Bought a sub £100 burr grinder before Christmas (Dualit) which wouldnt grind fine enough for my Gaggia machine so looking at getting one of the MC2 grinders from Happy Donkey. Firstly would you recommend these generally and secondly do I go for auto or manual?

Thanks in advance.

i’ve got one of these. Not bad, I think the burr grinders themselves are good – the adjustment for grind time looks like you’re unscrewing a fuse or something. The grind adjust has a knob that requires a lot of turning for a slight change in grain size – good I guess, but causes issues if you swap between beans a lot! Good value I think.

also, pay the extra for the doser, I didn’t but wish I did. It chucks out 7 grams at a time.

I really like mine, it is a quality bit of kit. I don’t have a requirement to produce different grinds (just espresso grind for the Gaggia.) The grind adjust knob does make very fine changes which is great when you are fine tuning to get the grind spot on, but could be a pain if you want to go quickly from a coarse to a fine grind and back. Same with the timer adjust.

Yeah, I need to find some beans I like and stick to them. I drink coffee like I drink ale, like to sample different ones!

Happy Donkey coffee was good.

Yeah, even different bags of the same beans need a bit of fine tweaking to get the grind right, and the Ibertal is good for that. Using a bottomless portafilter so need to get the grind spot on.

That’s for very fine grind like Turkish or espresso coffee. If you want different grinds quickly then that’s not for you, otherwise I think it’s a good piece of kit.

Alternatively, you can look at Ascaso i-Mini range which is reliable too.

Not Happy Donkey all the time

The have two burr sizes 34mm & 54mm, the latter slightly more expensive but both are fine for home user. Think I will be getting one next month. Price around £199 – £225.

You know you can mod the Dualit grinders to grind finer?

Bit fiddly, but not difficult, per se.

Here

It’s not perfect, but it’s an easy, cheap solution!