The Coffee Grinder

So you've decided to buy a new coffee grinder or upgrade your coffee grinder. How do you choose out of all the options that are available today? And there are a lot of really great options out there. You may have heard that putting your money into a coffee grinder is one of the better spends that you can make when it comes to equipment. And that is 100% correct. The problem is there are so many really good coffee grinders out there and you can't really try any of them ahead of time. And to make it even more complicated, I think the actual answer to this is highly dependent upon your situation and your context and is a lot more complicated than a simple this is the best grinder period under a certain dollar amount or kind of ranking of different grinders. So in this video, I'm going to go over the different factors that I think you should consider when you're making a purchase And then I'm going to look at several different scenarios to help you find your way, whether you're a beginner or a full fledged down the rabbit hole. Obvious looking for their end game grinder. So when you're looking for a new coffee grinder, what are the factors that you should consider? I think there's four big ones. N And n Once you figure out what you want in each of these four categories, it will strip away the majority of the other options and From that point, you can look at features, performance, all that kind of thing and make hopefully a lot more streamlined of a decision. So to start, let's talk about budget. And this is the thing that I think you should set first. Now, as I said, I do think a coffee grinder within the scope of your entire setup is one of the best places to put your money. That being said, there is a near limitless ceiling of how much money you can actually spend one of these things. A lot of people don't realize that, but a coffee grinder can really end up costing an absurd amount of money. And within the whole spectr So while I think that spending on your grinder is some of the best money that you can spend, I also never recommend anybody overextend themselves financially for the sake of getting a little bit nicer of a coffee grinder. And I hope this goes without saying, but this conversation tends to go a lot better when you bring your spouse or partner in on the front end. So set that budget and work from there. You may choose to come back and revisit it once you're in there looking at some of the options, but start with that now, once you have that, the second factor that you need to consider is use. How you're actually going to use that grinder. And I'll often get a question one of my channels Which grinder should I get? And it's kind of a funny question because while they're both very good grinders, they're also totally different in terms of their actual use case. Now, when it comes to electric coffee grinders, I would really encourage you to look between single dosing grinders. Those are grinders where you're meant to kind of weigh out and then grind one serving of coffee at a time and on demand grinders. Those are grinders where you see that hopper of beans up on the top. You stick your portafilter or your dosing cup in the bottom and you press a button and a certain amount of coffee comes out. Single dosing grinders are great if you want to flip between different coffees every now and then or with some of the nicer ones, kind of move between different brew methods, But if you're the type of person where you really just want to have one bag of coffee on the go, you're going to go through the whole thing and then you're going to buy another bag and go from there. And you find convenience really valuable. Then an on-demand grinder is a really good consideration too. They tend to be quicker in terms of workflow and they're more of a said it and forget it type thing. With most of them, you can't actually change the bean that you're using very easily. So even if you want to go from And another thing to consider is depending on how quickly you go through your beans, if it takes you a long time, sometimes the beans can get a little more stale up in that hopper a little bit more quickly. So flexibility and precision, look at single dosing grinders, convenience and speed, look at on-demand grinders. Once you kind of choose one of those paths, you can kind of just cut out a huge swath of the grinders that are available out there and start looking at a smaller now there are also something called hand grinders, and these are grinders that grind up a serving of coffee at a time. They kind of look Those grinders will deliver fantastic bang for your buck when it comes to dollar spent for grind quality and taste. They are a lot more tedious to use as well though. I think that they can be a really great option, especially if you're looking for portability, or good bang for your buck dollar wise with filter brews. If you are really wanting to push forward into espresso, I really kind of encourage electric grinders as a starting point, just because grinding by hand for espresso, So once you have your budget and you've determined your use and you're thinking, okay, I'm either looking for a single dosing grinder, an on-demand grinder, or a hand grinder. Depending on your price point, you can look at the different options and start to make a selection based on taste. And I'll just be frank here, this starts to become more of a conversation the higher your budget goes. You're just going to see more options with more varying taste profiles, more specialized taste profiles. Doesn't mean the less expensive grinders are bad, it just means you'll find more specialization at those higher price points. And then finally, you have aesthetics and lifestyle fit. And you really just want to keep this in mind as you're kind of filtering through those first three categories. And I wanted to include this because I feel like, And I'm going to be honest, Justin, I just want to say, I think that's a valid consideration. I think you should enjoy using the equipment that you end up getting. And I think very often in video reviews, we can focus on, So in a nutshell, that's my process for finding your way to choosing this wrestle grinder. You set your budget, pick your use, pair back the majority of the options, and then look at what's left and make a judgment based on taste profile, aesthetics and lifestyle fit. And you can start prioritizing based on specific features and