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I use a Turkish coffee grinder I got off ebay. It's a good solid brass cylinder and you manually grind the beans. Dead easy to use for under £20
Hi guys, I'm looking at getting into grinding my own coffee beans rather than relying on the pre-ground packs of Lavazza and the like.
I've had a google but would prefer some personal recommendations. I generally use the La Pavoni Europiccola to make espresso, so would assume I need to grind the beans really quite fine, which seems to be a bit of a challenge for a lot of grinders based on my initial research.
I'm open to considering any budget - I like to know my options, but in practice I will probably buy toward the lower end of the spectrum (... whatever that means).
Thanks in advance (and if there's an obvious thread that I've missed on this topic, apologies).
Jack
I use a Turkish coffee grinder I got off ebay. It's a good solid brass cylinder and you manually grind the beans. Dead easy to use for under £20
Go for a decent burr grinder...or stick with Lavazza, IMO.
Edit: See Don't Skimp on the Grinder...esp "What to look for".
Last edited by PickleB; 10th March 2015 at 22:20.
I've had a Compak K3 for seven years now, and I've been really happy with it. It's not exactly cheap, but cheaper than a Mazzer and just as good.
Hi there,
Google whole latte love or the daily grind and see what they say for the must have...
You do need a burr grinder. I have the Kitchen Aid. A wedding present before I got into coffee. It's ok. I don't think it is as bad claimed, but I wish I could get a finer grind. Looks good though :)
I bought a Hario Slim to take traveling and that is superb - £15 on amazon, normally £30ish. That is fab but a hand mill. It takes me a about a minute to grind, possibly longer if you are wanting super fine but it won't be more than 2 mins.
Good luck on the search, report back ;)
I bought mine a couple of years ago and have been very pleased with it for the odd occasions when I grind my own (mostly use Lavazza ready ground)
It's a very compact size - I know quite a few people use one for travelling, since it fits nicely inside an Aeropress, meaning you're all set bar the beans.
Regards,
Martyn.
It does look good:Originally Posted by martynw
...but why do all that work...& carry the weight...when you can take Lavazza ground coffee with you?
I've had a Gaggia MDF for a couple of years now, after upgrading from a Gaggia MM.
It does the job well and is solidly built. You could try for a second-hand one off eBay as these go for a decent knock down over new?
Whatever you buy, don't let your wife do what mine did with my Braun - use it to grind the spices for a curry.
Last edited by Tinker; 12th March 2015 at 01:58.
I bought this
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Andrew-James...coffee+grinder
Very good for the price of £13.99
Call Bella Barista & have a chat with Claudette what she does not know is not worth knowing & she'd rather recommend something that she did not sell if it were right for you than something she did that would be wrong.
http://www.bellabarista.co.uk
Grinders I've gone from a KitchenAid (cr@p...) to a Eurika Mignion (rather good but a little clumpy) & now a Zenith 65e (amazing!!!) & as said above NEVER cut corners on your grinder a fantastic espresso machine with a poor grinder is like a top of the range CD & amp paired to cheap speakers...
As long as your espresso machine gives a solid constant 9bar with really consistent temperatures all round from the boiler to the group head its ALL about the grind, & having a grinder that will grind consistently the same each & every with stepless micro adjustable is where its at!
Though as I'm sure your about to find out the better the grinder the larger usually... bigger motors... bigger burr sets... some are 'rather' large!!!
But as said give Claudette a call & also have a look here for good sound advice!
http://coffeeforums.co.uk/forum.php
Budgets are subjective.
If you're using a La Pavoni, you're already at the mid-high end of the spectrum and the coffee you get from it is only going to be as good as the coffee you put in it. You obviously want a burr grinder, conical optional. The grinder is mechanical so in many cases you spend more on the grinder than the machine, as its more prone to wear and most of the influence of your end product will be decided here.
All things considered, if I had to recommend only one product it'd be a Mini Mazzer. Good industrial heritage, find the batch one if you can as its usually cheaper and great if you're making the same coffee every day as it doses in fixed quantities.
