DIP DKS-65. On-Demand Grinder Review. DIP Who? DKS-65 On-Demand Grinder. Packaging

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1 DIP DKS-65 On-Demand Grinder Review DIP Who? A little known Romanian manufacturer of grinders, that for over 20 years has had an ethos of designing and producing a simple, quality, well-engineered product manufacturing as much of it as possible in-house. Metal parts are tooled and machined in house, plastic parts are tooled and injection moulded in house ensuring that they have full control over the quality of the finished product. DKS-65 On-Demand Grinder The DKS-65 is the only on-demand grinder that DIP produce. With a range of retail/shop grinders, using a variety of flat burrs from 64mm right up to 180mm, the DKS-65 uses the smallest burr set in the range the 64mm but has on-demand timed dosing, with a good front-end control panel and hassle free dosing directly into the portafilter. At a price point of sub 380 ex VAT, it appears to fill a niche in the home-user grinder market for a relatively small, lowcost, simple yet high quality on-demand grinder with programmable timers (for single and double shots) and push button ease of use. Recognising that this grinder would probably be quite attractive to many home users, I asked Coffee Omega (the exclusive UK distributor for DIP) to send me a unit for impartial review. So this document provides my thoughts, quantitative findings and subjective results and as I ve mentioned, I have no commercial connection to Coffee Omega or DIP and have produced this review impartially in order to hopefully help prospective home users / purchasers make an informed decision to buy or not. So what s it like? Packaging It s shipped and delivered double boxed an outer branded box of thick cardboard, and then inner boxes one containing the grinder base unit and instruction book, the other containing the 1.3Kg hopper with lid and grinds tray. DIP DKS-65 : Grinder Review Page 1 of 7 MrShades 2014

2 Physically It stands 57cm tall, including the hopper but a much more concise 34cm to the top of the grind adjustment collar. It s comfortably smaller than a comparable 64mm flat burr dosered grinder, like a Compak K6 but with the hopper it s taller in total than the Compak K10 with small hopper. A small hopper doesn t appear to be easily available, but would be a useful accessory. What are the Buttons and Controls? At 27cm deep and 15.5cm wide (about the same footprint as an Iberital MC2), it s a good compact shape that will fit nicely on a kitchen work surface and weighing less than 10Kg makes it easy to move around when required. The housing of the grinder is all black steel, with the front panel being polished stainless. Portafilter supports are fixed, with a portafilter dose button immediately behind them. An E61 portafilter fitted and works well. The grind adjustment collar is plastic, but it s a solid and robust piece of plastic and there s no fear of it breaking. There s also a removable grinds tray (black plastic) that fits at the front of the grinder. The DKS-65 is very similar to many other on-demand grinders in the way it s used: - A main on/off rocker switch on the right hand side of the grinder. This powers on and off but doesn t initiate any grinding. - A grind adjustment collar (though rotating in the opposite direction to many others so clockwise is finer, and anticlockwise is coarser) - A portafilter dose button - A control pane with backlit LCD display and four touch sensitive buttons: o * (for menu access and setting the timed dosing) o 0/1 (for on/off and exiting menus) o Single dose/- (for selecting single dose or decreasing set values/changing options) o Double dose/+ (for selecting double dose or increasing set values/changing options) - A grind adjustment collar lock tab o More on this later, but there s a metal tab that locates in notches under the grind adjustment collar making this a stepped grinder (as it locks in stepped positions) but with a standard micrometrical rotating adjustment collar. - The hopper has a metal bean-sheet to stop the beans falling out when you remove the collar. This rotates in and out and provides a good positive action and good closure of the bean hopper for removal. One minor annoyance is that when you turn the grinder on, it always defaults to Single Dose. If you ve previously been using Double, it still defaults to Single so you could get caught out. Whilst you could simply use the Single button as a double dose (ie 4.3s or whatever) and set the Double button to single (2.0s), it also has a dose counter and records 1 dose for every use of the Single dose and 2 for every use of Double so it d confuse the dose counter somewhat. DIP DKS-65 : Grinder Review Page 2 of 7 MrShades 2014

