Genuine Mazzer Burrs - How To Tell

So you have your new burrs in your hot little hand…how can you tell they are genuine?

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I suppose it's difficult to be sure, but certainly these checks will give you the highest possibility of ensuring you have genuine burrs. Now I'm not saying if they don't meet these checks they are not genuine, perhaps the specification has changed, perhaps a different factory now makes them, etc..However, if they were my burrs, these are checks that would satisfy me!

Before we get into the meat of the article, this came about from a forum member meeting up with a few of us to discuss why he couldn't adjust his Mazzer Mini E grinder to get decent espresso shots….he was getting either fast shots, spritzing or choking. I whipped the burr carrier off and the answer was immediately apparent. The burrs themselves had numerous small "dents" and felt quite blunt. This on a grinder only 2 years old! My own burrs are 3 years old and are in much better condition.

I explained to him that coffee should ALWAYS be checked for stones and foreign objects see Looking After Your Grinder. The little white chalky ones can be insidious as you don't realise you have ground them, but they dull the blades and with very small (even moderately hard) stones, you may never even know. Now your roaster will assure you that there are no stones or foreign objects in the coffee they supply… and they may be right, but it's not their grinder!

The subject of whether a new set of burrs had been tried came up, and yes they had, but with not much better results. Further questioning elicited the information that the replacements had been aftermarket burrs. So I went through all the stuff in the other article and about how much sharper they were etc.. I also showed him my brand new spare set of "genuine" carded Mazzer Mini E burrs.

So the next post from him on the forum said he had been fed up with waiting and had decided to buy Mazzer Super Jolly genuine burrs (which I personally don't recommend you use in a Mazzer Mini E). These he was assured were genuine, even though they were not in a blister pack (carded), didn't look the same pattern as genuine ones and were not very sharp. To cut a long story short it turns out they were not genuine, the retailer was unaware of this and agreed to refund the money. However, the useful part of this story was the person concerned contacted mazzer and received information that could be helpful when you next get your set of Burrs. A link to the full forum post is below:

http://www.phpbber.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?mforum=coffetimeboard&p=11299#11299

As always this is only a guide and we can't guarantee this is definitive or accurate as circumstances and production methods change.

As guide, genuine burrs should be:

  • Carded, in a blister pack (Mazzer apparently do not supply them any other way)
  • Sharp, if you think your "genuine" burrs are not very sharp, they may not be genuine
  • The burrs have triangular flats around the rim, genuine burrs have 56 = Mazzer Mini E (or older Super Jolly) 58 = Mazzer Super Jolly (current). If they have 60 they are most probably not genuine.

Now I say again, if it doesn't meet the above criteria, it doesn't mean they are not genuine (I have to say this), but I personally wouldn't accept anything that didn't meet it, unless Mazzer confirmed otherwise.

I have also seen statements that "good quality aftermarket burrs are fine" and "I have never had a complaint" etc.. I know that I and others have not found this to be the case for aftermarket burrs we have tried. Again, I have to say, there may be aftermarket burrs out there that are just as good….possibly even better. Personally I am not interested in trying to find out, I would simply rather pay the few pounds extra for genuine Mazzer Burrs…..which are not always more expensive than aftermarket burrs!

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