KitchenAid Burr Coffee Mill KCG200 (aka A-9)

[launderess]

From What One Understands

Via various "coffee geek" sites one frequented when was very into vacuum pot coffee making, these Hobart/KitchenAid domestic grinders did not and could not produce a fine grind on their own. Espresso coffee must not have been a big thing back then cause the finest you can get from these is best for drip or maybe vacuum pots.

Being as this many seem to recall some members of various coffee geek sites claiming they "tweaked" this or other grinders to get a finer grind. Me I'd just as soon scour fleaPay or thrifts for a modern grinder such as the one's coffee places use. Or, another option would be a "vintage" type grinder as what was often seen at supermarkets. Growing up used to love going with my Grandmother to her local (A&P) because they had those huge red grinders at the front of the store. You took your Eight O'Clock coffee beans there and an employee would custom grind to whatever degree one wished.

 

[rp2813]

Thanks for the suggestion Pete.  The manual does advise that the ring is easier to adjust with the motor running, so that could easily apply to the initial installation.

 

Looks like I have a couple of things to try tomorrow.

 

Regarding the Cuisinart Grind & Brew burrs not being accessible for maintenance, I think the difference may be that the Cuisinart burrs aren't flat like the ones on the KA, and therefore not as vulnerable to oil and residue accumulation.

 

[petek]

I have quite a few different grinders though most are 70's and 80's stuff.
Here's an older Cory grinder I found a couple of years ago.. It's adjustable inside but you have to loosen a couple of screws and turn the grind mechanism but it's all marked.

Not sure what year it is

 

[rp2813]

I figured it out

Pete, that's an interesting Cory grinder.  It doesn't seem to take up too much counter space either.

 

I pulled the KA apart again and the burrs are indeed identical.  I fooled with adjusting the ring for a while and finally decided to ignore the instructions from the owner's manual and apply common sense.  I noticed that with the ring tightened almost all the way, the burrs would make slight contact (and a faint ringing noise) after power was cut and they spun to a stop.  I knew this wasn't right.

 

I decided to back off the ring and tighten its set screw so burr contact wouldn't be possible.  My first attempt at this prevented the ring from moving beyond one click in the "fine" direction.  The ring has a stop on the bottom that hits the set screw, preventing it from traveling more than 360 degrees in either direction.  I loosened the set screw and rotated the ring just enough to allow the stop to get past the screw,  and tightened it down again. 

 

In doing this, I noticed something else that points to yet another error in the owner's manual.  The "M" in "medium" now was positioned above the set screw at the rear of the housing.  The instructions advise to position it above the grind indicator arrow on the front.  With the "M" above the screw, the ring now rotates clockwise until the word "fine" is above the arrow, and counter-clockwise until the word "coarse" is above the arrow, with "medium" in between.  This is exactly how it's supposed to behave.

 

By following the instructions in the manual, I was setting the ring into an adjustment range that would have resulted in no grinding action at all when turned fully in the "fine" direction because the burrs were making almost complete contact, which would have ruined them.  By aligning the "M" with the set screw, there's now room on the finest setting for beans to fit in between the burrs.

 

Wow.  I can't believe how sloppy Whirlpool was with the instructions for this thing.

 

Next:  Grinding some beans for espresso later this evening.

 

[kb0nes]

Consistent Grind?

I have one of these new "reissue" KitchenAid coffee grinders. I have had the burrs out of mine twice trying to get them adjusted correctly. It seems with mine that no matter where I adjust it I get a very inconsistent grind. Even when I move the burrs apart to yield a coarser grind I get a lot of fine powder. It often causes the vacuum pot to fail due to a plugged filter. I get a far more consistent grind from my Braun chopper!

I'm not sure if this is a symptom of the design or if something is amiss with mine. It seems to me that the burrs are spun WAY to fast in this design. This likely adds to the fact that these grinders make a mess, I have grounds all over the counter when I'm done Due to these issues mine has likely ground less then a couple pounds of coffee and it mostly just sits next to my mixer and looking pretty.

The KitchenAid Pro series seems to grind a slower speed. From what I have seen of them they addressed all the problems I have with my earlier design model. I'm in the market for one of those.

 

[rp2813]

I just tested this one out.