3 Using the buttons and controls When the grinder powers up, as I said, it defaults to Single dose so it s normally necessary to press the Double dose button to select double dose timing. With the dose size (single or double) selected, the display shows the dose size and total doses. Pressing and holding * for a few seconds whilst in this mode allows the user to set the timer for single or double dosing, in tenths of a second and down to 0.1s. (The lowest setting that reliably does anything is 0.2s though which delivers around 0.3g. Setting to 0.1s is allowed, but doesn t always activate the motor simply increasing the shot count). I had the Double dose set to 4.3s, which was giving around 17.5g of ground coffee, and Single set to 0.3s for topping up if necessary. Using the grinder in Continuous mode allows for a single press of the portafilter dose button, and the grinder activates for the set duration. With the dosing panel off (pressing the 0/1 button) the user can press and hold * again, to enter the setup menu. From within this menu you can set language (English, French, Spanish, etc.), view partial and total shot counts, and also set the dosing mode to: - Continuous: Pressing the dose button once causes the grinder to run for the programmed time. There s no way to stop it from completing the timed dose once it s running, and pressing the dose button again simply restarts the timer. (I used it in Continuous mode for 99% of the time as would most users). - Pause: Pressing the dose button once causes the grinder to run for the programmed time, but pressing it again during that period pauses the dose. Pressing it again resumes, etc. This can be annoying, as it never cancels or times out so if the dose is set to 5s and you pause at 4s, the next activation of the dose button will deliver 1s, period. It would be better if the firmware were adjusted so that the pause function timed out after 30s or something, so that a partial dose could be delivered but then the timer reset back to a full dose for the next actuation (if after the timeout period). - Manual: Pressing the dose button grinds and releasing the dose button stops the grinder. Completely manual. Some On-Demand grinders have totally dumb manual dose bypassing the fancy electronics of the timed dose control (K10 Fresh for example) so that the grinder can still be operated if the electronic timed dosing components fail for any reason. The DKS-65 doesn t appear to have this with the main on/off switch having just two positions on (which powers it up but doesn t start grinding) and off. Similarly, in keeping with many other on-demand grinders at this lower-end price point, there is no additional button or facility to top up and perform a quick grind to add a small amount. I set the single dose timer to achieve this as once it s grinding there s no way to stop it prior to the programmed timer finishing, and no way to press anything else to grind manually. Again, clever reprogramming of the firmware by DIP could address this (for example, to set it so that if the * button is pressed within 10s of the grinding finishing, then it acts as a manual grind button but after 10s it reverts to its normal menu/program function). DIP DKS-65 : Grinder Review Page 3 of 7 MrShades 2014

4 Grinding Power and Adjustment The DIP website claims a motor power of 0.65kW which is pretty powerful for a grinder at this price point and of this size. I tested it, and it draws 485W under no load and 545W when grinding beans so it s pretty powerful and, certainly, about twice the power of the motor in the Compak K6. Grinding is via a pair of 64mm flat burrs, that I assume are 1300rpm (though I cannot find any accurate information that supports the rpm speed). These are mounted in a reasonably standard way with a lower burr attached to a lower burr carrier with three sweeper arms, within a grind chamber that has a circular exit hole into a short (about 2cm long) grinds chute, which runs slightly downwards; grinds then dropping down a final exit chute and into the portafilter. The upper burr arrangement however is slightly simpler than many competitive grinders: Compak, Mazzer and others choose to mount the upper burr to a carrier that sits within guide channels in the grinder body (within the micrometric screw threads). The carrier is floating and whilst attached to or touching the grind adjustment collar, it can t actually rotate as the lugs in the carrier locate in the channels, preventing any rotation, even when the adjustment collar is rotated or the lower burr spins against the upper. This allows the stepless micrometric adjustment, with no fear of the grind adjustment drifting under use. The DKS65 has the upper burr attached to a single machined piece of aluminium that is also the grind adjustment collar. Hence when adjusting the grind, the entire carrier and upper burr rotates as there are no guide channels or other devices to prevent the upper burr from rotating (and as it s fixed to the collar, doing so would prevent grind adjustment!). So with the DKS65, when a grind adjustment is made, the upper burr carrier and upper burr also rotate. This means that if grinding quite finely (espresso grind for example) and there is considerable rotational force on the upper burrs (from the rotating lower burr) then the upper burr could also rotate, causing the grind setting to drift. UNLESS there s some form of grind adjustment locking device to prevent this from happening. Hence the grind adjustment locking tab on the collar. This locates into holes in the underside of the adjustment collar, and needs to be depressed before the grind can be adjusted coarser or finer. Is this a good or bad thing? Well, it certainly makes for a simpler upper burr assembly and in many ways makes very little difference at all. The only real difference is that it does indeed introduce a stepped element to the grind adjustment. Whilst the locking tab could quickly and easily be removed, and the grind adjustment collar is relatively firm, I have no idea whether the grind would remain fixed or would drift off in normal use. During my testing and use I certainly didn t find it a problem; as the steps were fine enough anyway. Adjusting the grind is fairly standard but hold down the lock tab whilst rotating the collar (in the opposite direction to many other grinders, as it s a standard RH micrometric screw not LH like Mazzer and Compak). The burrs meet with a gentle chirp, so alignment seems OK, and on this grinder that equated to the 0 mark on the adjustment collar being directly forwards. There s no obvious arrow or setting point on the grinder case so I just went with whatever was pointing towards the user. DIP DKS-65 : Grinder Review Page 4 of 7 MrShades 2014

