# Seasoning new burrs



## pgarrish (May 20, 2017)

I was expecting to find loads of threads on this but either my searching is rubbish or there aren't many threads.

I'm hopefully getting new burrs sometime next week. I'm sure i've read about using stale beans or rice to season (or get any manufacturing residue from) new burrs, but how much are we talking about? I'm happy putting a Kg of rice through (finally using the santos at design volumes!) but is that enough? I'm assuming the burrs are CNC cut so should be pretty clean/swarf free anyway.


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## 4085 (Nov 23, 2012)

Rice is not something many recommend on here. Better off asking your normal bean supplier for some beans fit for the purpose. Start off with the burrs open and get progressively tighter as you progress. Anything above 2 to 3 kilos will help but I would suggest that amount as a minimum


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## pgarrish (May 20, 2017)

Wow...

Need to find somewhere local or postage will be horrendous


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## Stanic (Dec 12, 2015)

Or source the cheapest supermarket beans, something like 6£ a kilo


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## pgarrish (May 20, 2017)

That sounds like an option... Aldi/Lidl might be the place for me or Costco!


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## zozur (Jan 5, 2018)

pgarrish said:


> I'm assuming the burrs are CNC cut so should be pretty clean/swarf free anyway.


I think you are right, few hundred grams of cheap beans should be enough.


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## 4085 (Nov 23, 2012)

zozur said:


> I think you are right, few hundred grams of cheap beans should be enough.


Swop hundred for thousand and you will be about right!


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## Stanic (Dec 12, 2015)

some pics of burrs before seasoning, I've found on web; the recommended amount of beans is usually 1% of burrs' life (5 kg for non-coated, 25-30 kg for TiN coated etc.) - don't ask me why


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## pgarrish (May 20, 2017)

I'll get some pics when they arrive and in the meantime I'll get to Costco or Aldi...


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## grumpydaddy (Oct 20, 2014)

I actually did use rice on the Santos. about 1/4 turn from touching if I remember right. Bought a 5kg bag and ended up putting about 2kg through by just trickling it in with grinder running.

The major difference for me before and after was the huge reduction in static.


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## Rakesh (Jun 3, 2017)

You will need around 5kg to effectively season them, contact a local roastery and ask if them have any stale beans or beans from test roasts you could have, they will be very cheap or even free. When I got my new mazzer burrs I contacted a local roastery and managed to get 5kg of test beans completely free, so it can never hurt to ask.


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## pgarrish (May 20, 2017)

Rakesh said:


> You will need around 5kg to effectively season them, contact a local roastery and ask if them have any stale beans or beans from test roasts you could have, they will be very cheap or even free. When I got my new mazzer burrs I contacted a local roastery and managed to get 5kg of test beans completely free, so it can never hurt to ask.


We have 1 local roasters I know of....


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## pgarrish (May 20, 2017)

local roasters contacted and not a day too soon as the new burrs are waiting at home for me. Unfortunately, I am not at home until thursday eve and may be out friday as well which means saturday before i can collect any beans...









i will post before and after pics so people can see the difference....


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## pgarrish (May 20, 2017)

well they cant help as they roast to order... one other local-ish place i know of but otherwise, any online sellers who could help? and how much would 5kg of stale beans cost including p&p?


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## ZappyAd (Jul 19, 2017)

I bought about 5 kg of supermarket beans on sale to season the burrs on my grinder. In hindsight it probably wasn't quite enough as the grind consistency still took a while to settle down after I moved to 'proper' beans. But there comes a point where you just want to start drinking coffee so I put up with a bit of volatility for the first few weeks. Generally I think the advice is to season with what you are going to grind (e.g. coffee not rice) but I am sure I saw a guy from a grinder manufacturer on YouTube saying it didn't really matter.


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## pgarrish (May 20, 2017)

As with many things, there appear to be some contradictory views....






According to this only the dose (speed through the burrs) is affected, and seasoning makes that more consistent.... after the first few grams, the grind quality is up to spec....


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## ajohn (Sep 23, 2017)

pgarrish said:


> As with many things, there appear to be some contradictory views....
> 
> According to this only the dose (speed through the burrs) is affected, and seasoning makes that more consistent.... after the first few grams, the grind quality is up to spec....