 

Findings:  Even on the finest setting, there are large chunks mixed in.  It sounds like the reverse is true when set for a coarse grind.

 

I'm impressed with the speed that this thing will render ground beans though.  Just a few seconds produces enough to make a pot of espresso. 

 

I had no problem with grounds flying everywhere.  They dropped neatly from the spout downward into the glass.  It all struck me as a very professional system, and it's not any more noisy than others I've used.

 

This thing can't even come close to turning out a fine enough grind for Turkish/Greek coffee though, which is what I'd really like.  Now that it's in proper working order I may end up giving it to my sister, who grinds her own beans every morning for use in her Chemex Automated.  It would be a very convenient set-up for her.

 

 

 

 

 

[polkanut]

Ralph,

You're such a good brother.

 

[moccamaster]

My coffee grinder has been resuscitated

Thank you guys for posting this. My 7-ish year-old KCG200 - aka A-9 (cobalt) was nothing more than eye candy lately. Well, not even. It was dirty and I didn't care because it wasn't working right. A couple of years back it got jammed up and the grind adjustment ring wouldn't twist much. I asked hubby to investigate and he must have reassembled with the burrs too far apart. It has made chunky grinds since - regardless of the position of the grind ring. I didn't want to make hubby feel bad and I believe in the, "If you want something done right, do it yourself" adage so I very well couldn't complain. Hubby is not around today so I took the thing apart, cleaned it, and reassembled. It works like a champ now. I'll list my big takeaways from all of the helpful posts above - and some I found on other sites:

- The set screw in mine has a tamper-proof torx hole.

- Take the bottom plate off so that a flat-head screwdriver can be used in the center shaft slot for the removal of the acorn-nut and the burr set-screws.

- Acorn nut is reverse threaded.

- Don't get burrs wet

- You can harvest a new top-burr from a bottom assembly (part 9707092)

- Rice is good option for cleaning vs. dis-assembly (I try that the next time it needs cleaning)

- Recommended ring adjustment instructions: with the external set-screw removed, the back of the grinder should face you so that you are looking at the set screw hole. Tighten the adj. ring clockwise until it stops. Then turn the ring counter-clockwise only until the word Medium is just to the right of the set screw hole - about one line/click away. Screw the set-screw back in. Now the indicator arrow on the front will make sense. Twist the ring counter-clockwise to get to "Course" (burrs get further apart c-clockwise). Twist the ring clockwise to get to "Fine" (burrs get closer together).

- I have no idea how rp2813 got the whole bottom burr assembly out. (reply #26) I was afraid to break something so I made due by just removing the burr from the fingered holder. Mine wasn't gooey-filthy as I've never used flavored coffee and I believe I got it clean enough.

- Order replacement burrs now if you are afraid the parts will become impossible to find later. The trick for me will be remembering where I put them when I need them in a few years.

I have a new Technivorm coffee make and that's what precipitated the need for my grinder to work properly again. So far, so good. The coffee is stupendous.

 

[rp2813]

Jerri,

 

It's been a couple of years, but I think the bottom burr assembly may have just fallen out by itself.  One of those situations where it seemed impossible to budge or get a grip on, and then it just dropped out on its own.

 

I'm glad the information shared here got your grinder going again.

 

Ralph

 

[dawley2570]

KitchenAid Vintage A-9 Coffee Grinder

Does anyone know where to purchase the electric motor brushes for a KitchenAid Vintage A-9 Coffee Grinder?

 

[rp2813]

I would check on line for brush sources and then try to match up what you have.   Or if you can find an exploded view of just the motor for the subject grinder, you may find a Whirlpool part number for the brushes, but again, I don't know if they'd be an exact match for your A-9.

 

[jeff_adelphi]

I got brushes from McMaster-Carr for a KA grinder I rebuilt some time ago. They were a little too big but I was able to sand them down to size, they were a bit too long too but were easy to shorten.

 

[tomturbomatic]

One of my all time finds was in the early 80s when I found one in a thrift store. They thought it was a blender with missing parts and sold it to me for something like $1.99 or maybe just 99 cents. Works perfectly. I bought the oval plastic container used with the beige plastic model of the 60s for catching the ground coffee and then found the genuine glass one at a depression glass show.  Those used to be so much fun and so close, right in Greenbelt, but everyone I went with and the vendors I got to know have all died so I don't go anymore.