5 Single Dosing and Retention The questions many home users ask Can I single dose (why would you, on an on-demand grinder?), and what s the retention like? Well, starting with a clean machine I carefully measured an 18g dose of beans and set the single grind timer to 10s. Making sure all beans were out of the hopper and into the throat of the grinder I started the grind, which took 10s and then a little more to ensure that all beans were completely ground. Final result in the portafilter 14.9g so about 3.1g retained (pretty sure it s almost all in the exit chute!) Just to vary the dose a subsequent 17.5g in produced 17.5g out, and then a further 17.0g in produced 17.0g out. You ve still got to assume that around 3g of the dose will be stale from the previous grind though. If you really want to, a 58mm Mazzer SJ lens hopper fits inside the throat not tightly, but it could be made to fit better quite easily and then single dosing with a puff from collapsing the hopper to clear the grind path would probably make it even better. So that s single dosing and retention, but what about the real purpose of an on demand grinder. On demand timed dosing, just how good or bad is it on the DKS-65? On-Demand Timed Dosing With the double dose set to 4.3s, and the grind adjustment set to 2, which isn t as fine as an espresso grind (which is around 1 on this grinder) but would be a good Aeropress grind level, you get appox 17.5g of ground coffee delivered. Testing and weighing subsequent timed doses at this grind setting produced: 17.5g, 17.7g, 17.9g,18.0g, 17.4g and over the next 20 doses it was within 0.5g of 17.5 in 18 cases but up to 18.3g in one case and down to 16.9g in another. So pretty good timed dosing, with about 1Kg of beans in the hopper. Testing the top up dosing with short pulses of the single dose button 0.4s produced around 1.5g, 0.3s around 1.1g and 0.2s resulted in 0.7g. On the odd occasion that 0.1s actually produced anything, either 0.3g or 0.4g appeared. Pulling a few shots Having tested the dosing and having looked quite closely at the grinding, grind path, grind chamber and the burrs and in doing so having put around 2Kg of beans through it to ensure that the burrs were slightly seasoned, I thought it was about time to dial in some beans that I know well and to judge the dialling in process, distribution, clumping, static, and finally resultant pour and taste. The beans I used for this part of the test are a blend of Brazilian Daterra, Monsooned Malabar and Robusta that I roast myself in a Hottop roaster. I ve been drinking this blend for the last 3 months or so, ground in my K10 Fresh or Graef CM95 and extracted through my Izzo Alex Duetto or Gaggia Classic so a good known quantity and taste. Pulling the grind down from the setting of 2 that I d been using during dose tests and seasoning, I went tighter to about 1.6 initially but that resulted in a gusher. Tighter still to 1.1 was nearly there, and I settled on a final grind setting at around 0.8. With a double dose time of 5s producing the desired 17.5g at this setting. DIP DKS-65 : Grinder Review Page 5 of 7 MrShades 2014

