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Coffee grinder up to £40?

JTC

JTC

PFM Villager...
Accidentally bought a job lot of Illy beans (rather than ground) and as this is the perfect excuse to experiment with 'grinding my own' I've got wife-sign-off to buy a grinder, provided it isn't too expensive or large (our kitchen is small).

Any recommendations up to around forty notes? Can go a little higher if absolutely essential. Most of the ground coffee will go into either an Aeropress or Cafetiere, but I don't necessarily want to say there won't be an espresso machine in my future.... oh, and I'd prefer something automatic if possible, as I don't really want to have to grind manually....

thanks :)
 
My wife bought me a Krups GVX231 last year, and despite my geeky reservations, it is pretty good.

Seem to remember that this De Longhi KG79 is well regarded too.
 
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I bought this for a tenner. It'll grind enough for an aeropress espresso.

For a bit more, this is pretty good too.

I'm not a coffee expert, but coffee made this way/with these compares favourably to the artisan houses in Norwich—who charge more for aeropress than 'machine-made!

Stephen
 
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John

Sorry but you are going to be drinking second rate coffee for the rest of your life with that sort of budget.

Coffee has to be burred, not ground and you also need to vary the degree off burring. The burring process has to grind the beans without singeing the oil in the bean and it takes a quality machine to achieve this.

I use a Kitchen Aid model which is a good cost effective machine. Here is the url

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B000I0LFGA/?tag=pinkfishmedia-21

It is robust, will last for years, easily adjusted and most important, easily dismantled to facilitate cleaning.

I have had one in the UK for nearly twenty years and one in Spain for about 5 years. Each gets used twice daily depending where I am and they are ultra reliable.

Sipping good coffee is a genuine pleasure so buy some decent gear which will give you years of good service.

Regards

Mick
 
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Apparently 'cold burring' is the way to go as some grinders warm the beans as they grind. My mate uses one of these Zassenhaus hand-burr/grinders after it was recommended to him by a hard-core, coffee aficionado and it makes a damn fine cup of coffee when the beans are cooked in a Bialetti moka express!

71V4fIb2ouL._SL1500_.jpg
 
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windhoek said:
Apparently 'cold burring' is the way to go as some grinders warm the beans as they grind.
Click to expand...

All grinding will raise the temperature—do you have a link to any evidence of a temperature 'cut off point' that demonstrably damages the taste?

My grinder doesn't raise the temperature so much I can detect it with my fingers. :D

Genuine question! I am interested.

(Edit: I'm now scared I'm going to have a 'cable' moment here.):p

Stephen
 
Best cheap option is a hand grinder either Hario or Porlex. They will grind as well as decent machine grinders but don't really scale beyond making coffee for one. Zassenhaus are very good but getting up in price where you start to think about the entry level machines. If I was going to spend a lot on a hand grinder then Lido all the way.

Best cheap machine grinder, although I have no direct experience, is the DeLonghi Richard linked. It has a very good reputation for the money.

Best value one we are into high quality machine grinders is the Baratza Encore (about £120) which is enough grinder for anyone unless you own a cafe or want to make espresso. We have one at work and it has reliably served in our office for 3 years for V60, Aeropress, Clever, etc.

Beyond that the grinder world is getting very excited about the Baratza Sette which, with it's put the burrs the other way around, is one of those why did nobody think of this before moments? http://www.baratza.com/grinder/sette-270/

I don't think the Kitchen Aid Mick linked is available anymore and it was also was overpriced unless you needed the bomb proof construction for commercial use.
 
stephen bennett said:
All grinding will raise the temperature—do you have a link to any evidence of a temperature 'cut off point' that demonstrably damages the taste?

My grinder doesn't raise the temperature so much I can detect it with my fingers. :D

Genuine question! I am interested.

(Edit: I'm now scared I'm going to have a 'cable' moment here.):p

Stephen
Click to expand...

From what I've heard Stephen, it's less about bean damage and more about pre-mature, aromatic ejaculation ... that's what she said :D
 
Stephen

Helicopter blade type grinders are the bad boys as they whizz round, slice the beans to ribbons and singe the oil in the beans and your coffee tastes rather unpleasant.

Burring machines are like gear wheels that crush the beans and do not raise the temperature.

The good burring machines need a good over powered motor to turn the wheels slowly.

Matthew seems to think that the Kitchen Aid is discontinued, which if true, is a pity. The main virtue of the Kitchen Aid is that even a ham fisted plonker like me can easily dismantle it and clean it out. The alternative is to have some of yesterdays burred beans in todays coffee and that is why I was prepared to pay the price.

Good coffee is a necessity of a contented life and I am buggered if I am going to drink second rate slop for the sake of a cheap grinder.

Having said that, I am currently drinking a pleasant Earl Grey made from loose leaf which is ten times better than the muck you get in tea bags.

Here is the teapot I use.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCtX5M47qTY

Regards

Mick
 
For a budget of less than £40 I would simply buy a hammer.

The difference between my £400 grinder and the later £900 model I bought (with much larger and more slowly turning burrs) is phenomenal. The cheap grinder is used for filter coffee only (on a coarse setting).
 
windhoek said:
From what I've heard Stephen, it's less about bean damage and more about pre-mature, aromatic ejaculation ... that's what she said :D
Click to expand...

Oh, er, missus.:rolleyes:

That kind of makes some sense, but I need data!

I know, weird thing to say from someone who's into hi-fi.:cool:

Stephen
 
Mick P said:
The main virtue of the Kitchen Aid is that even a ham fisted plonker like me can easily dismantle it and clean it out. The alternative is to have some of yesterdays burred beans in todays coffee and that is why I was prepared to pay the price.
Click to expand...

All the decent burr grinders can be dismantled for cleaning and have low retention. Although when cleaning we are really more concerned about oils than retained grounds; I just give mine a run through with some cleaning grinds (brand is Grindz or something).

See also the inverted burr arrangement on the Sette which (apparently) makes retention more or less a non-problem.
 
Go onto Coffee Forums UK and make five posts (think it's five) which will let you access the classifieds and then buy a decent grinder on there for about £100.

I've a Hario hand grinder and it's okay but you'll soon tire of it, a decent hand grinder will set you back a good £100 or buy a second hand one re above.

The grinder is more important, arguably, than the coffee machine.

I'm currently using a 1978 La Pav Europiccolla and a La Cimbali Magnum grinder with 73mm burrs, total cost of both £350 and they make coffee to die for so long as you buy decent beans from the likes of Coffee Compass or your local coffee roaster.

Tony
 
najb said:
For a budget of less than £40 I would simply buy a hammer.

The difference between my £400 grinder and the later £900 model I bought (with much larger and more slowly turning burrs) is phenomenal. The cheap grinder is used for filter coffee only (on a coarse setting).
Click to expand...

But Espresso is both expensive and different. And see Matt Perger's recent essays on grind distribution, the role of fines, why the EK43 is so good and pushing espresso extractions well beyond 20%, why Nespresso capsules work so well despite low quality grinds and so on.
 
najb said:
For a budget of less than £40 I would simply buy a hammer.

The difference between my £400 grinder and the later £900 model I bought (with much larger and more slowly turning burrs) is phenomenal. The cheap grinder is used for filter coffee only (on a coarse setting).
Click to expand...

With respect I think that should be 'cheaper' rather than 'cheap.'
 
I prefer to use the grinder in the coffee shop that roasts a daily green bean batch in the AM and grinds it to order. The coffee does not go off by the time I get to the end of a bag (I am a prodigious coffee drinker) so I just get it ground on an industrial but foo foo machine. One less gadget to fret-over/buy/maintain/own/go wrong
 
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