Hi all,
For the past 10 days I have been living with my new Macap MC4 micrometric doserless grinder, replacing the Sunbeam EM0480, which I found worked very well within its design limitations but for espresso I found the steps not small enough and changing grind settings from press/drip to espresso never returned me to exactly the same grind I had before.
The reason I chose the Macap is twofold. I wanted a doserless grinder and it had to look good. Now I know that what I like is not necessarily your cup of tea (or coffee). I looked at the Compak Touch and the Mazzer Mini but the Macap was the winner.

It stands at 43 cm tall while the others mentioned here are 47 cm tall. The silver colour blends in nicely with the rest of my equipment.

I dialed it in with a kilo of cheap beans from Safeway. It took some time to get a decent grind and shot with these beans, but eventually succeeded. Chris (2mcm) warned me not to drink this and poison myself, so I obliged.

Back to the Veneziano Estate and ready for my first drinkable coffee from this grinder, I thought.
I did expect some more adjustments of course but it was more like starting all over again, the Safeway beans must have been really, really stale.
Eventually I achieved what I consider some very good coffee. No dust, nothing but uniform coffee grinds. I had espresso and my wife a flat white; I also had a long black which tasted very good. No doubt, Luca or Chris could have found room for improvements, but my palette is not as finely developed as theirs, I can only dream.
The grinder is also very quiet, even more so than the Mazzer Mini I used briefly at the Home Espresso Course recently. Something I learned there, a.o. is that dosing is very important. I tried something different now with the Macap, I remove the hopper and use two measured spoons of beans and deposit them straight in the collar where normally the hopper sits.
I put the retaining screw back in to prevent split beans from flying around and put my single basket on top with the Pullman tamper in the empty basket for extra weight. The dual purpose tamper prevents the beans from flying through the kitchen.


A small container under the exit chute and flip the on switch. Gee, this grinder makes a beautiful noise and it won’t wake up the kids or grandkids either, you can just hear when there are no more beans in the grinder, I flip the clip on top of the exit chute a few times and that will release all the coffee and end up with an exact dose, each time, every time and hardly any clumping.
For me this takes care of one variable and it improved my consistency immensely. I usually make only two coffees at a time but if you need more this might be to time consuming.
Back to the Macap, changing grinds can be a bit time consuming, because of the very fine adjustments possible. The adjusting screw on the Macap is a nice fit for a tool that musicians use to fit new strings to a guitar. I bought this tool in a guitar shop for $3.95, a beauty.


I can change now from espresso to drip in ten seconds and what is even more important also back again to the exact espresso setting. Love it.
Cons:
What I don’t like is the small black bib to catch the grinds, this is close to useless and I tend not to use it.
The price, it is fairly expensive.
Pros:
I think I’ve mentioned most positives already apart from the fact that it is build like a tank, very heavy indeed.
A special mention deserves the power cord; it exits at the rear and under the grinder so it gives it a very neat appearance.
These are small details worth more to some people than others.
Anyhow, it is good to know that whenever I want to upgrade my espresso machine, my Macap will be a perfect match!
Now, what’s next, roasting?
It was a pleasure putting my thoughts on paper, I’ve learned so much from you CS’ers that without you I would not even have owned this grinder.
English is not my native language, so a few errors might have slipped in, especially when I use the words “than” or “then” etc. Please forgive.
Cheers,
Dick
For the past 10 days I have been living with my new Macap MC4 micrometric doserless grinder, replacing the Sunbeam EM0480, which I found worked very well within its design limitations but for espresso I found the steps not small enough and changing grind settings from press/drip to espresso never returned me to exactly the same grind I had before.
The reason I chose the Macap is twofold. I wanted a doserless grinder and it had to look good. Now I know that what I like is not necessarily your cup of tea (or coffee). I looked at the Compak Touch and the Mazzer Mini but the Macap was the winner.

It stands at 43 cm tall while the others mentioned here are 47 cm tall. The silver colour blends in nicely with the rest of my equipment.

I dialed it in with a kilo of cheap beans from Safeway. It took some time to get a decent grind and shot with these beans, but eventually succeeded. Chris (2mcm) warned me not to drink this and poison myself, so I obliged.

Back to the Veneziano Estate and ready for my first drinkable coffee from this grinder, I thought.
I did expect some more adjustments of course but it was more like starting all over again, the Safeway beans must have been really, really stale.
Eventually I achieved what I consider some very good coffee. No dust, nothing but uniform coffee grinds. I had espresso and my wife a flat white; I also had a long black which tasted very good. No doubt, Luca or Chris could have found room for improvements, but my palette is not as finely developed as theirs, I can only dream.
The grinder is also very quiet, even more so than the Mazzer Mini I used briefly at the Home Espresso Course recently. Something I learned there, a.o. is that dosing is very important. I tried something different now with the Macap, I remove the hopper and use two measured spoons of beans and deposit them straight in the collar where normally the hopper sits.
I put the retaining screw back in to prevent split beans from flying around and put my single basket on top with the Pullman tamper in the empty basket for extra weight. The dual purpose tamper prevents the beans from flying through the kitchen.


A small container under the exit chute and flip the on switch. Gee, this grinder makes a beautiful noise and it won’t wake up the kids or grandkids either, you can just hear when there are no more beans in the grinder, I flip the clip on top of the exit chute a few times and that will release all the coffee and end up with an exact dose, each time, every time and hardly any clumping.
For me this takes care of one variable and it improved my consistency immensely. I usually make only two coffees at a time but if you need more this might be to time consuming.
Back to the Macap, changing grinds can be a bit time consuming, because of the very fine adjustments possible. The adjusting screw on the Macap is a nice fit for a tool that musicians use to fit new strings to a guitar. I bought this tool in a guitar shop for $3.95, a beauty.


I can change now from espresso to drip in ten seconds and what is even more important also back again to the exact espresso setting. Love it.
Cons:
What I don’t like is the small black bib to catch the grinds, this is close to useless and I tend not to use it.
The price, it is fairly expensive.
Pros:
I think I’ve mentioned most positives already apart from the fact that it is build like a tank, very heavy indeed.
A special mention deserves the power cord; it exits at the rear and under the grinder so it gives it a very neat appearance.
These are small details worth more to some people than others.
Anyhow, it is good to know that whenever I want to upgrade my espresso machine, my Macap will be a perfect match!
Now, what’s next, roasting?
It was a pleasure putting my thoughts on paper, I’ve learned so much from you CS’ers that without you I would not even have owned this grinder.
English is not my native language, so a few errors might have slipped in, especially when I use the words “than” or “then” etc. Please forgive.
Cheers,
Dick


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