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Customer Reviews

Based on 1 review
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B
Ben (Toronto, ON)
5 Star Value!

This is basically an updated / bigger, beefier DF64, they seemed to learn some things from the DF64 and made some improvements over it with the design, seems to have even less retention.
I thought they did a good good with the declumper at first, but it does seem to hold back some coffee and maybe contributes to creating more fines. The grind quality and coffee taste is very nice, but not nearly as high clarity as I was expecting from a big flat 83mm burr set. However, after some use I believe the clarity improved (I thought it was burrs being seasoned, but I think it was more the declumper screen being 'seasoned'). For espresso it creates a balanced, high body, decent flavour clarity profile that's smooth and well rounded, and should work well for people who like lighter roasts as well as medium or dark roasts.

I believe you can lower retention or at least the amount of coffee that comes out with the bellows further by modifying the declumper screen (and basically make it unnecessary to use the bellows possibly!) and increase flavour clarity / reducing fines.
I cut out the fingers on the one layer (creating a hole in the center), and bent the other flap layer upwards so it sticks up into the chute area and coffee will flow easier / faster. You could probably just remove the one layer and keep the larger flap one for similar or better results.
I think for pour overs the fines could cause potential problems with timing, however, from what I've tried with immersion based brews, like Aeropress and Clever dripper the fines didn't seem to affect anything, even before modding the declumper I was enjoying the results from it, I'm usually doing espresso though.

The DF83 comes with a very handy double-sided funnel that works on the CUP OR Portafilter on the other side, it seems like they have included an o-ring on it so it would sit on the portafilter nicely but it's way too small and it ends up vibrating and rattling if you don't hold it, so a little annoying, but the machine grinds very neat and fast, you might not even need to use that funnel adaptor.

There's also the SSP 83mm burr upgrade options for more flavour clarity which I'm tempted to get and try, but I am liking the results with the stock burrs.
They have ZM brew burrs which MAY not work for espresso, they also have the Espresso burrs which is the one I'd consider. They're coming out with an 83mm sweet lab style cast burr soon which may be promising, but I didn't love the 64mm version (maybe needed a LOT of seasoning, but wasn't getting any clarity from it!, I much prefer the stock DF83 burrs to the 64mm SSP cast burrs I had in the P64 previously!).

Anyway, it's got some quirks still, but it's a great versatile grinder for the price, it's good out of the box but can be further tweaked / improved in typical DF fashion :D