performance at that point as well. So I think now we can look at a couple different budget ranges and specific scenarios all the way from beginner to hardcore enthusiast. Say you're just starting out with this stuff and you're saying, Justin, let's get started. My budget is $100. I would say that's awesome. Most people never spend $100 on a coffee grinder. And if you're in a situation where you'ready to drop $100 on a coffee grinder, you're definitely on the road to great coffee. In that price range, you're going to get the best bang for your buck by looking at a hand grinder. And there are several that we can look at. If you're saying, really, I want to spend $100 and get an electric grinder, I'm going to say, let'save a little bit more. We're going to make the most of our money, maybe b And you're going to end up with a grinder that you're going to be happy with for a lot longer. Yes, there are grinders that you can get from Walmart for $100 that are technically burr grinders. Those are not going to be the best value for money. And blade grinders, the kind that look If you want a high quality grinder, I'm going to recommend considering burr grinders. Now, as far as hand grinders go in the $100 range, there are a lot of options out there. A lot of people start with king grinders. You can look them up on Amazon. You will see a lot of positive as well as some negative and quality concerns on those. Time more makes a lot of great grinders in this range as well. And I'm a big fan of the easy presso range as well of grinders. Now, if you do want to get into electric or if you want to go into espresso, especially, I'm going to say, You're going to get a lot better value if you can move that budget up to around the $200 mark. And once you get to that point, you can look at grinders The Encore's are more on demand grinders. They can single dose, but they'really more on demand grinder. And the DF-54 is a single dosing grinder. Now, if you move your budget up to $300, there's the Brat's Encore ESP Pro. This is a pretty cool grinder, actually. It can do both on demand and single dosing very well. It's also got a couple of features that are more commonly found in more expensive grinders. So if you're at a bit of a crossroads and you're like, Now, let's expand the budget a little bit. Let's go up to $400 on your budget and then look at your use. If you're looking for an on-demand grinder, it's at about this point that you can start getting into the entry-level Eureka Mignon series. That is a great line of grinders. And on the single dosing grinders, you can start to get into a DF-64 at that point or an option Ocasso. Both great grinders with slightly different positioning. And once you go higher than that, And it's at that point when you can really start to say, okay, my budget is this, my use case is this, and there'still enough options there where I want to start filtering out by taste. Something It doesn't do filter the greatest, but if that's what you're looking for, that can be a great zone to laser in on. You may want to go the other way and look at a high clarity grinder that's going to give you less of that big body and more definition, If you're not sure which direction you want to go in and you're looking in one of those higher price point brackets, it can be a really good idea to look at a 64 millimeter grinder. There's a lot of them out there at different price points. And that burr size that 64 millimeter refers to the size of the cutting disc inside is a little bit of a standard size. So if you get a grinder and you're So that can be a good option too. Once you get up around the thousand dollar mark, you'll start to see grind by weight grinders in on demand grinders. And those are grinders that will weigh the coffee grounds as they're coming out and stop the grinder at the right time. That's a very cool quality of life feature, but that's kind of the bottom price point that you'll get into that. And at that price point, there are a lot more single dosing options as well. And then when you're spending more than that, you start to get into the zone where people are looking for a buy it for life or let'say an end game coffee grinder. Grinders That's without even getting into the really boutique manufacturers that are kind of making things one at a time. Some of these grinders are obscenely expensive and yes, people do buy them. If you're a hobbyist, how do you choose which grinder you should make the j This is a big purchase. Now, if you're just j And I'm just going to j I'm going to say that is fantastic. Unless you are okay losing a good chunk of that money, if you don't like the grinder, I'm going to suggest you not go to that end of the spectr If you are in that position, though, I think looking at a 64 millimeter option can be really great because there are a lot of different Burr options available for those grinders that you can kind of interchange while keeping a really nice grinder. The Filos or the Zerno Z1 or the P64 are all pretty good considerations there. If you're an experienced hobbyist and you're in this position, I would really encourage trying to find a way where you can try some of these grinders before spending a grand or a couple grand and taking the plunge on something that you've never used before. Another thing you can do is you can look used. So if you can find one used that you think, hey, I think I'd Oh, I found one used. Then if you get it and you don't absolutely love it, you can sell it while taking less of a loss. And lastly, remind yourself, there is no perfect coffee grinder. All these grinders, even the most expensive ones, they all have strengths and they all have weaknesses. So if you're expecting to get a new coffee grinder and have it solve all your problems, spoiler, not going to happen. So just to recap, first, set your budget. Second, decide your use. Then look at the options that are still on the table and start to ask yourself, okay, if there's more than one, what kind of taste am I looking for? Then you can look at YouTube reviews for those grinders. And while you're doing all of that, keep in mind aesthetic and lifestyle fit, size, vol Now, if you want to ask me a specific question about a specific grinder, drop it down there in the comments. I'll answer as many of those questions as I can. And if you've been around the block on this conversation and you think, I hope your next cup of coffee is fantastic and we'll