65e vs Mini Mazzer :)
http://coffeetime.wdfiles.com/local-...20Mini%20E.pdf
Never heard of it before - looks like a pretty good grinder. I tend to favor robustness over other qualities, and with the heritage I'd rather stick with the Mazzer as my two cent option.
I've had a Mazzer Mini for just over 11 years that has been used daily (the slightly older manual dose). Works just as well as it did on day 1 (which is to say brilliantly!)
Mazzers don't fit under light pelmets.
Minor details than can send wife's mental.
If you going that way get a subscription to Square Mile, coffee delivered monthly the day after they roast it. Your life will change forever. Like listening to Marvin Gaye sing Heard it on the Grapevine acoustic version for the first time, music isn't the same again. Neither will coffee.
I've had an Iberital mc2 for about 6 years now and it's never missed a beat. If I had more money for a better product with a more consistent grind I'd go for a Mazzer super jolly. They're quite big but you can mod the hopper using things like camera lens hoods so that it fits under kitchen cupboards if space is an issue.
Whatever you do, make sure you don't buy one of the blades in the links and pictures above. They chop rather than grind and aren't consistent enough for espresso and espresso based drinks. You wont be able to get any real control over your extraction.
All this is irrelevant though if you don't use fresh beans. Look for an online roaster who posts within a few days of roasting then grind what you need, when you need it. Look out for Rave, James gourmet, hasbean and smokey barn, they're just afew of the online companies with good, fresh beans.
I've had a Porlex for a few years and it's been great, though I normally only grind enough beans for just one drink, anything more can become annoying. I don't drink enough coffee to justify a motorised burr grinder, but have been considering some of the mechanical ones - it seems they can do enough for a single shot in around 30seconds.
This is something else (but very pricey)
http://hg-one.com/the-hg-one-grinder/
and I quire like the look of these
http://www.oehandgrinders.com/
I have a rancilio rocky. Absolutely superb. :)
Last time I was looking I nearly bought one of these and think I may well do so now. Reviewed extremely well and modestly priced at 140 quid or so.
Or stick to illy dark tins, they really are very good :)
My friend has one of them and I set it up for him. I was well impressed with the build for the money but I seriously couldn't get on with the stepped settings if it were mine. I was wanting to go inbetween grind settings all the time, so frustrating.
For the money they're great once they're dialled in. It's stepless and the grinding plates can be moved in tiny increments, which is brilliant when it's roughly dialled in correctly, you just need a bit of patience in initially getting to that point. If you buy from happydonkey.co.uk I think you get a couple of bags of beans for free which is very handy.
I had one of these for years and after some research I found out that the blades can heat up the beans and alter the flavour, which is why I went for the burr grinder option below. It's amazing and worth every penny. Well made, straight forward settings and delivers great flavour.Whatever you buy, don't let your wife do what mine did with my Baun - use it to grind the spices for a curry.
• http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/like/1606...pid=107&chn=ps
Some great advice and suggestions there, thank you all - I'll start working through them and report back.
I have a funny feeling that I'm going to spend more time (and money) on this than I originally intended..!
I have this one and it is brilliant, I have had a few but this is the winner,
RIAC
I have a Hario handwind model reference 'Skelton'
Comes with box and papers for a mere £35.
http://www.hario.co.uk/coffee/grinde...r-skerton.html
Fantastic.
Probably a reiteration from previous posts but if you're looking to grind for espresso you will need a grinder capable, not all can achieve this!
Most coffee aficionados spend more on the grinder than the actual espresso machine itself. That's how important a grinder is.
For filter coffee you will get away with just a run of the mill machine.
My espresso grinder is currently a Mazzer Major.
As mentioned above phone Claudette Bella Barista, she's great.
Last edited by Auto; 14th March 2015 at 08:48.