 

[rp2813]

Here We Go Again

It's been 8+ years, and this past weekend when my sister was up from L.A. for a visit, she brought this grinder with her per my request.  She never used it much, and after her cheap plastic grinder failed a while back, I gave her a new one for Xmas that had received good reviews on line.

 

I tried out the KitchenAid this morning.  The first thing I noticed was that I couldn't get the adjustment ring to move all the way to the "FINE" setting.  It would only move as far as "MEDIUM" and even that required quite a bit of force.  I ran some rice through it.  That didn't change anything, but it sure did make a mess.  I held the chute cover closed until I felt pressure, then released it and the ground rice dropped obediently into the cup.  I added more rice just for good measure and figured I didn't need to hold the cover again.  It spewed un-ground rice (why wasn't it ground?) all over the counter and floor, including out the doorway into the hall.  Grrrrr.

 

After that, I decided to give the "MEDIUM" setting a go anyway.  I held the chute cover closed initially the same as I did with the rice, and the grounds went mostly into the cup.  But the grind was way too coarse and uneven, and the brew it made in my Bonavita auto-drip machine outfitted with Chemex carafe and paper cone filter was weak.  The pattern of the grounds in the filter was weird and it was obvious that a significant portion of the grounds didn't receive proper saturation.

 

Considering this grinder didn't see much use at all over the past eight years, I can't imagine that I need to disassemble it again, but I at least want to be able to set it to the finest grind.  I'm going to adjust the ring per instructions and see if that's all it needs, but it seems odd that with such little use, it would be so out of adjustment. 

 

I'm starting to see why these things got so many negative reviews, and I agree that the RPM of the burrs is way too fast.  It's like it needs an in-line rheostat or something, but it's built solid and makes my KCM model seem like an ear-splitting slowpoke in comparison, so I'm hoping I can figure out a way to dispense (pardon the pun) with its annoying characteristics.

 

 

[sudsmaster]

Get a Braun.

 

[foraloysius]

Braun grinders are not the best choice for coffee grinders. They used to be something in the past, but Braun isn't anymore what it used to be. A lot of coffee afficionados advise a Baratza Encore, it's an affordable grinder and gives great grinding results as long as you don't need the coffee as fine as required for an espresso pot. For all other methods it's great.

 

[rp2813]

I took it apart, brushed both sets of threads for the adjusting ring, the upper and lower burrs, and the rest of the hopper.  Now the ring easily turns to the "FINE" setting. 

 

The grind it renders for coffee in the morning will determine its fate.  It already has two strikes against it for having to be taken apart and cleaned so frequently.  And the ring set screw, as mentioned further up, is a weird torx screw with a pin-like thing in the middle so the only way I could remove and replace it was very carefully with pliers.  I don't remember that from last time, but it's been a while.

 

I'm going to take a wild guess that burr RPM is also the reason why grounds end up in places they shouldn't inside the hopper.

 

[foraloysius]

Try to adjust the setting while it's running, it should go easier than when it's off.

 

[launderess]

Will have to see if still in bookmarks somewhere

Years go when got into vacuum pot coffee brewing phase (many glass Silex and Pyrex pots long since broken) read up on grinders. IIRC someone had worked out a hack to get a finer grind out of certain vintage grinders; KA, Bodum, and a few others.

This was for the espresso people because as you know that coffee needs a fine grind. Vac pots OTOH depending upon what sort of filter being used do fine with coarser grinds.

 

[rp2813]

I would love to learn about the finer grind hack!

I thought I could simply tighten the set screw with the ring adjusted in a different position than instructed in order to get a finer grind, but there is a stop inside the ring that prevents any setting for tightening the screw other than the first "M" in "MEDIUM," so it is what it is.

 

This morning's grind was much improved, but I still had some of the more coarsely ground beans left from yesterday's episode that I used, so tomorrow morning's brew will be with 100% finest grind possible.  If it's fine enough to render the same level of flavor as its model KCM counterpart, I may keep this one on the counter.  It's fast and quiet, which is one thing I do really like about it.