La Marzocco MD-5 Conical Grinder

Last night I put my hands on a brand new conical La Mazrzocco MD-5 grinder. Here are my first impressions:

These grinders are made by an Italian company called Eureka, many of you will know the squire designs that they come up with, and La Marzocco have used their grinders in the past. I believe that Simonelli buy Eurika grinders also and modify them to their own style and stick labels on it. That is exactly what La Marzocco have done. The first thing that strikes you is the hopper, its made out of glass and has a much smaller hole on the top, unlike the mazzer hoppers for example. I haven’t cleaned it yet, but guessing that it would be rather challenging and the best way would possibly be to stick it into the dishwasher. The body of the grinder is gloss coasted steal and they come in black (MD-5) and red (MD-80). There is not reference for the red one yet, but just wait a month or so and it will all be official. After a long days use the body attracts coffee grounds due to build of static electricity, even right at the back of the grinder. This is something I’ve never experience with a mazzer grinder or any other grinder for that matter, it’s not a big issue and easily fixed with a damp cloth.

The grinder is pretty fast and the engine doesn’t make that much noise, the dosing leaver is very noisy and you can really hear the click! If you are constantly dosing it can irritate the customers. The doser design is very simple, similar to mazzer. It has a plastic rim on the top, so if you place your group handle on the top to flick excess grounds, it doesn’t damage the grinder or your handle. The windows on the dosing chamber are made out of glass and are easy to clean. The best part of this grinder is the dosing itself, it is nice and straight and doesn’t spray the grounds all over the place, giving you less wastage. This was a real big issue with all mazzar grinders that I used, they really need to work on the dosing!

The grinder runs relatively cool all the time and has no issues overheating. At the shop where I am testing the grinder they have two of them, and apparently one day the new MD-5 decided to stop working for 5 minutes. I am guessing it takes a rest when it reaches a certain temperature, which in a way could be a good thing. This hasn’t happened to me yet so I am not sure if it’s a technical fault.

Operation is simple, you have a ON/OFF switch as well as the manual START button. For the grinder to start you need to do 3 click, this is a good function as it gives you a chance to clean your doser before the next dose. If your doser is clean already and you don’t want to do 3 clicks you can simply press the manual START button which will also activate the grinder, however that button doesn’t stop the grinder you have to turn it off with the switch. The system takes a little while to get use to but once you get use to it I found that it is more efficient than the mazzer system.

Grind adjustment is very easy, a simple wheel mechanism, a classic standard that Eurika always used.

This grinder is extremely easy to clean, unlike the mazzer the opening to the conical blades is much smaller. Real easy to get into with a brush. You don’t need to take it apart completely, avoiding having to adjust the grind every time.

Positives: Design, straight (no waste) dosing, quite engine, easy to clean, design of the doser.

Negatives: The body attracts grinds (due to static electricity and paint finish of the grinder), the dosing click is very noisy, hard to clean hopper.

If you’ve been waiting for a really good, easy to use, easy to clean grinder, then this one is for you. These are so new that there isn’t much reference about it on the internet so I cant even get the specs and profiles but I’m sure that La Marzocco will put it on their website after the Coffee Exhibition in Milan that is taking place on 18th of October. I will get more specs and post them on my blog later on.