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Mignon burr alignment - New

25K views 86 replies 26 participants last post by  tonezone6 
#1 ·
I have just taken delivery of a Mignon Manuale which looks great.
I have started sending through the supplied 1kg of duff beans (which actually taste ok)
but visual inspection of the grind it looks a little uneven to say the least.

I spent a good amount of time with the felt tip method aligning the burrs of my la Pavoni (64mm flat) and it made a significant difference to extraction and flavour.

So I am thinking I should probably do this on the mignon too.

Or should I wait till the burrs bed in?
 
#2 ·
I have just taken delivery of a Mignon Manuale which looks great.
I have started sending through the supplied 1kg of duff beans (which actually taste ok)
but visual inspection of the grind it looks a little uneven to say the least.

I spent a good amount of time with the felt tip method aligning the burrs of my la Pavoni (64mm flat) and it made a significant difference to extraction and flavour.

So I am thinking I should probably do this on the mignon too.
Or should I wait till the burrs bed in?
I assume it'd be the same tin foil shim method as used on the mignon MK2, SJ etc. May as well get it sorted sooner rather than later.
 
#3 ·
I have just taken delivery of a Mignon Manuale which looks great.
I have started sending through the supplied 1kg of duff beans (which actually taste ok)
but visual inspection of the grind it looks a little uneven to say the least.

I spent a good amount of time with the felt tip method aligning the burrs of my la Pavoni (64mm flat) and it made a significant difference to extraction and flavour.

So I am thinking I should probably do this on the mignon too.
Or should I wait till the burrs bed in?
I assume it'd be the same tin foil shim method as used on the mignon MK2, SJ etc. May as well get it sorted sooner rather than later.
That's what I'm thinking. Get it done now.
 
#9 ·
I suspect so.
My manuale is definitely requiring alignment.
I dismantled the top and fully cleaned it out. Then with the top burr in I slowly turned it by hand, turning the dial finer and finer.
There was a point where the burrs came into contact, just one point, so would catch then release on each turn.
It took a further bit of turning for the burrs to fully lock in and resist the turning.
On my la pavoni after I aligned the burrs this didn't happen, they just pretty much touched and locked in one.
 
#12 · (Edited by Moderator)
I have never found a grinder spot on from the factory, I've calibrated 10 Eureka's over the years for family and friends and all needed a little shimming.

I also never shim until at least 5Kg of beans have been through the machine.

With my new grinder I'm having the burrs lapped, it will be interesting to see the results...
 
#10 ·
To update I aligned the burrs earlier, pre alignment there was a section of about 12-4 on a clock that was higher and rubbing the marker first.
The burrs were touching at this section when the dial was on around 0.5.

After about 15 mins and some foil shims I got the bottom burr straight. The burrs were now touching at around -2 on the dial. So a lot closer together.

The upper burr didn't need any alignment.

The resultant grind is clearly far more consistent visually.

The first pull set at dead on the number 1 (18g) fully choked the espresso machine.

I dialled out till I am just a mm or 2 beyond the 2 marker. This produced an excellent espresso.

So I'd recommend doing this if you have a mignon as the difference is huge.
 
#20 · (Edited by Moderator)
To update I aligned the burrs earlier, pre alignment there was a section of about 12-4 on a clock that was higher and rubbing the marker first.
The burrs were touching at this section when the dial was on around 0.5.

After about 15 mins and some foil shims I got the bottom burr straight. The burrs were now touching at around -2 on the dial. So a lot closer together.

The upper burr didn't need any alignment.

The resultant grind is clearly far more consistent visually.

The first pull set at dead on the number 1 (18g) fully choked the espresso machine.

I dialled out till I am just a mm or 2 beyond the 2 marker. This produced an excellent espresso.

So I'd recommend doing this if you have a mignon as the difference is huge.
Hi all, hoping to resurrect this thread for a bit more info on the Mignon.

Just been looking at my fairly new Specialita and thinking about the alignment. The burrs are definitely not parallel, but I can sort that with the helpful information above.

However, the lower burr carrier is not concentric with the motor axle. I'd say it's roughly 1mm off, meaning the lower burr spins off-centre. As far as I can see there's nothing that can be done to correct this without installing a new carrier, but it also strikes me that achieving perfect concentricity is less important than perfect parallelism, between the two flat burrs.

