for your buck you can get out of a grinder (big tho).

dfk sold a k8 fresh for a little more than £600 on these forums, and I'm sure there are many more you can consider at that budget which would knock the socks off a Mazzer Mini.


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## Charliej (Feb 25, 2012)

For £600 you are also almost into Mythos buying territory and they are one of the best on demand grinders there is. If you are intending to single dose I would suggest that any on demand grinder is a waste of money as you are paying for the electronics and timer to make accurate dosing possible provided you have a weight of beans over the burrs, if you aren't averse to a doser and have the room you should be easily able to afford a used Mazzer Royal with plenty of money left over from your £600 and this would provide the most bang for your buck.


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## Thecatlinux (Mar 10, 2014)

jeebsy said:


> Sell the Mignon and get a second hand super jolly for another £50 odd quid.


second this statement


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## shin (Apr 17, 2014)

Thanks guys for advice.

i might go for second hand SJ instead of new Mini e. And understood that on demand won't work for single dosing.

I timed with my Mignon when hopper is full of beans, and only single dose and time of grinding was completely different. When grinding single dose, time of grinding varied a lot.

will let you guys know when I find a nice SJ.

SJs currently on eBay don't really make me want to buy them...

Most of them are £300, while I can buy new one for £460...


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## DavecUK (Aug 6, 2013)

shin said:


> Thanks guys for advice.
> 
> i might go for second hand SJ instead of new Mini e. And understood that on demand won't work for single dosing.
> 
> ...


The only thing worth remembering is that you don't actually have to single dose at all. I went many many years single dosing and I now fill the hopper with a days worth off coffee...no problem with drifting grind settings, no problem with taste. I am sure plenty will disagree (it's almost a law that they should), but I don't believe you need to single dose. I certainly would never go back down that route unless I had a grinder that only accepted a single dose.

Of course if your consumption is so low each day that you have to single dose....then it doesn't really matter if it takes longer to grind or not...the time is unimportant...because your single dosing? So whether it's on demand or not, is not that relevant. What becomes important then, is the ability of whatever grinder you choose to grind well with only a single dose.

Just a bit of food for thought.


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## Dylan (Dec 5, 2011)

DavecUK said:


> The only thing worth remembering is that you don't actually have to single dose at all. I went many many years single dosing and I now fill the hopper with a days worth off coffee...no problem with drifting grind settings, no problem with taste. I am sure plenty will disagree (it's almost a law that they should), but I don't believe you need to single dose. I certainly would never go back down that route unless I had a grinder that only accepted a single dose.
> 
> Of course if your consumption is so low each day that you have to single dose....then it doesn't really matter if it takes longer to grind or not...the time is unimportant...because your single dosing? So whether it's on demand or not, is not that relevant. What becomes important then, is the ability of whatever grinder you choose to grind well with only a single dose.
> 
> Just a bit of food for thought.


I think plenty of us still do this, so long as you are getting the same weight of grounds out of the grinder each time then you can get a consistent result. A lot of grinders that dont have a timed output require single dosing (like the SJ) as you have no way of directly controlling how much coffee you get, unless you grind too much and throw the excess away. The doser only works in a commercial environment (and even then its not a great way to keep coffee)

It is definitely worth considering how much faff single dosing adds to your routine. With the Mignon I used the timer and bean weight to get the dose I needed, dead simple and gave fairly good results. When I went to the SJ I found the faff of weighing in my beans, thwacking the doser and clearing it after to be a major pain in the arse. If it wasn't an ongoing project for me to fix these things with mods then I would have been looking for a grinder that had SJ level burrs but with low retention and electronic dosing (not especially easy to find).


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## shin (Apr 17, 2014)

Hi guys,

As some of you suggested I got a Mazzer Super Jolly in the end. The one with the timer. But the thing didn't fit under my cupboards so got to find something to use as a hopper. I had a rubber lens hood for camera lenses so using that for the moment. Works ok.