6 Distribution was very good, light and fluffy and when at fine espresso / Turkish levels it was slightly clumpy (but this is almost to be expected), but nothing really bad. Not quite as good as the nice fluffy grinds from my K10, but better than the Graef and still pretty fluffy in general. Static doesn t seem to be an issue at all and although there are no static flaps or grids or anything obvious in the exit chute, any static appears to be very minimal, and ground coffee is delivered nicely into the centre (towards the rear) of the portafilter. Using a dosing cylinder ensured that everything stayed inside the portafilter, but even without a dosing cylinder it wsasn t too messy. Owning a K10 Fresh, I ve come to accept that a dosing cylinder is almost mandatory on many on demand grinders if you wish to avoid ground coffee straying onto the work-surface or grinds tray, so it s no surprise that it helps the DKS-65 as well. After a few doses, I took a shot up the chute to see if there was much evidence of static, and stray grinds stuck to the exit chute. It all looked pretty good, and the photo here shows a view upwards with the angular piece at the top of the photo being the lower rear exit of the final exit chute, the curved piece at the bottom being at the front of the grinder, and the tube that can be seen being the exit path from the grind chamber. If there was some slight evidence of clumping then a brief stir soon dispersed it but when comparing shots and channelling evidenced, it made very little difference if I extracted from the slightly clumpy grinds or used a quick stir. There was slight evidence of channelling if I used the grinds without stirring, and this reduced if I stirred but the end result wasn t hugely different both in the appearance of the pour and taste of the shot. Shots poured well, and the taste was surprisingly good nice and sweet with good chocolate hints. Since owning a Super Jolly a few years ago I d forgotten how good a well dialled in flat burr grinder can taste and how well the shots can pour. The DKS-65 produced some great results in the cup and if I was in the market for an on-demand flat burr grinder I d be happy to use one longer term. The shot shown pouring here (with the end result shown on the next page) was 17.5g in, with 30.0g out in 28s and both looked and tasted very good. It poured well, the result in the cup looked good, and the taste was very pleasant indeed. DIP DKS-65 : Grinder Review Page 6 of 7 MrShades 2014

7 CONCLUSION The DIP DKS-65 will obviously be compared with the Eureka Zenith 65E. It s a similar 64mm flat burr on-demand grinder, with very similar features. Having never used a Zenith it s difficult for me to compare the two, though obviously the DKS-65 is available at a lower price point. However, you tend to get what you pay for - and the Zenith appears to have a less simple construction with a cast aluminium body, illumination and an elegant grind adjustment - whereas the DIP is sheet steel, with a fixed portafilter holder and a fairly conventional grind adjustment collar. Burr carriers and grind chambers are both quite similar, though the DKS-65 has the simple single piece upper burr carrier which doesn t appear to make any difference to the machine s ability to deliver a great end result in the cup. Pros: Cons: Great price, great value for money Very powerful 650W motor (much more than a Mazzer Super Jolly, Compak K6 or Compak K8) Compact size (smaller footprint than the Zenith 65E, similar footprint to Iberital MC2) Accurate timed dosing with easy to use user-interface Good clean delivery of grinds into PF Construction is more solid, with more metal and less plastic, than cheaper machines Simple construction No quick/easy way to manually top-up or to stop a timed dose Some of the construction is a little flimsy (sheet steel as opposed to cast aluminium etc.) when compared with more expensive machines I m a big fan of on-demand grinders loading a hopper with beans and just dosing directly into the portafilter and the DKS-65 does just that. It s powerful, seems to be comparatively simple, but well built, well aligned and relatively quiet compared with some cheaper grinders I ve owned or used. Would I buy one? If I was thinking of buying a similar 64mm grinder but really wanted timed on-demand, and was contemplating a used Mazzer Super Jolly or used Compak K6 then I would certainly factor it in, along with the Eureka Zenith. The Mazzer and Compak commercials are often available used, but at reasonable prices they are always dosered. Converting them to doserless is both expensive and prone to static and clumping issues. As the lowest priced, solidly built 64mm flat burred on demand (with electronic timed dosing) that I know of, I think it has a good place in the market and delivers a great result in the cup. For me, if I was looking for a 64mm flat burr grinder and wanted it to grind on-demand, it d be a choice between the Zenith and the DKS-65 and the lower price of the DKS may well be a significant factor for many home owners that can t contemplate spending more than 500 on a grinder but still want all the benefits of a quality, 64mm flat burr grinder with effective, tidy and relatively accurate electronic timed dosing. ADDENDUM I ve been using this grinder quite a lot over the last few weeks, and it s performed very well, is consistently dosing pretty accurately and it has really grown on me. The DKS-65 has been loaded with my favourite home-roasted beans, and has seen a great deal of use and most importantly has been producing some great coffee through my Duetto. The single dose default (when first turned on) is still annoying me and catching me out occasionally though (especially early morning!). If I hadn t already invested a considerable sum in a Compak K10 Fresh, and still owned a Mazzer Super Jolly, then I could easily see myself upgrading from an SJ to the DKS-65 for its on-demand convenience without the 500+ outlay that it would usually involve. DIP DKS-65 : Grinder Review Page 7 of 7 MrShades 2014