I'm wondering if anyone here who has had their grinder apart can share whether their burrs were perfectly concentric? And perhaps someone could shed light on the relative importance of concentricity (edit: have just realised Matt in that BH video linked states parallelism is 90-95% of the problem) and what kind of tolerance should be expected from a grinder at this price mark.
 
#19 ·
I have just submitted a new post for Mythos but I can see lots of similarities in this thread. Thank you for the video.
 
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#23 ·
I'm afraid my taste buds are not up to noticing if the burrs are misaligned.

I just clean now and then and grind away.
I don't think it's about taste buds. Mine we so mis-aligned I couldn't grind fine enough for harder beans and light roasts, as the burrs would touch. Spending the time to align them was well worth it in this case.
 
#29 ·
My Mignon which I have had for about 5 years started giving me problems a few months back even though I put new oem burrs, basically I could not grind fine enough.

After reading about misalignment I discovered this to be the problem with mine, spent many hours trying to align it however I could not get it perfect but I got it to the point that I could grind fine enough, just.

Now it seems to have gone haywire again and I cannot be bothered with the hassle so I have been looking at changing, the Specialita took my fancy however I would hate to buy a new grinder which again might suffer from the same problems.

So I think I shall wait for when the Niche becomes available again which seems like it is going to be a long wait.
 
#30 · (Edited by Moderator)
My Mignon which I have had for about 5 years started giving me problems a few months back even though I put new oem burrs, basically I could not grind fine enough.

After reading about misalignment I discovered this to be the problem with mine, spent many hours trying to align it however I could not get it perfect but I got it to the point that I could grind fine enough, just.

Now it seems to have gone haywire again and I cannot be bothered with the hassle so I have been looking at changing,
Did you order a niche in the end? Did you get to the bottom of the haywire mignon?
 
#35 · (Edited by Moderator)
What are the current burrs like?
When I replaced the old ones in my La Pavoni zip the difference was night and day.
The old ones were dull, in that if you ran your finger over them they were less like blades, more like dull wedges.
They should be like sharp knife blades to cut up rather than crush the beans.

Also considering the cost of new burrs at like £20 it's something very worth doing IMHO.
 
#33 ·
Eureka grinders are usually pretty decent from the factory in my experience.

As for replacing the burrs you will be able to see the total number of shots done on the Zenith and unless it works out to 500kg through the grinder it is probably pointless.
Not sure of Zenith 65E burr life....might be around the 350Kg mark, really can't remember at the moment?
 
#34 ·
@Cuprajake - Worth having a check next time you clean it and see if there are any grooves etc. on the burr flats. If they look good and it's had <100kg then not worth it really to replace.

You just need a dry wipe marker and a long socket to gently spin the burrs by hand.

If you are time pressured then I would hold off until you have a morning/afternoon free to try the shimming. It can be a bit of a faff and sometimes people don't exactly improve the consistency first time around...

I have just about managed to convince myself my EK43S is OK out of the box, as I can't currently face the task of trying to improve on it 😂
 
#38 ·
So my Eureka facile has been terrible, i cancelled my niche few months back due to funds so im stuck with it
I can only just grind fine enough, currently got a bag of sweet shop that i cant go fine enough for, i can hear the burrs grinding together and they stop instantly when i take finger off the button as they are touching.

i have to say and im sorry to say but bella barista have been awful for me, they told me not to shim as it will damage it and don't listen to people on here.

They said its an issue with most eureka's and the burrs will bed in after use. Then the engineer at BB told me what i think is the zero point isnt, and the burrs are not touching. Ive sent endless video's etc to them, but they simply don't want to know.

so for the past 6 months ive been running the grinder with the burrs not only chirping but grinding together as bella barista told me to. i would never dream of selling it to anyone, its had more than enough beans through to "bed in" ive endlessly stripped and cleaned it, but no matter what i do it will not even come close to choking my maraX

one day ill get a niche when i can afford to, but id never ever buy a Eureka or a grinder from BB again.
 
#39 ·
So my Eureka facile has been terrible, i cancelled my niche few months back due to funds so im stuck with it
I can only just grind fine enough, currently got a bag of sweet shop that i cant go fine enough for, i can hear the burrs grinding together and they stop instantly when i take finger off the button as they are touching.

i have to say and im sorry to say but bella barista have been awful for me, they told me not to shim as it will damage it and don't listen to people on here.

