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Permalink Reply by Billy Kangas on January 23, 2009 at 9:28am

I already did that.. It helped... but it's still not 100%

I guess I ran about a 1/4 of a bag. Do you think I should just run a whole bag more though?

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Permalink Reply by Billy Kangas on January 23, 2009 at 9:33am

That's a good call. I never thought of Dollar store rice...

If that doesn't work does anyone know of any other ways to clean out an old grinder?

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Permalink Reply by Billy Kangas on January 23, 2009 at 9:40am

I actually have done that too. I included the schematics for the grinder in the initial post. Is there a cleaning solution or item that would be safe to use on the parts??

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Permalink Reply by Jason Haeger on January 23, 2009 at 9:41am

MINUTE rice is good (raw rice.. I'm not sure I'd go that route).

Grindz is good.

But nothing tops good old fashioned elbow grease and dismantling the thing to get at it with a brush. I've done this a few times myself. Even on old grinders with a persistent funny smell.

I remember them taking a variety of treatments. (the three mentioned above, and probably some other things I'm not remembering)

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Permalink Reply by Billy Kangas on January 23, 2009 at 9:52am

Thanks for all the responses. I cleaned out the grinding chamber with a brush that came with another grinder I have, and it worked pretty well. I guess I was just curious if there is a safe solution people have heard of that could act as a degreaser without having any adverse effect of the performance of flavor of the grinder. It might be just a situation where I have to just keep cleaning (I've already been cleaning it for a total of near 10 hours!!)...

If nothing else I at least have a deep spiritual connection with the grinder at this point! I was thinking about selling it, but we've bonded so much at this point it might be hard ;-)

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Permalink Reply by Jason on January 23, 2009 at 9:53am

contact the guys at URNEX, they have a good grinder cleaner that should sort the problem..

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Permalink Reply by Jesse -D-> on January 23, 2009 at 9:56am

if you are going to use a metal brush, make suere it is a soft metal. So you don't scratch up your grinder and give the oils even more places to go.

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Permalink Reply by Billy Kangas on January 23, 2009 at 9:59am

Yeah I was thinking about grindz... but I think rice works just about as well...

I noticed UNEX also has a product called cafe wipz in their grinder section, but that doesn't look like it would be good for the grinder parts.. does anyone have any experiance with these things?

Jason said:

contact the guys at URNEX, they have a good grinder cleaner that should sort the problem..

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Permalink Reply by Brady on January 23, 2009 at 10:50am

Hi Billy. Eucchhh! That smell... coming back to me even now. I think we've all been there.

Can you pinpoint where the smell is coming from? Could be something inside the grinder too (like in with the motor). Also if you haven't done it, go at it with a shop vac. That'll pull out lots of stuff from places your brush would never reach. Also, plastic will pick up bad smells and take a long time to let them go. Pinpointing exactly which parts are still funky will give you a better idea of how to proceed. Any visible film on any parts?

You say you took it apart, but how far? I was shocked at how much stuff had accumulated under the doser vanes, between the doser body and the grinder, and how funky the spongy gasket material between the doser and body smelled. You probably stripped it pretty good, but thought I'd mention it just in case.

Also, its possible it just needs to air out a little. Maybe leave it apart and exposed to clean air for a few days?

Does it impart this funky flavor to the rice?

I'd definitely say (except on plastic parts) use wet, chemical, or abrasive cleaning methods only as a last resort. Good old soap and water on the parts that can get wet does wonders.

Just a few thoughts. Hope they help. Good luck.

b

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Permalink Reply by Jason Shipley on January 23, 2009 at 11:36am

Take the thing apart and soak all the parts you can in Cafiza, Order fresh blades and reassemble.

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Permalink Reply by Bryan Wray on January 23, 2009 at 2:37pm

This is what I was going to say. I've done it to probably 5 different used grinders now. You normally want new burrs when you receive an old grinder anyway, so I normally plan on purchasing them from the get-go. Other than that, Cafiza works wonders. Make sure you have a really great idea how the thing goes back together before you take all of the parts off. Don't make it a long soak either. I normally start sort of an assembly line of soaking and scrubbing. I put in a few parts and let them soak for 15 minutes or so, then remove them and add some new parts (keeping different "areas" of the grinder soaking together, so as to avoid as many... uh... "extra" parts as possible) and while the new parts are soaking I scrub the ones that just came out with some sort of stiff nylon brush. This method has never failed me. I normally leave at least a day for all of this to happen, so it's no easy process. Also, make sure that you have an extra fan around somewhere and that you can lay the parts out under the fan to dry for probably 8 hours or so. You *don't* want to reassemble wet parts.

HTH
-Bry

Jason Shipley said:

Take the thing apart and soak all the parts you can in Cafiza, Order fresh blades and reassemble.

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Permalink Reply by Cedric on January 23, 2009 at 3:20pm

I found using those portable steamers can do wonders with removing coffee oils on your grinder. Also oxyclean does a pretty good job at cleaning things....smells and works just like URNEX or purocafe

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