Christopherbean.com has
Baratza Encore Conical Burr Coffee Grinder for $139.99 - $28 w/ coupon code
WELCOME20 =
$111.99.
Shipping is free.
Thanks to Community Member
TheMightyKong for posting this deal.
Featuring 40 individual grind settings, from fine to coarse, the Encore can please any palate with its gamut of accurate and repeatable grind settings. The Encore has an accurate medium to coarse grind for the increasingly popular manual brew methods such as pour-over, Aeropress, Siphon and Chemex. The specially designed burrs give a precise grind with minimal fines for a flavorful, balanced extraction when making espresso.
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One for each of our homes. They are very good albeit a bit messy flinging grounds a bit at the end of the batch. But that could be because I don't use the OEM plastic bin. I use a stainless cup. Can't speak to espresso grinds though as I strictly use it for pour over in an SCA rated machine. Although YouTube has many videos of these for espresso use.
Having been down this road as a hobbyist like a couple of the other posters here, there are lots of good grinders, but you won't really know until you read *a lot* on the topic, including reviews and FAQs.
Home baristas are mostly all in the same boat - they want cafe performance on a Breville budget (spoiler 1: you can't do it with Breville; spoiler 2: when you get good at making espresso, you will be sorely disappointed by a lot of espresso shops). There are whole sites dedicated to this, so please don't rely on a couple of posts from deal seekers to understand espresso and the related gear.
Take a couple of weeks to study at https://www.home-barista.com/ and related forums. Watch all the newbie videos. Read the how to articles. To honor those who came before, please do your best to read all of the previous "what should I buy?" posts before making a new one. Every question you're going to ask has been asked and answered before. If you can be patient and take the time, you will come out of that study with a strong list of what you need, what brands you will tolerate, and what your upgrade paths are.
When you feel like you've exhausted that, go to https://www.coffeegeek.
The best way (IMO) to get a deal on an espresso grinder is to buy used or returned. Once you know the brands, you can watch your local Craigslist and get a cafe-quality flat burr grinder like a Mazzer for about half the new price. If it turns on at all, the most you'll usually need is a $50 burr set. Unless they're totally worn out, you might need nothing. I've bought great used 58mm cafe grinders for $200-250 and almost never been disappointed.
If you want a retail shop behind it to guarantee it, then you can consider returns at places like this:
https://www.chriscoffee
https://www.seattlecoff
Good luck
And the lack of espresso grind is why I have never invested in an expensive grinder. This everyday $13.88 Krups [walmart.com] works fine for espresso, or for regrinding already ground coffee to release more oils.
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And the lack of espresso grind is why I have never invested in an expensive grinder. This everyday $13.88 Krups [walmart.com] works fine for espresso, or for regrinding already ground coffee to release more oils.
The reason blade grinder can't do espresso is because it produces unpredictable mix of larger and smaller particles - and the small ones would choke the coffee puck. And if you decrease grind time, water would flow through the puck like shower.
It could produce fine powder for Turkish coffee, though? That's the finest grind in use. Because if you sit on the button, it would keep chopping until everything turns into flour-like dust - and that's good for Turkish coffee, where you do quick successive boild in djezve/ibrik and then precipitate with cold water - but fully expect "mud" at the bottom of the cup.
If blade grinder "works fine" for your espresso machine, i'll take a guess it's pressurized portafilter and you don't tamper coffee in a puck - so effectively what you do is like tea infusion - the valve makes sure coffee steeps long enough, then dispenses. Likely not grinding fine enough or would be complaining from mud in the cup - so extraction is weak and it's not quite espresso - but one gets used to particular result
The reason blade grinder can't do espresso is because it produces unpredictable mix of larger and smaller particles - and the small ones would choke the coffee puck. And if you decrease grind time, water would flow through the puck like shower.
