Modifying the Mazzer Mini

The hopper on my Mazzer Mini is a bit big for my method of single dosing. I typically grind just 14 to 20 grams of beans at a time, enough for one cup of espresso. This way the beans stay as fresh as possible in their bag. In a cafe environment this would be too fussy and there the hopper is very handy as a lot of coffee can be thrown in. There, kilos of beans are used every day so the freshness of the beans should not be at risk.

 

From the top, the beans travel downward, through the burrs. Peter van der Weerd exchanged the original burrs for the ones made for the heavier Super Jolly model which are identical in size but different in cut. They grind faster which is a bit of a strain on the engine but no problem in a home environment. 

Below you see a metal sheet cut and bent to cover the chute, the little tunnel from the side of the burrs into the metal funnel. It is supposed to protect the fingers of any curious kid so they can't be grabbed by the burrs. I wonder about that, because there's still a mesh of wire behind the metal sheet.

In a grinder that's been used for a while, you can see a firm buildup of old coffee grinds caught in the grid:

 It's possible to clean that chute behind the grid but it clogs up easily again.

See for instance: https://vimeo.com/58487456

I took away this grid:

I read that without the grid, ground coffee would clump together, stick to the chute and fly away from the basket, all because of the static electricity. I don't see that on my machine. With special beans like Malabar, infamous for static electricity, one can use a few droplets of water on the beans.

I also stir the grounds with a tiny whisker so any disbalance in the distribution of fine and coarse particles gets corrected as well.

Next, I got rid of the hopper. I took the grinder to the guys of Aluminium Centrum Amsterdam, asking them if they could produce a fitting for the acrylate pipe that I had bought at Damme.

The guys at ACA have their own video:

This is what they made:

I think it fits the industrial look of the heavy grinder very well. The height of the acrylate tube helps to keep the coffee beans inside, as the last few beans to get caught in the burrs sometimes 'popcorn' way upwards before being finally crunched to espresso powder.