That seems to be true of any grinder. From totally clean my "awful" sage grinders take around 100g to settle down and if I change beans or settings something like 20 to 30g. It doesn't seem to be a good idea to use beans like dark roasted shiny due to a coating of oil monsooned from totally clean. I've ground several kg of those without cleaning the grinder and the net effect is the grind time for a dose goes up and up and then more or less remains constant.

Mention of manufacture residue is interesting. I swilled a brand new filter basket under the tap and noticed that water didn't run through the perforations. It did after a blank shot on the machine. After cleaning all traces of grinds off the burrs in a grinder I decided to give them 10 mins in puly cafe - that made them nice and shiny. My general impression of that is more shiny than when the grinder was new. The burrs must have been coated with a very thin coating of bean oil.

I have a brand new grinder arriving later this week. I have a feeling that I will just remove the burrs and clean them using normal degreasing etc techniques and see what happens.







Over time the new one will allow me to see if Sage grinders are "awful".

John

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## 4085 (Nov 23, 2012)

pgarrish said:


> As with many things, there appear to be some contradictory views....


Dont believe everything you see on the Internet......


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## Stanic (Dec 12, 2015)

dfk41 said:


> Dont believe everything you see on the Internet......


Agreed, this is a guy from a grinder company and he wants you to believe everything is easy and especially with their product

You'll see for yourself...maybe, if you're lucky, you won't have to season them for too long, who knows

When I started with espresso I've got the Eureka Mignon and it was driving me crazy coz I dialed it in in the evening and the pours were completely different the next morning, very annoying until I figured out what was going on (thanks to the forums)

It was quite the same with the Kinu M68, but I was already prepared for it and now it is very stable and reliable


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## ajohn (Sep 23, 2017)

dfk41 said:


> Dont believe everything you see on the Internet......


From the point of view of some one who used to use the web for research purposes my feeling is that it can pay to bear that in mind where ever "facts" are read and who ever wrote them. It's sad really because many years ago the web could be a good reliable source of information.








So in this case as manufacturing residue was mentioned I will get rid of that first and if that doesn't work out try something else. The figures I quoted on my Sage grinders are correct - I've just bean through that from super clean. It took more beans from new but that was down to other aspects such as learning to use the machine. My Fracino needed another learning curve. The new grinder when it arrives will probably need another one.

John

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## pgarrish (May 20, 2017)

dfk41 said:


> Dont believe everything you see on the Internet......


you may be right..... I did chuckle when I read your comment though, coming from some bloke on an internet forum









So the suggestion on the video is that is the friction of the burrs that changes during 'seasoning' (or 'running in'?) and that the rate of grinding is what is inconsistent initially - no issue for me as i single dose by weight.

If it is 'cleaning' the burrs post manufacture then in theory, anything will do, and several kilos sounds a lot to clean it. If it's knocking off rough edges, I'd expect more may be required... however if we assume here that burr cutting has moved on the way engine manufacture has and the running in period for engines is now hundreds of miles, not thousand, that seems unlikely.

So what is changing during seasoning? Since it coincides with me having no access to cheap beans, I'm happy to post updates and pictures with minimal seasoning so we can try and see what is going on. However, I don't drink huge quantities, so 5Kg will take me (5000g / 4 drinks/day / 18g/drink =) 138 days at our usual rate... (the good news is these burrs will probably see me out! (750Kg / 18g/drink = 41,000 double shots!!!! = 57 years drinking 2 a day)

if ive made a duff choice, I'll hold my hand up, admit it tastes crap and go and buy some bags.... and only me and my wife have to suffer. On the other hand, it might prove interesting and save people some time and effort.


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## ajohn (Sep 23, 2017)

pgarrish said:


> you may be right..... I did chuckle when I read your comment though, coming from some bloke on an internet forum


:act-up:No one should take any notice what so ever on anything I post on the web. On the other hand ................

The video probably relates to a problem all grinders are likely to have to a certain extent - retention. Any that is caked in is semi permanent and until that aspect is stable the output wont be.