+1 for Claudette at Bella Barista
I bought my espresso machine and grinder from them with no issues and great service
This thread along with the wife and myself's increasing coffee obsession has lead me to pick one of these up. We only tend to have one cup a day through a french press, Chemex or Aeropress, so this seems to fit the bill and I don't think hand grinding will be too much of a chore.
£20.99 delivered via amazon!
I have the Dualit one from a few years ago. It looks posh next to the toaster and kettle and does a decent grind
Another vote for the Iberital MC2 got mine from https://www.happydonkey.co.uk very good service but you may have to go higher end to get the consistency to match your La Pavoni
So, £150 and some fun dialling it in, £500 and you get to call it high end or £5 a tin and it's there straight away when you need it.
Does the OP's Europiccola really need anything more than a decent, consistent grind?
I got a Hario Skerton. Fine piece of kit if you don't mind supplying the power yourself. Highly recommended.
Me too. You can wind an automatic watch as you grind your coffee. Two jobs in one go! ;-)
A hand grinder???
Philistines. Don't you know that hand grinders are too slow when grinding for espresso. Immediate grinding is vital because so much of the CO2 stored in the bean is lost in the first minute - you have to be ready to brew really fast after grinding.
Basically, if it doesn't all cost the same as a decent watch you might as well drink the dish water instead.
Like all TZ-UK threads, this one is making me feel like my own perfectly good bit of kit (in this case, a Krups burr grinder) isn't quite what it could be. Only the thought of my wife saying "You spent how much on a coffee grinder?" is restraining my shopping reflex.
Bought my grinder on advice of a friend who has a high end La Pavoni to go with my Gaggia Classic I'm not au fait with the Europiccola if it's on a par with the Gaggia then the MC2 should suit it fine, I buy bags of Lavazza for her indoors for the Italian stove top pot, it's easier than having to re dial the grinder in for the decent beans.
I also use a La Pavoni europiccola. Here is what I use, along with a little review I wrote.
http://my-new-stuff.com/mazzer-super...offee-grinder/
If I had to sum up, in one post, what this place has done to me, this would be my reference material.
I'm not sure I get your point, but if you're asking whether it's necessary to go to any great expense or bother to buy quality equipment to make an espresso then you're back to the age old debate of whether x is worth hundreds or thousands of pounds when y does a job that you are happy with.
Some might say it's stupid to buy a rolex when a Casio is £10. Some might say it's stupid to spend lot's or money and time learning to make decent espresso instead of just buying what someone else may feel is rubbish burnt beans that are pre ground and stale within a day or two of you opening them if not straight away. There's no right or wrong really. If you are into watches the chances are you'll want the most appealing to you that is affordable to you. If you're into coffee and you taste freshly roasted AND freshly ground coffee ( which most people never have ), then there's going to be a lightbulb moment. Of course for other people coffee, even espresso coffee, is just a commodity and that's fine.
But its not easy to do a Casio £10 espresso at home. Even with a hand grinder, theres still the machine to buy and nothing worth buying at bargain prices unless you are aware of some hidden gem?
Makes good curry, though.
Firstly, I'm now convinced that it's a miracle I've survived this long without a grinder at all, let alone a heavily researched one. I shall be informing the other half immediately that I have narrowly saved us from disaster by getting one for us (well, me - she doesn't drink coffee at all).
However, rather worryingly I'm also showing the early signs of decision paralysis... which usually means I haven't spent nearly enough time researching the topic and not getting side-tracked by articles on falconry and the like.
Thanks again for all the helpful comments and suggestions.
Jack
I m happy user of Eureka Mignon
compact size, fluent regulation of grinding power
Another vote for the MC2, said to be around the lowest budget for a 'decent' electric.
Otherwise I'd stick to a hand grinder, i.e. rhino or hausgrind. I have a porlex for brewed, but you couldnt do 'spro with it.
I have a Hario Mini Mill, works great but a pain if making more than a few coffees!
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Sure?
This..... All the way....
Rgds
V
Ha apparently so
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