the more £££ in grinder is giving you a more even grind throughout I’m guessing?

Yes and no. You can have flat vs conical burrs, and then bigger is generally understood to be better within each of those. There is some deep (DEEEEEEP) nerdery when it comes to burr design about the uniformity of particles being produced: “high uniformity/unimodal” I think is better for filter/pour over, whereas I think “bimodal” is better for espresso. Personally, I seem to like the flavour that conical burrs seem to produce – my Niche has the same burrs (Mazzer Kony) as pretty much every coffee shop in Sydney – so I knew what I was getting.

Otherwise, you are paying for all sorts of different things: Whether it has a timer (or even weight) based dosing, how good the motor is (high torque, low speed is better). I’m a convert to “single dosing” – which is where you are just putting the amount of beans into the grinder that you need for your shot, and then grinding absolutely all of it (+- 0.1g). My finding is that it’s much easier to dial-in your grind size when you have zero retention – leading to much better results.

The Baratza Sette was (is?) pretty much acknowledged to be the best value grinder at that end of the market – but it’s difficult to love the looks, and it’s got plastic internals which seem to fail relatively soon.

But, in the spirit of the above – pick up whatever burr grinder you can for cheap to get you started, and then see how you go from there. generally speakiing the cheaper domestic grinders will struggle down the espresso end of the grind size, but I think the ibertals are the exception to that.

But I also stand-by my “horses for courses” comment – everybody’s cost/benefit equation is different

Yeah, true, and I apologise for the slight pissiness of my comment. I guess it comes down to whether you see it as a ‘hobby’ or as a method of making a nice hot drink (and, obvs, everyone’s definition of ‘nice’ will differ).

Picked up a S/H Ibirital MC2 last night, could not believe the difference it made this morning…

I only tried a bottomless portafilter shot once with my old grinder, It struggled and spluttered and splattered everywhere due to the old grinder on ‘fine’ same settings this morning and it’s night and day different.

I’d def recommend one if anyone’s looking for a “cheap’ upgrade from a budget burr grinder

I still can’t believe there’s no stop at the end of the adjustment, I thought it’d be a case of reaching the stop then winding back to experiment. Lots of playing to do!

Yes, the Iberital takes a bit of getting used to. But if it works for you it’s excellent. We have 2. I drink Happy Donkey Brazilian blend, Mrs BigJohn drinks their Costa Rican during the day but prefers decaff after 6pm. Thinking of getting a 3rd!

I think the solenoids gone on my old classic, I can get steam from the wand but nothing from the group head, I’ve tried the trick of mashing the buttons to dislodge the scale but nothing, I’ve just stripped the solenoid today and had it sat in puly for half hour (O-rings removed)

I noticed I could blow through one bore but not both.

All back together and still nothing through the group, new solenoid time?

You can here it switching when pressing the button slowly, just nothing coming through

What about the other whatsit, the one with the spring that regulates the pressure, cleaned that out too?
(if you take it apart you’ll probably need a pressure gauge so you can set the pressure properly again, although it might be possitbe to do without).

I noticed I could blow through one bore but not both.

I used to get issue when I used gaggias, take a bit of electrical wire and strip a strand and use that to clear the solenoid.

Yes its very easy to unblock the solenoid. Take it all apart and you can poke out the blockage.

Thanks for the tips, after x3 40min stints in descaler and 3 blow outs with the air hose it seems to be working good as new.

Not sure if anyone would know but are the two bores in the valve the same width? There seemed to noticibly more air coming from one more than the other, wasn’t sure if the bores were different sizes though