Seems that the burrs I am getting are rated for 300kg. Also for origin and decaf beans. Supermarket beans can be entirely different to those and there is a considerable range of fresh roasted anyway. 3kg = over 300 shots if I just use my usual bean and the single. If 3kg made a significant difference to the parts that grind I find it hard to believe that they can last for 300kg.

One video I have seen suggests that burrs usually take around a month to season but doesn't mention the usage.

John

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## pgarrish (May 20, 2017)

So this eve I fitted the new burrs... of course one of the old ones was a pig and one of the screws was a **** pig... but a few squirts of wd40 and some (out of character) patience sorted that

Old ones



















Out










Side by sides



















And new ones in










A few hundred grams through










Here is my first effort post burrs










I have a video... if I can work out how to upload it from my phone....


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## pgarrish (May 20, 2017)

Just watched the video back and it's a bit fast - prob the end of the run-through beans... so I'll do one with the proper beans at the right setting

One thing I noticed when swapping the burrs was how much coffee was inside the grinder. Dose is very good - +/- 0.1-2g of what goes in - but it does build up a bit over time so i need to run a dose through after changing settings or beans to get a clean run - too impatient this eve and forgot

No taste of wd40 though so that's good


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## pgarrish (May 20, 2017)

https://photos.app.goo.gl/eAtleid9LYeQeXtN2


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## pgarrish (May 20, 2017)

Well a change of plan today. Black cat very kindly included a kilo of beans for the grinder with my order, as well as a replacement for the beans I struggled with last time, so a big thanks from me and a recommendation

https://www.blackcatcoffee.co.uk/

Really nice guys/gals who chatted with me on FB when i contacted them


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## xpresso (Jan 16, 2018)

pgarrish said:


> No taste of wd40 though so that's good


And no oil slick colours







:yuk:.

Jon.


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## pgarrish (May 20, 2017)

Now if it had been Castrol R......


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## xpresso (Jan 16, 2018)

pgarrish said:


> Now if it had been Castrol R......


You touched a few memories there PG, attending motor bike scrambles and trials around the North Yorkshire, but to achieve the same thing on my machine GIRLING brake fluid mixed in with the fuel gave you the same aroma.

Jon.


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## pgarrish (May 20, 2017)

My wife and I went to devils bridge years ago when I had my bike.

I could smell castrol r but there were no strokers to be seen. We traced it to a Hyabusa.... and the owner admitted to dripping it down the exhaust as he liked the smell


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## xpresso (Jan 16, 2018)

pgarrish said:


> My wife and I went to devils bridge years ago when I had my bike.
> 
> I could smell castrol r but there were no strokers to be seen. We traced it to a Hyabusa.... and the owner admitted to dripping it down the exhaust as he liked the smell


Our courting years 50's early 60's took us around to scrambles at Slapewath near Guisbrough and Carlton Bank near Stokesly, GREEVES was the main bike then, Norman Crooks often winning and you see today younger members of the Lampkin generation Family now biking but it's more exhibition than track. We supported Boro Bears speedway in it's day.

Road bikes in those days = Triumph Cub & Twenty One, B.S.A. Gold Flash, Arial Square Four a crazy bike as the head light was fixed to the frame so as you turned a bend or corner the road ahead was in the dark .......... great days......

Apologies Folks for being off topic ................. Hows your coffee now ?

Jon


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## pgarrish (May 20, 2017)

Coffee is getting there. Never knew how fussy this dialling in lark was... one click either way and different coffee... stepless mod next maybe...

But we have the remains of a bag from booths (who put a roast date on their bags!) then a small bag of chocolate point (which didn't work for me last time) then a kilo of the black cat signature to settle in to


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## xpresso (Jan 16, 2018)

pgarrish said:


> Coffee is getting there. Never knew how fussy this dialling in lark was... one click either way and different coffee... stepless mod next maybe...
> 
> But we have the remains of a bag from booths (who put a roast date on their bags!) then a small bag of chocolate point (which didn't work for me last time) then a kilo of the black cat signature to settle in to


There's a lot of 'Skyence!!} attached to this game of chance and of course the risk factor, normally I'm not a gambling man but I'm looking forward to getting stuck in, currently arranging the layout to accommodate said equipment.

Jon.


