Barista&Co Core Electric All Coffee Grinder - Grinder Machine for Kitchen, Office, Cafe with Container, Measure Scoop, Cleaning Brush - Black Burr Coffee Grinder with 40 Settings Coarse to Fine Grind

I bought this grinder after many hours and days of deliberations! I must’ve read hundreds of reviews for other grinders at the same price point as this one! Largely though I kept coming back to this one. It looked good, it had great reviews and for me was modular in design. It’s this modular design which ultimately sold itself to me. Easy to dismantle and easy to clean! The conical burrs are sharp and in use, are very consistent in grind size.Quite simply at this price point you can’t go wrong! The burrs can be easily swapped out for a new set from the manufacturer, which if you send back the old set they will apply a discount and/or a bag of coffee! A new set is reasonably priced in my opinion too!When I first unboxed the unit, I missed seeing the portafilter attachment, which after discussing with the seller, was stowed in the outer part of inner packaging! Having felt like a bit of an idiot, but having resolved this issue, I proceeded to try the grinder out, and my only gripes are the issue of static on the plastic receptacles and that there is no knocker to empty the grinds left in the burrs. That being said the simplest way to sort the burrs out is to unclip the burr set and brush it out. As for the static issue, well I am about to attempt an experiment in the coming days with an anti-static LP gun to see if the issue can be resolved with one of these. I will of course update this review should I succeed!All in all, a fantastic grinder, in looks, ease of use and consistent grinds! Definitely a winner here!

Bit of history before I get into the review proper. For years I had been making coffee with a drip filter and, more recently, with an AeroPress. I have always used pre-ground coffee kept in a sealed tin. For my 60th birthday last year I was given a Sage Bambino Plus. I tried various coffees and settled on a local supermarket cheap ground espresso. It was much better than any of the brand names I sampled. A number of people said that I really should get a coffee grinder so I bought a cheap manual one off Amazon. There was a marginal improvement to the taste but I couldn’t be bothered with it as it took me 3 or 4 minutes to make a double shot. So I went back to pre-ground coffee for about a year.Recently I started researching electric coffee grinders and came across this one from Barista and Co. It seemed to occupy the sweet spot between price and quality. I bought the same cheap supermarket espresso but in bean form so that I could do a comparison. I also bought a single-walled filter. It took me a few attempts to find the best setting. The grind was so fine on the first two settings that my Bambino choked. Any worries that the grind would not be fine enough for espresso were put to rest by this. The third setting seems to be the optimal one and the difference in taste is phenomenal. I had a Starbucks' Americano last week and it tasted disgusting compared to mine. I have also tested it with my drip filter and AeroPress and, again, it produces phenomenal coffee.So 5 stars for quality.Now a few minor issues.1. As others have said, things can get a bit messy. Also the plastic container has issues with static. These were easily solved for me. I bought a grinder dosing funnel which sits on top of my portafilter for when I make espresso. I also bought a metal canister which holds about 20g of ground coffee and a jam funnel which sits inside the mouth of the canister. See pictures attached. Perfect. No mess.2. One minor niggle is the timer. It goes up in fixed 10 second increments. It takes me 27 seconds to grind enough for a double shot. Now I could keep my finger on the button which overrides the timer and keep holding it for 27 seconds but then I would also have use a stopwatch. It’s a bit of a fad first thing in the morning before I’ve had my coffee! What I do is leave it on the 20 second setting and, when it stops, press the button again and count to 7 before stopping it. As I say, it’s a minor niggle but it would be better if the machine had more precise time settings. But then it might cost more!So, to summarise, I love this machine. It makes amazing espresso, filter and AeroPress coffee. The difference from pre-ground is astonishing. Now I’ve mastered the machine I’m going to experiment with some expensive coffees. Thank you for reading this. I hope you haven’t started to fall asleep. Maybe you need a coffee?

Over the last month and a half, I've been testing and reviewing coffee grinders. It didn't start that way. I just wanted an automatic coffee grinder that can grind coffee so fine that my espresso machine struggles to pass water through it without it giving up and saying "that s...'s too fine for me"... you know, to get the most flavour out of the coffee. My £12 manual grinder can perfectly grind coffee for my desired outcome, but it's laborious, so I decided to turn to electricity.This is the fourth automatic grinder I've tried, it's the most expensive (by about £40), and it gives the second worst results.Barista & Co claim it can go down to 250 microns (that's nearly fine enough for Turkish coffee), but it really can't. Sure, you might get a bit of dust that fine, but the bulk of the grind is going to be much more coarse. Now, I doubt this machine can even do the 400-600 microns that's most desirable for espresso, but I don't have measuring devices that can go down to those levels of accuracy, so, instead, I have to rely on the time it takes to pass 42g of espresso and the quality of the resulting brew. The grounds give little to no resistance, and my espresso machine just p...es out watery espresso as if the grounds weren't even in its way. It's somewhere between supermarket pre-ground and Lavazza pre-ground, neither of which is suitable for espresso machines. Considering Lavazza pre-ground is cheaper than the beans it's ground from right now, getting beans and grinding them myself doesn't save me any money, and, with this grinder, it doesn't get me better coffee, so this grinder is just a £120+ lump in my kitchen that has no purpose, and will face the same fate as its predecessors... the Amazon returns department.It does look nice, though, but that's subjective. And it has a seemingly high build quality (it's certainly a better build quality than the cheap plasticky Chinese grinders I've used so far). Oh, and the container that catches the grounds isn't statically charged, and it has a bung to cover the hole and keep your grinds covered (I nearly said "fresh", but it's not that good quality); these are both firsts in my experience.So, in conclusion: if you want weak, watery espresso, stick to pre-ground coffee because you'll get a similar result as this grinder will give you (if not better) without having to pay £120+ for it. If you actually like the taste of espresso, don't get this grinder because it won't give you it. If you must grind at home and can settle for sub-par (but not supermarket quality) coffee, get the 'Biolomix Conical Burr Coffee Grinder'; while I only gave it two stars, it can give you much finer grounds than the Barista & Co does (when it can be bothered), and it's less than half the price. As for me, I'll keep using my £12 manual grinder until I can find an automatic grinder that can grind coffee fine enough for my tastes (I'm rapidly losing faith that it's even possible).Update: Spend the extra £25 and get the Sage Dose Control Pro. You can thank me later.