It could produce fine powder for Turkish coffee, though? That's the finest grind in use. Because if you sit on the button, it would keep chopping until everything turns into flour-like dust - and that's good for Turkish coffee, where you do quick successive boild in djezve/ibrik and then precipitate with cold water - but fully expect "mud" at the bottom of the cup.
If blade grinder "works fine" for your espresso machine, i'll take a guess it's pressurized portafilter and you don't tamper coffee in a puck - so effectively what you do is like tea infusion - the valve makes sure coffee steeps long enough, then dispenses. Likely not grinding fine enough or would be complaining from mud in the cup - so extraction is weak and it's not quite espresso - but one gets used to particular result
Oh, I tamper coffee into a filter so as not the mud. I have drank coffee all over the world from every type of coffee maker and grinder made by the very best Baristas and find that most coffee snobs justify their spend that does not taste any better than a $13 grinder puts out for espresso. I have heard all the BS that a blade is inconsistent, etc. and etc., which is absolutely not true.
I have a good friend that imports coffee from all over the world to run through his several snob coffee shops, while wholesaling and retailing. The key is the coffee bean itself, that the buyers can only try to produce the same blend for whatever brand, year after year. What tastes great this year, may or may not next year, so the search of the bean is the difficult part for perfection that is very subjective.
The key has been the temperature of the water itself and the time hold for different beans at a specific temperature and served at the optimum temperature. All too 'scientific' for someone that just wants a decent cup of coffee that even some drip machines with a hot plate can produce from a specific blend.
Nevertheless, the finer the grind, the more the extract of the coffee itself. That is just the physics of it. Course and medium grinds just waste good coffee, but make less than quality coffee more tolerable.
As always, buy whatever you want to buy, but don't even try to justify the spend of a grinder that may or may not be perfect for your maker and the bean you are using. People always buy the bean that works (tastes the best) for their equipment and not the equipment that will adjust to the bean and grind used. Me, I want all the extraction I can get from expensive coffee and run it through a machine that is consistent with about 200F that may require higher or lower than room temperature beans. Even a cheap drip machine can make great coffee from a good coffee bean if the right water temperature range and the right temperature of the heating plate.
[remainder of long rambling post trimmed]
This is terrible advice that will lead someone down a path of disappointment. The Encore and Infinity are not espresso grinders, full stop. They are mechanically incapable of providing a fine grind uniform enough to use with a non-pressurized basket, which means channeling and off-flavors are guaranteed regardless of tamping. Glad you've managed to enjoy that setup somehow, but there's no chance you wouldn't see substantial improvement using a proper espresso grinder with a proper espresso machine.
And respectfully, if you wish to call out people for not being clued in, you should at least use the right terminology in your diatribe. Tamping is what you do to an espresso basket, while tampering is what you're doing in this post.
Okay, here's my experience as cheapskate who once upon a time got as serious about coffee as to buy green beans and do own roasting at home as to know for sure how fresh the roast is. 15+ years ago i got Gaggia Carezza espresso maker - the cheapest one i could find using non-pressurized portafilter + using pump + no thermoblock. They warned and they were right - the 58mm industrial size brass portafilter (w/o "crema disk" insert) was unforgiving to mistakes in grind size and tampering. But that was blessing in disguise, since it made it very easy to tell when i had it wrong: if a double-shot did not pull within 20-30sec time, there was a problem - as simple as that, rinse and repeat till got it right. And when there's a problem, it's not even close - either it pours in under 10sec or it chokes to squeeze a ristretto in 60sec. Great learning experience i wouldn't have got with pressurized portafilter, which always gets it in right time regardless of grind and tamper (even if wrong brew/taste)
What did i learn?
Grind matters a lot. I learned first hand that blade-grinder and cheapest burr-grinders
Yah dude, we know to buy fresh roasts. We weren't putting Folgers crystals through our Baratzas
I had emailed them on Saturday but have yet to get a response.
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I also had bad experience with Breville grinder and I conclude that unless you have an expensive electric grinder, they are less reliable than the manual one.
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