Mrs FD would like a coffee grinder for Christmas.

These start at about £20 to silly money.

I don’t drink coffee so it’s lost on me, but what makes a good coffee grinder?

We will be looking at purchasing a coffee making machine too

Ta

Yes, at the cheap end the chop, grinding is better and costs a bit more.

cheap but passable delonghi grinder or much betterer sage grinder, i own the sage and it’s a really good grinder as you can dial in the exact grind time/grind weight and it dispenses straight into the portafilter.

For extra brownie points you could buy a refurbished sage duo temp espresso machine as well, i own one and it makes a really good espresso.

There are two kinds – the ones with the blade, and a burr grinder. Burr is better as all the granules end up the same size which makes better coffee. I had a Krupps one which was great, however my DeLonghi one appears to be an identical grinder badged differently, and it’s rubbish because it won’t go fine enough to get good crema in my machine.

Manual burr grinders are just as good as electric but they are a bit harder to use. You do get big wrists tho

I had a Krupps one which was great

I have had this from John Lewis for 2 years. I’ve never done anteing to it except use it once daily and its be fine.

What’s your budget?

Used Mazzer = grinder for life. Run hopperless and sits on board to slide it out when required.

http://www.madebyknock.com

Knock burr hand grinders are brilliant. Basically a one-man band based in Edinburgh making precision hand grinders. Not cheap, but very effective and beautifully made. Exponentially better than the Porlex hand grinders and much quicker too. Mega adjustable from super fine Turkish grind up to coarse grind for percolators / French press etc.

Not cheap for a hand-grinder, but way cheaper than any electric grinder capable of the same results. Apparently. Anyway, it works and is a nice thing.

https://www.bellabarista.co.uk/brands/eureka-mignon-silenzia-15bl-coffee-grinder-50mm-burrs-mattblack-3.html

One of the good basic burr one but still £299

I’ve a Eureka Mignon which i was recommended by BB as the cheapest grinder i’d never feel the need to replace. Main advantage over a second hand Mazzer or similar is it’s much more compact.

I’m guessing they fetch decent money second hand and they don’t wear out with domestic use so expensive but good value (?)

Pleased with the Krupps too will be buying another as a Christmas present. The adjuster in mine was loose when I bought it and I assumed it was faulty. Once corrected, it has been flawless.

Molly, if your delonghi is the one soma links to, there’s a wee easy mod that ye can do, works a treat. On YouTube.

What sort of coffee are you aiming to make?

You can get away with a lot more if it’s filter/stove top as this uses a coarser grind.

Espresso you need a consistent fine grind, so the cost goes up quite a lot to do the job adequately or better.

Avoid blade grinders like the plague. Conical burr is the right answer.

Hand grinders can work very well, but get quite old, quite quick if you’re using them regularly.

Used Mazzer = grinder for life. Run hopperless

…and this…! We’ve had ours maybe 12 years now. Cost £100 off ebay. Massive and bombproof.

Hand grinders can work very well, but get quite old, quite quick if you’re using them regularly.

I’ve got a Hario hand grinder I use about once a day, and have been doing for 3 years now. You’d think I’d be used to it but every so often, as I turn that handle for the 160th time (that’s how much it takes to grind enough coffee for a double shot) I still think “blimey!”

Blimey and there was I thinking £20 was a lot.

I don’t drink coffee so don’t have a clue what type Mrs FD drinks.

I thought spending £100-£300 on the coffee making machine was the expensive bit!

Porlex hand grinder.
If you are looking at half decent beans.
It is all about the evenness of the grind as said.
This one is nicely adjustable and gives a quality of grind as good as expensive machines.
(Apparently. I am no pro, but boy oh boy, I have never wanted to talk about the flavours I was getting from coffee before)

I reckon it is good value.
I also went the Aeropress and love them both.

I enjoy grinding my coffee.
WAY better than the annoying noise from an electric thing.

I have a Wilfa SVART electric burr grinder. It’s good.

The grinder is the most important element in determining coffee extraction, as its ability to produce consistently a suitably even grind is how you are able to make coffee taste decent.

At the cheap end you get blade grinders that just chop the beans into random sizes. This is bad because you:
a) have little control over grind fineness (in simple terms a finer grind will increase extraction by increasing the surface area of the grounds that are in contact with the water)
b) have grounds of massively varying size, which means that you’re getting a mix of under and over extracted particles.

As you go up in price the grind evenness gets much better. This means you can brew coffee at higher extraction levels (which leads to greater sweetness and complexity) because you aren’t getting so many grounds that are outside the size range for your ideal extraction.

Below the £100 mark you’re better off getting a hand grinder with decent burrs, as the additional cost of the electric motor will result in significantly worse grind quality at the same price point.

JP

Knock +1

I bought a rhinowares cheap (£35!) one and, god, I had to rest/swap arms mid grind…

I’ve a mate who swore by knock so gave the aergrind a try: awesome.

As above, a precision over engineered thing of joy and beauty Thant’s grinds easy in half the time of the old one (no arm swap required).

Nae cheap mind…

As has been said above, grind is the most important element in a good cup. I have a Gaggia grinder and a 45 quid Aldi coffee machine. At the end of the day 15 bar is 15 bar.

grind is the most important element in a good cup.

No, the quality of your coffee beans is the most important thing. Grind is only important if you’re making espresso, and only then if you have a machine capable of the pressure needed for a decent espresso, and still only if crema is important to you.

gosh, like most I have the Krupps one from John Lewis. It is a burr grinder. Gone up a bit since I got one though

I have a Wilfa SVART electric burr grinder. It’s good.

