having been given a DeLonghi Black ‘Motivo’ ECC220.B coffee maker for my birthday i fancy getting all nerdy with beans and grind coarseness etc etc in vague off-chance i can get rid of teh kids long enough to actually enjoy an undisturbed cup.

the office is round the corner from a place to get decent beans so thats not an issue. I dont want to do bags at a time just enough for me.

no idea where to start. i`m assuming i need a finer grind than for a caffetiere?

cheers mark

How much do you want to spend!!!!
£50-60’ish for a ceramic Burr
£80-100 for metal burr
£200 for the Gaggia MDF IF you can actually find one!
£200-1000+ for Cunil and the like

well i’d not rather spend enough to by me new forks. otherwise i’ll do that.

Hand grinder works fine.

http://www.hario.co.uk/coffee/ceramic-mini-mill.html

The Baratza Encore for a little over £100 is very good – that’s what I use. Below that the Krups Burr grinder at around £45 is perfectly capable. I have a Rhinowares hand grinder for use at work which is also fine.

will that grind fine enough for espresso?

+1 for the Hario mini, just got one. Good adjustment, nice even grind. £15 quid, no brainer.

The Baratza will grind fine enough to choke my espresso machine if I want it to and the Krups “kind of” will grind fine enough but not really. People tell me the Rhinowares will but I’ve not done it myself.

Krups is bollocks for an espresso machine. Avoid.

I’ve got the Hario Mini too. It does the job nicely, but if I had the money I’d want something that requires a little less effort from me or my kids (we often play the ‘help Daddy make coffee’ game).

i think what i`m getting here is unless i spend shedloads it wont do so i might just stick to shoving the finer grinds from the shop in the freezer.

There are much better hand grinders for not much more money than the Hario Mini. The Porlex and Porlex Mini or the Rhinowares I mentioned are all more robust and grind much more consistently.

Whichever grinder you get freshly ground coffee will be a lot better than ready ground!

all this coffee talk…..

…grinding right now!

Whatever you do, don’t buy a Krups one, I have to remove the ‘on’ front button from mine and operate it by pressing a tiny bit of plastic weirdness on the circuit board inside…although it does still work 😕

i might just stick to shoving the finer grinds from the shop in the freezer.

Don’t do that.

How is a £15 hand grinder ‘shedloads’?

My boss had a Gaggia one, not sure which, went for over £100 on eBay when he sold it secondhand. When on for years and years and ground really well.

Lots of reviews saying the Hario mini one is good but the crank rounds off after not very long due to a design flaw.

The slightly bigger one with the glass bowl is also highly rated and not very much more expensive (I paid ~£20), and doesn’t have this flaw.

I find it gives a nice even grind at espresso size, but at coarser grinds it’s uneven because the centre burr is floating.

The mini has a spring loaded centre burr so is good at quite coarse grinds. If they did the bigger one with the mini burr that would be perfect.

The Gaggia will be the MDF – rocking horse poo for the roses is easier to get hold off!

I have the krups. It grinds nicely and it’s only £45. I use it once a day. I would be interested to see if a more expensive one makes much difference. I guess it depends how far down the rabbit hole you want to go.

Once you go above a certain level then you’re into professional grade machines anyway.
The MC05 Cunil I have is a case in point.
They sent me it by mistake instead of their 0.5kg domestic one which is the same footprint as the Gaggia MDF – only this one isn’t! Think Costa and a full 2kg capacity suitable for a restaurant/coffee shop 😯
Never even took it out of the box so it’ll end up on ebay no doubt.

Hario hand grinder here, works a treat. I use it for Turkish coffee which is an even finer grind than espresso.

I have both the Hario mini ceramic which is nice for portability and a recent wedding present of a Kitchen Aid artisan leccy burr grinder. Very happy with both. The Hario was 10% of the cost of the Kitchen Aid

maybe i`ll dabble with the hario one.

the initial posts and some reading around lead me to believe i needed a plug in baby to get fine enough grounds.

a mate has teh krups one and its bloody noisey and the on button is broken as per the chap in this thread so i`ll avoid that. i dont think i mind the faff. maybe i’ll go for the bigger hario one in case i have visitors and need to brew a caffetiare full…

I’ve got one of the Porlex hand grinders – this thing – great for one person, okay for two, you can buy most of the bits as spares from Hasbean. The handle eventually rounds off if you’re careless, but mine’s been going for about five years now and is still going strong.

I use a cheap £10 electric grinder, fine for cafetiere, grinds about 3 cups worth at a time. It does this in about 10 seconds, so it’s no hassle to empty it and grind more if needed.

Press button longer for finer grind.

If your budget allows, get this one.I haven’t looked back. Fiddly to set up to start with, but once it’s going I can’t fault it. http://www.happydonkey.co.uk/hd0866-iberital-mc2-auto.html

The iberital mc2 from happy donkey is excellent. It grinds a precise dose straight into your filter carrier so there’s no waste or stale grounds. Their coffee is good too.

I have the Iberital MC2, bought from clueless period researching coffee stuff and loads of posts said to get it.

It’s great for the grinding, but it requires fiddling to get the right grind. Varying the grind fineness and the timer. I find different beans also will result in very different flow of shots to others for the same setting so each type of bean needs experimenting with. For espressos that is. For filter and caffettiere it comes out good though with a general course grind, although adjusting between a course grind and espresso is a pain having to wind the grind lever to a different setting and back.

I’ve got two Krups – one for the coffee and the other for spices. Need two as your coffee will taste of spices otherwise

Had them for a few years, as has a friend. No issues

Exactly the same experience as Deadkenny with the iberia. Good at what it does but a pain to switch between significantly different grinds.

Anyone suggesting a handgrinder however is an imposter and should be thrown from the thread! A proper caffeine habit will never be satiated by a hand grinder unless you had a misspent youth of self pleasure and developed wrist speed and stamina only a teenage boy can muster.

Anyone had any experience with this one… Clicky

I use a Bodum Grinder and the Whittards V60 kit

I get my coffee from various places but quite like Bean and Ground company I was using Pact for a bit but choice of coffee isn’t great, send junk mail but did use the odd freebie code.

A Nemox Lux for about £ 105 on Amazon.de (or eBay?)

and then this easy mod :
finegrinding

It beats grinders costing £300..

I’ve got a Dualit 75015. Off the shelf its quite good for most coffees, though its just a bit too coarse for expressos. I had to do a mod to get a finer grind. I can only compare it to my previous blade grinder and the pre-ground stuff you get in the shops, but its definitely better.

expressos

😐

I was persuaded to buy a Eureka Mignon as the cheapest grinder I’d not need to replace.
http://www.bellabarista.co.uk/eureka-mignon-instantaneo-grinder-auto-manual-matt-black.html?gclid=CMyLgP2138cCFcHnGwodzHkLHQ

£280. Once set up for the beans reliably gives even grinds and accurate dispense. Mines a year old but really feels like it will last a lifetime and it’s a good slim shape so don’t take up too much worktop space.

I don’t find the iberital difficult to adjust for grind and quantity. I have mine set to one third of a double basket. So its 2 grinds, tamp then a final grind and tamp so I don’t get spillage. If somebody wants a weaker shot it’s just 2 grinds.
Actually we gave 2 iberitals. Mrs bigjohn likes Taylors beans so they’re in one and the happy donkey in the other. She’s not a coffee fanatic but once you grind your own you can’t go back to ready ground.