Stephen, re"...is it advisable or just plain OK to take the plate that the top carrier screws into off during cleaning?... It's unnecessary, and really as a service provider, not wishing to have people getting into places they dont need to or shouldn't or could damage, or even hurt themselves in the process, I would say...dont do it. The only time we remove these things is when the plates need to be replaced. Yes, if you dont wear the requisite white lab coat and do it in a sterile environment while wearing surgical gloves, with plenty of good light, you could inadvertently (no one "means" to do this) introduce a piece of coffee grit or other matter between the plates and their mountings, resulting in the plates being out of alignment with eachother when they are replaced into the grinder, resulting in you having to dismantle again to fix. But like all things coffee it's not rocket science and just because you have been in there and dismantled the plates from their carriers, doesn't mean you have caused any damage. Rest easy if the grinder is working as it should or always did! The most common place to acually cause damage is when attempting to thread the top plate carrier back into the top of the grinder. The thread is very fine, and easy enough to cross thread, and should not be forced. The other thing, is the more times you dismantle unnecessarily, the greater the chance that something will eventually go wrong for you as a result....law of averages. Hope this helped. Regardz, FC.
