Anyone have any grinder recommendations? What have they tried and are happy with or not happy with. Any recommendations for any members who are new too grinders?
I can only speak of what I use. I have a Sage SmartGrinder Pro (£160ish on offer), and a eureka mignon specialita (£300-ish)
If I were spending more, I’d go with something like a niche.
Plus points on the SG: It’s dead easy to use, and makes decent coffee.
It’s a little noisy (nowhere near how bad some machines are, however).The Specialita is fantastic. The main reason I got it was for noise reasons, it is extremely quiet.
However, I put a lot of weight to set-and-forget convenience: The timers means once I have dialed in a bag of beans, I can press one button and get a precise dose, without using scales.
What you want the grinder to do is probably the most important question. Hand grinders are the best value, but you may soon get tired of winding every single cup.
I’ve upgraded my Eureka Mignon with a single shot hopper that has a bellows built in to blow the last of the grinds through from the burrs. Not quite a niche grinder but good enough for me. I got mine from Aliexpress, same thing available on Etsy for double the price.
I’ve been a long time Comandante C40 mk3 user and have been impressed with it. I don’t think you could go wrong with it. But if you’re looking for something that gives a cleaner profile, I suggest looking at 1zpresso’s offerings. I recently bought a ZP6-Special and it has been winning me over. It is however only for filter coffee and not suitable for espresso (if hand grinding for espresso is something you do).
personally not ventured into espresso yet, kitchen needs a re-arrangement and SO needs to be placated before I bring another kitchen gadget into the house.
I get you! I am also tight on counter space so I always prefer small footprints/hand grinders over electric grinders. There is the Lagom Mini and Varia VS3 which are relatively small electric grinders though.