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## pgarrish (May 20, 2017)

Well I've probably had 2kg through the new burrs now

Generally ok, but the new beans (black cat chocolate point again) are still causing me problems. I'm grinding as fine as I can - 1 click from touching - and whist its very finely ground, and tastes nice, it brews a bit quick...

Confused now, I should be able to choke my machine with this grinder I'd have thought...

Will it improve with more time? Or have I got some fine tuning to do - I haven't tried aligning the burrs at all, just put them in.


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## pgarrish (May 20, 2017)

Something that is much better with new burrs is static - as in there is none! I grind into a little plastic beaker and it doesn't stick to the sides at all now


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## xpresso (Jan 16, 2018)

pgarrish said:


> Something that is much better with new burrs is static - as in there is none! I grind into a little plastic beaker and it doesn't stick to the sides at all now


Personally I cannot see the new burrs eliminating static, what else did you do when changing the burrs, a major strip down, grounding cable, change of clothes, I occasionally get a belt with supermarket trolleys and it's not from my Dear Lady.

Jon.


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## pgarrish (May 20, 2017)

I did nowt to the machine

I change my clothes a bit more frequently 

It could just be fewer fines ?


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## xpresso (Jan 16, 2018)

pgarrish said:


> I did nowt to the machine
> 
> I change my clothes a bit more frequently
> 
> It could just be fewer fines ?


My thinking regard the attire is associated with the likes of nylon and some other man made fibres, sometimes you could slide into your car and then get a belt, the reason you often saw a rubber type strap hanging down at the rear of cars to dissipate the static, certain clothes and dusters can do the same, there are anti static cloths available,

Jon.


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## pgarrish (May 20, 2017)

I am static proof with my specialist footwear... 










I think it's just far less fines. The Santos is supposedly fitted with something to counter static, I'm wearing the same clothes, so less fines sticking to things makes sense to me, and new burrs should reduce fines.


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## xpresso (Jan 16, 2018)

I don't know though .. he does look shocked..







.. Jon.


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## pgarrish (May 20, 2017)

Finally finally got around to aligning the burrs - only 14 months on ... probably 6kg if beans Of a variety of types through

Watched one of those helpful YouTube vids on aligning flat burrs (whiteboard markers fur colouring and tin foil under the burrs for packing). It was fairly straight forward although I can't lie my machine on its back so packing the motor-side burrs was interesting. A fairly thick stack and the alignment is much better - it sounds different and I have another click or two on the dial.

Will try using it properly when the boss gets home and may even get around to making it step less- the two combined might save me buying a niche..... we both rather like the Santos.


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## pgarrish (May 20, 2017)

Well 18g into the grinder became 12.5 out!!! Normally it's very good with low retention so there's obviously 5-6g permanently in the grinder.

So I topped it up a bit to 15.6 (it's a bit late for a coffee so I left it at that) and made 2 surprisingly tasty lattes.

The grinder is quieter now and seems less inclined to touch do hopefully I can get a full fat brew out of it tomorrow. That said it's still not choking the coffee machine which I'd expect it to do easily....


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## pgarrish (May 20, 2017)

Another attempt this morning. 18g in and 16g out so the grinder is settling down. And the extraction was m..u..c..h.. slower







(and very tasty!) which I'm assuming means it's been ground more finely, so the alignment was worth the effort. However it's the start of a new bag of beans so I'll wait until i get into the new bag before I get too carried away. Then the stepless mod I think. Mind you, the gaps between the steps are pretty small so that risks making it really fiddly to use, we shall see.


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## pgarrish (May 20, 2017)

Haven't adjusted anything but the machine nearly choked yesterday on the same bean so now we have the fun of trying to back off the grind but not too far... that stepless mod might be needed now


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## itguy (Jun 26, 2015)

Stanic said:


> When I started with espresso I've got the Eureka Mignon and it was driving me crazy coz I dialed it in in the evening and the pours were completely different the next morning, very annoying until I figured out what was going on (thanks to the forums)


 Hi Stanic - can you elaborate on this at all? I have just got a specialita and it did the same to me last night / this morning. I ran 500g of QC fail beans through it to start with (it is new) and then dialled in the beans to a nice taste last night. Pulled a shot this morning without changing the grinder and it was a gusher (despite a few g through before hand) - single dosing.


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