The dorset is a little nightmare with a lot of left over grounds but improved dosing/filling to the basket.


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## Dylan (Dec 5, 2011)

The lens hood is a good thing to use as a hopper, it can be quickly 'compressed' to expel air (and grounds) through the exit chute. There are also ways to reduce retention in the doser.


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## jeebsy (May 5, 2013)

shin said:


> Hi guys,
> 
> As some of you suggested I got a Mazzer Super Jolly in the end. The one with the timer. But the thing didn't fit under my cupboards so got to find something to use as a hopper. I had a rubber lens hood for camera lenses so using that for the moment. Works ok.
> 
> The dorset is a little nightmare with a lot of left over grounds but improved dosing/filling to the basket.


http://www.home-barista.com/grinders/elvinator-mazzer-mod-t10908.html

This will make your distribution loads more central.


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## shin (Apr 17, 2014)

D_Evans said:


> The lens hood is a good thing to use as a hopper, it can be quickly 'compressed' to expel air (and grounds) through the exit chute. There are also ways to reduce retention in the doser.


That's qInteresting. I might get a lens cap to fit the hood so air stays intact so I can shoot out the left over grinds! Thanks for a good tip!


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## shin (Apr 17, 2014)

jeebsy said:


> http://www.home-barista.com/grinders/elvinator-mazzer-mod-t10908.html
> 
> This will make your distribution loads more central.


Oh this looks good. I must do this this weekend! Little project for p myself! Thanks.


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## jeebsy (May 5, 2013)

shin said:


> That's qInteresting. I might get a lens cap to fit the hood so air stays intact so I can shoot out the left over grinds! Thanks for a good tip!


The lid from a tub of Bird's custard powder does the trick


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## paul whu (Sep 25, 2014)

I am currently using a mazzer mini e on demand (paired with Andreja Premium) and find the grind quality to be excellent, only a minor amount of clumping which is a 1 second job to deal with. I have callibrated the auto dose buttons to 10g and 7.5 g. I therefore dose 17.5 g directly into the 17g basket. There is obviously a slight variation of +/- 0.2g. Grind adjustment is a doddle and can be in tiny increments.

I get very little spillage and waste no coffee. I now get my delicious drinks sorted with very little faff indeed.

I therefore conclude the Mazzer mini e (type A) is a cracking little machine. It also looks quite funky if the aesthetics are important to you!


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## Wombat (Nov 12, 2013)

When I bought my Mignon the reviews I read seemed to suggest that the difference between it and the high end prosumer models was minimal - hence why I went over budget to get it as my 'first and final'. Is there going to be a huge difference in taste from the upgrades suggested here?


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## jeebsy (May 5, 2013)

What high end prosumer? Zenith for example? For most on here after a mignon its on to a commercial grinder where you will see a difference in results


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## Wombat (Nov 12, 2013)

If I recall correctly the review I read compared it to a SJ grinder and said it was approaching but not equal to. When I checked the price of said grinder (it may not have been a SJ) it was £700, so £300 for the Mignon was a bargain.


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## jeebsy (May 5, 2013)

Most people who've had both say the SJ is a significant improvement in the cup. Mazzers aren't good value new. A second hand SJ will cost £200-300 depending in condition so fairly similar to a mignon. If size or moany partner aren't a consideration most folks would recommend an SJ


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## coffeechap (Apr 5, 2012)

Wombat said:


> If I recall correctly the review I read compared it to a SJ grinder and said it was approaching but not equal to. When I checked the price of said grinder (it may not have been a SJ) it was £700, so £300 for the Mignon was a bargain.


The mignon is a great entry level grinder, however most of the reviews done have compered it to the mazzer mini, "high end grinders will should a massive difference in the cup over the mignon, but if you are buying new then the price difference will also be massive.


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## Wombat (Nov 12, 2013)

That's the one, the Mazzer Mini. Looks like my search continues! One of these days I might renovate my new house too, but first coffee!


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