I bought one also, to replace a broken Bodum, which was in turn a replacement for a broken Krupps, and been happy with it.

No, the quality of your coffee beans is the most important thing. Grind is only important if you’re making espresso, and only then if you have a machine capable of the pressure needed for a decent espresso, and still only if crema is important to you.

Agree with the first bit, but to pull a decent shot you need to be able to control the grind, being the variable among the constants of pump pressure (say 10 bar), tamping force (say 10kg), and dosage (say 18grms). Different beans require changes in the grind – even the same beans might need to be ground more finely as they age.
Crema is often just a function of how much robusta is in the blend!

I had a similar cheap one to @somafunk and now have the identical Sage one that he has now. I love the Sage as I can easily get a fine enough grind to make a proper espresso with crema and can accurately dose based on whatever particular bean I am using (which I couldn’t with the DeLongi). However it does have one annoying trait in that sometimes beans don’t drop from the hopper into the burr grinders so it starts off grinding beans then suddenly it is just grinding thin air and I need to shake it to get the beans to drop through.

I’ve got that Krups one, but after a few years use the adjuster now is a bit loose and moves/loosens mid grind. Anyone know how I can fix this?

Crema is a combination of lots of things not just how much robusta us in your blend, it’s pressure eveness if the grit, the amount of presssure, oil in the beans…

I think for some folk it can be a bit of a fixation, but it’s not an indication of ‘quality’ particularly

Ooh – Knock looks nice. Don’t actually need one, but I like stuff like that !!

Even stove top I find the grind is important. You need nearer espresso grind anyway for stove.

Another argument I’ve read is blade grinders “burn” the beans as they smash them about too fast. Though that could be coffee snob bollocks. Similar to if you freeze beans you must grind within seconds of removing else condonation ruins it (though since since freezing is bad also. Should be roasting yourself and using the beans immediately 😜).

Anyway, got an Iberital MC2 from Happy Donkey, which they say is best kind for home use. Though it’s noisy.

Molly, if your delonghi is the one soma links to, there’s a wee easy mod that ye can do, works a treat. On YouTube.

It is that one, ta – although I have already bodged it and I think my bodge was temporary.

Crema for me is a function of both oil content/quality of beans and the pressure in the coffee whilst it’s being extracted. Too loose of a grind and the water passes through too quickly; likewise not enough oil. The pressure rating of your pump is simply the max pressure it can create, but it won’t if there’s not enough resistance provided by the coffee.

I use a random selection of whatever beans are available, but I have found that if I am struggling to get a good extraction (not just crema) from a batch then I can to an extent simply use a little more coffee to restrict the water flow. It’s not ideal, but then I’m buying supermarket coffee, using cheap kit and making the best of it 🙂

Correcting myself / auto-correct.

else condonation condensation ruins it

Some misinformation on here. Grind is important regardless of what type of coffee you’re making. Apart from the beans themselves it’s the single most important factor in making decent coffee.

The problem with threads about things like this is every home user thinks they’re some kind of expert. I’m not saying that I know everything there is to know about coffee, but I have worked in the coffee industry for several years and can separate myths or pure nonsense from fact.

If grinders didn’t matter for filter coffee then there would be no reason for almost every speciality coffee shop to spend a couple of grand on an EK43 grinder (I could certainly have done without having to fork out for one when I had a shop). But they all do, because the difference in the quality of the coffee made when using one is demonstrably better than all of the alternatives.

JP

So I might be better spending £125 on a coffee a hand coffee grinder and £90 on a Lidl coffee machine, rather than £300 on a machine and £20 on a grinder?

https://www.lidl.co.uk/en/MiddleofLidl.htm?articleId=18719

Lidl is selling a cheap coffee machine, milk frother and grinder ahead of Christmas: what’s worth buying?

Porlex hand grinder.
If you are looking at half decent beans.
It is all about the evenness of the grind as said.
This one is nicely adjustable and gives a quality of grind as good as expensive machines.

Except the shaft and inner burr moves from side to side as you grind resulting in a variation of grind size, so no it isn’t as good as a grinder with a more robust drivetrain.

The Rhino is better than a porlex and a made by knock much better again and worth the money (I have all 3 so speak from experience), just bought my other half a Wilfa which she likes but that will not do espresso grind.
I use a mahlkonig vario as it’s consistent, small, adjustable and relatively quiet with very little grind retention, might go for a baratza sette 270 if I was buying now though (a new updated unit as they had teething trouble with the early built in scales)

I’ve been using one of these for a year Bodum grinder with decent results, although not for espresso as the DeLonghi machine I had wasn’t great. With an aeropress or french press though it helps make a lovely cup of coffee.

The Iberital MC2 bought in the uk from Happy donkey has always been a top rated cheap(ish – currently £120) grinder recommended on here and elsewhere. I have one that worked really well. Only snag is it’s a bit of a faff to change from one grind to another – espresso to French press for example. So mine got sidelined in favour of something better/ more flexible. Would happily send to someone interested for postage (it’s heavy so might be a bit) a beer token and a £10 charity donation. Pm me if interested.

Similar to if you freeze beans you must grind within seconds of removing else condonation ruins it

The condensation thing is logical: oxidation is bad -> moisture increases rate of oxidation -> condensation will form on cold things in warm environments.
However, a more practical solution is to freeze the beans in an airtight container, and let it come up to room temperature before you open it to use them.
Since the beans (should) have a pretty low moisture content, I don’t see much of a problem freezing them, unless you’re being very, very particular (but of course we are talking varying levels of coffee snobbery here 😉 ).

Just ordered a Knock. Curse you, STW !! 🙂