Contributor
We looked at coffee grinders as well as coffee makers for a very long time for the wife. The coffee maker she ended up with is the Tenhnivorm Moccamaster and the coffee grinder is the Rancilio Rocky coffee grinder. You can find the grinder at about $250 on a regular basis. Everyone raves about that Moccamaster when the get coffee from it.
Member
I also have the Kitchenaid Burr Grinder. As other have said, it is a tank. We have had ours for at least 15 years and it keeps on grinding!! We roast our own beans and fresh grind our coffee several times per day. Absolutely no issues with this one. As you have realized, the cheaper grinders just die after awhile.
Well, holy smokes - I just looked at the price of the KitchenAid. I think I paid $125 for it --and probably used Amazon points and got it for next to nothing. Phew, they have gone up in price!! Still worth it - and I would do it again in a flash.
UPDATE: they are cheaper on Amazon than the KitchenAid site I first checked out.
Contributor
!! $250 for a coffee grinder?! Yikes. I have two Krups grinders -- one for the house, and one for the shop. They do what they need to do: make grounds from beans. One of the two is ten years old, and the other might be twenty or thirty. $15-$20 each.
Moderator
Matt, I don't use the grinder with any kind of timer and don't leave any beans in the bin...I prefer the coffee to be in an air-tight container. I put just enough in to grind for one dose and use the manual button until it's done with the beans I put in. This is my second one of this type; the first lasted ten years.Originally Posted by Matt Meiser
While I know it seems silly to have such a large grinder that sits empty when not in use, I like how it grinds and know exactly how much to put in for each latté I make.
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The most expensive tool is the one you buy "cheaply" and often...
Contributor
Yet another vote for the capresso Infinity. I have no idea how long I've had mine, but it's been at least 10 years. I hadn't seen any mention of ease of cleaning in the other posts, but a nice feature is that the top burr just drops in and lifts out, so you can clean it easily. I wipe out the grinding chamber and bottom burr and then wipe the top burr daily, takes about 1 minute. Grind seems very consistent to me, but I've not compared to other grinders. Compared to the series of whirly-choppers I used before this, it was night and day. I have the plastic version, no problems. Also, when I needed a replacement plastic receiver cannister (or whatever it's called where the ground coffee goes) the cost was very reasonable and easy to get parts right from capresso. I appreciate a manufacturer who doesn't try to make extra money by charging a lot for a simple plastic piece, just because they can.
If something happened to this one, I'd buy another immediately, and probably pay for overnight delivery rather than go back to my old blade style grinder - which I still have somewhere in the shop for grinding shellac flakes.
Good luck Matt, you'll love it.
Ken
[OP]
Member
I ordered the Capresso from Amazon so I could get the metal one and will have it Tuesday.
Contributor
We're hardly 'gurus' but we have 2 of these Cuisinart Grind n Brew's--
grindnbrew.jpg
It's the only 'mainstream' grind n brew machine I found with a burr grinder, and they work great as far as I'm concerned. We make an average of 4 pots of coffee a day with with it. The first one I put in storage about 2 years ago; at around 10 years old (roughly 14,000 uses!) it started 'hanging' between grinding and dumping the grind. I found the problem, it was a piece of plastic that developed a burr or flat spot (I forget exactly) and after fixing it (took about 20 minutes) it worked perfectly- but I bought another one in the meantime just in case, and it's worked flawlessly. And the plastic piece I fixed is now a metal piece in the new one (IIRC). The old one still grinds like the new one after all this time.
The chute needs brushing out about twice a week, not a big deal but in reading thru reviews, many owners consider that "a flaw". Guess it IS easier to just open a can
The grinder's noisy. And then you get great coffee. That's the nutshell
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ELEVEN - rotary cutter tool machines
FOUR - CO2 lasers
THREE- make that FOUR now
ONE - vinyl cutter
CASmate, Corel, Gravostyle
[OP]
Member
I don't drink nearly that much coffee. Usually about 2 20oz mugs a day. When its cooler that's usually a brewed coffee at breakfast and a cappuccino/caramel mocha thing (espresso, skim milk, and, sugar-free syrup so its not too bad dietary-wise compared to buying something at Starbucks.) Summer its usually a brewed coffee and cold-brew coffee. The cold brew we buy whole bean at the store and grind it in their grinder as it take too long with our grinder and we get too much fine sludge in the bottom.