They said its an issue with most eureka's and the burrs will bed in after use. Then the engineer at BB told me what i think is the zero point isnt, and the burrs are not touching. Ive sent endless video's etc to them, but they simply don't want to know.

so for the past 6 months ive been running the grinder with the burrs not only chirping but grinding together as bella barista told me to. i would never dream of selling it to anyone, its had more than enough beans through to "bed in" ive endlessly stripped and cleaned it, but no matter what i do it will not even come close to choking my maraX

one day ill get a niche when i can afford to, but id never ever buy a Eureka or a grinder from BB again.
To be fair that sounds pretty bad service!
Maybe the burr carrier is out. I can't see why they would suggest no shimming unless this was the case and how would they know?
Either way surely a company has to take into consideration that it is
A) Not performing it's function.
B) Making noises it shouldn't!

I've had a few dealings with a number of other companies (in the cycling space) over the past few months and I've been surprised how bad customer service has been from companies with great reputations.
I get it's been tough on them with everything going on, but they seem to be using Covid as an excuse to not reply or not do what they should be doing.

FWIW the mignon is normally a great grinder, but at the finer end it will produce a lot of fines (maybe not such a bad thing) that would almost certainly be able to choke a machine no problem.
 
#40 ·
The Mignon will choke any machine at it's finest setting. It's such a shame about Bella Barista. As a last resort @Burnzy , have you contacted Eureka? You never know, they might be able to help you or even confirm that what you see is not right, and then you can go back to Bella Barista with a second opinion.

Very sorry to hear that. This is not the level of CS I'd expect or have ever experienced from them. Such a shame.
 
#41 ·
The Mignon will choke any machine at it's finest setting. It's such a shame about Bella Barista. As a last resort @Burnzy , have you contacted Eureka? You never know, they might be able to help you or even confirm that what you see is not right, and then you can go back to Bella Barista with a second opinion.

Very sorry to hear that. This is not the level of CS I'd expect or have ever experienced from them. Such a shame.
Yeah i even sent video to Eureka and they sent one reply saying they will send to the technical team.
Its just something ive put up with, but now and again i get a coffee i cant use as it wont go fine enough without almost jamming the burrs together, and this sweet shop is one of them which caused my rant 😂

one day when i can afford to ill get a niche. 👍🏼
 
#47 ·
When you shim a mignon/eureka grinder, do you shim the spinning burr or the static top burr?

My new(used) grinder is jamming on odd occasion, the grinders had approx 89kg through it, ive ordered fresh burrs to rule damage out, tonight i got home tried to purge, jammed, tried to grind, jammed id not touched it since this am brew, now the hopper was ready for filling again...

Must admit im struggling to get used to it, atm

Jake
 
#50 ·
When you shim a mignon/eureka grinder, do you shim the spinning burr or the static top burr?

My new(used) grinder is jamming on odd occasion, the grinders had approx 89kg through it, ive ordered fresh burrs to rule damage out, tonight i got home tried to purge, jammed, tried to grind, jammed id not touched it since this am brew, now the hopper was ready for filling again...

Must admit im struggling to get used to it, atm

Jake
I shimmed the bottom burr and found the top one didn't need it after that.

As I've said before I had the same issue with mine that the burrs were touching prematurely.
In terms of numbers, the were touching around the +1 mark and now it's about -1. That may not sound like a huge gap but took the machine from being unable to grind a light roast fine enough to extract properly on the La Pavoni to being able to choke it entirely.
 
#48 ·
Hmmmm the more I read the more I think I'll leave my mignon how it is, I did clean it the other day and looked at the construction a little more there is some discolouration on the burrs probably from it's time in storage but it works....... also dialling in some chocolate point I nearly choked my classic
 
#54 ·
Mostly I found his voice very annoying, thought it was one of those automated voices to start with, re the content, not sure I'd want to raise the top burr carrier as per the vid, it's an invitation for fines or powder to enter the motor casing imho. Good point about running the burrs backwards though, oh and VISE GRIPS? FFS use your fingers or a socket and extension, any respect I had for him disappeared when I saw that.....
 
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