I'm interested in trying to roast my own beans but haven't really looked into it. Any recommendations on good sources of info? We also have a local roaster but I never remember to stop in and get some to try. One of the local restaurants uses it and I like their coffee.
Contributor
Gentlemen, reading the reviews I note that even the people that love them, they still have complaints of static electricity affecting the dusty part of the grounds, and making somewhat a mess. Any way around this, or is this just inherent in the process?
Moderator
Unfortunately, it's the nature of the beast. I find that "which" beans I'm using affects the static issue, too...some "stick" more than others. I just make a bit of noise banging the bin on the counter a few times while filling the portafilter on my espresso machine to get "most" of the fine stuff to fall out where I want it.
We tried that for awhile with a small, hot air type roaster. It worked but was time consuming and had to be done outside...the aroma of roasting coffee, particularly in the beginning stages isn't all that pleasant, quite frankly. Since there are several local roasters with beans we really like, we stopped trying to do our own long ago.
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The most expensive tool is the one you buy "cheaply" and often...
Contributor
From the $250 grinder you are looking at, I am guessing we may have different budgets, but here is my experience for what it is worth.
My wife and I have been roasting our own for about ten years. We use a $15-$20 hot air popcorn popper. Look for one with the vents on the side, instead of the bottom, of the place you put the popcorn. They burn out every couple of years, but I don't think I have yet hit the price of a purpose built roaster. Even the cheap ones I have looked at are a couple of hundred dollars, and are only warranted for a year. The fancier ones can be up to about $1000. The popcorn popper works really well for light to medium roasts, which is what I prefer. For darker roasts, I think you would burn it up pretty quickly. I have roasted in a pan as well on occasion, but for every day use I use the popcorn popper.
Sweet Maria's has a pretty good site with an explanation of how to get started.
I buy my beans from Coffee Bean Direct. They will ship a 25 or 50 pound bag. I have not done a direct comparison lately, but when I started roasting, I could get a price per pound that was less than half of what we were paying to buy it already roasted from Starbucks or whatever. Green, the beans last practically forever, and the quality has been excellent.
Unlike someone else (who I will not name in order to leave him a chance to recant his heretical opinions) I like the smell of roasting coffee. You do get some chaff that can be a bit of a mess, but it has been manageable for us and in my opinion the benefits of a freshly roasted, freshly ground cup of coffee every morning are well worth it.
Contributor
Good luck w/ your new grinder. FWIW, I've found by weighing all raw materials when doing espresso based drinks, you gain a more consistent drink. The best coffee shop I've been to in over 40 years of drinking coffee weighs and times everything and the results are impressive, I can literally walk in at anytime and get the exact same tasting drink regardless of the Barista working. Very science and math focused, the results are nothing short of incredible.
Mac
Last edited by Mac McQuinn; 07-24-2017 at 2:21 PM.
Contributor
Patrick,
I feel it depends on the grinder, I had a Solis Maestro and the grounds would cling pretty bad and my last purchase, a Vario by Baratza is pretty much dust free. That said the Vario uses ceramic burrs and the Maestro had steel burrs FWIW.
Mac
Guest
+1 to the information at Sweet Maria's.
We started with the hot air popcorn popper but found the volume a bit small at around 3-4oz per batch (maybe there are bigger poppers) and it was hard to get a real consistent roast. It was a really great way to learn though and the small batches were also really nice for playing with different roast profiles and beans at a small scale. I would still recommend starting out this way if you want to do it.
Eventually we moved up the the Behmore 1600 which is basically a fancy toaster oven with a timer/temperature controller, fan, and a rotating drum. Its been pretty good, its nominally a 1lb roaster but can realistically do about 3/4lb reliably. It did have a problem with the rotating drum coupling coming apart (and when I pulled it open to fix that I found some of the solder joints were .. sub par.. so fixed them while I was there) but other than that its been doing a daily batch for ?3? (at least) years.
There are a bunch of links off of Sweet Maria's site to people who have DIY'd all sorts of roasters as well, if you're feeling ambitious that would be a fun way to go.
I'll second the "recommend outside", "lots of chaff" and "smells strongly" comments although that will vary somewhat based on the bean and the roast and the system. Its not super hard to do though.
Contributor
Plenty of good replies.
We use a Rancilio Rocky doserless coffee grinder. We use it for drip coffee, pour over and French press but 95% of time it's drip coffee. We use a Behmor drip coffee maker and a bonavita kettle for pour over. Highly recommend them. I run the grinder at 25 for drip and the Behmor at 204 deg.
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