De'Longhi, Coffee Grinder KG79, Black & DLSC058 Coffee Tamper, Stainless Steel

Product Information

Keep in mind, though, that if you're looking for a grinder for espresso, most of the budget burr grinders in this category are fine for dual walled baskets, but aren't compatible with traditional baskets, as they won't quite go fine enough and the grind adjustments aren't small enough for the fine tuning you'll need to do when dialing in with traditional non-pressured baskets. This didn't turn out to be the case, and the Gaggia MD15 was really designed to pair with the entry level Gaggia options, including the Gran, Viva, and Carezza, and other cheaper espresso machines using pressurised baskets. I've heard that there is a bit of popcorning with this grinder, and I'm not sure if this is an out of date opinion and they've updated the grinder since then, but this is one of the potential slight pitfalls of taking the hopper off a grinder, putting bellows on there and calling it a single doser. As Niche discovered with their first version, popcorning occurs simply because the last few beans have no beans above them to feed them into the burrs, so they tend to bounce around a bit. As I've said, I do think it's a case of splitting hairs, really, among these very cheap grinders. I've used all three, and there's really not a great deal of difference, in fact with the experience I've had of these three grinders, I'd just say if you're going for one of these, go for the best deal you can get.

It's interesting that they refer to “grinding wheels” and not “burrs”, this is probably a more honest description of what these grinders are, grinding wheel grinders vs burr grinders. I did an experiment using a bag of whole bean coffee and a bag of the exact same coffee pre-ground, both supplied by Blue Coffee Box. Das Mahlwerk der De’Longhi KG89 und KG79 ist das gleiche wie jenes von drei weiteren Maschinen im Test. Es handelt sich dabei um ein Scheibenmahlwerk aus Stahl, das in diesem Preissegment zur Standardausstattung gehört. Die gute Nachricht ist, dass du hiermit deutlich besser beraten bist als mit einem Schlagmessermahlwerk. Wer allerdings mehr aus seiner elektrischen Kaffeemühle holen möchte, setzt am besten auf ein Kegelmahlwerk, wie es sich beispielsweise bei der Baratza Encore findet.It has 40mm stainless steel conical burrs, a grinds container, and a portafilter cradle, on demand and timed grinding, and it'll perform similarly to the Wilva Svart & the Wilva Svart Precision, both of which are cheaper and come with a 5 year manufacturers warranty vs a 1 year guarantee with the Delonghi. It'll perform very similar to the Gaggia MD15, too, but the MD15 is quite a bit cheaper and comes with the spacers in case you decide to upgrade your portafilter to a standard basket or bottomless portafilter. The Eureka Mignon Oro is the first real contender I've seen in terms of a grinder aimed at competing with the Niche Zero. Features:

If you want to use an espresso machine such as the Sage Bambino Plus, Sage Barista Express, or Gaggia Classic Pro, (all of which can be used either with standard baskets or pressurised baskets) with standard baskets, then I wouldn't recommend the KG79 or any of the other similarly priced grinders. I do think they're a better option than the blade grinders, but still, I'd definitely prefer “proper” burrs, to these kinds of burrs, so if you can afford to jump up just a few quid more in some cases, then I'd recommend leapfrogging these and starting off at the entry-level burr grinders below. The Encore has been a hugely successful entry level grinder, but with 40 relatively large grinding steps and a range that doesn't go quite fine enough for most espresso machines using traditional baskets, it was never really designed for espresso. This doesn't ensure perfect extraction, it ensures that the user can produce something which looks the part, with a cheap espresso machine, a cheap grinder or with pre-ground coffee beans. Anyway, as far as I could see the fact the MDF was a doser grinder was the only thing that put off a lot of people from pairing their Gaggia Classic with this grinder, so when I heard Gaggia were bringing a new doserless grinder to the market, I was hoping that they were going to develop something more along the lines of the MDF but on demand, to compete with the likes of the Sage, Baratza and Eureka grinders.

You need burrs to grind coffee beans. Blades smash, cut & obliterate coffee beans into various sized particles, which means bad coffee. So if you're looking for the cheapest grinder on the market with actual burrs, this is probably it. Personally, I'd usually try to avoid the very cheapest option with whatever I'm looking at buying, if I can help it. I've found that generally speaking, the best real value tends to be somewhere towards the middle. If I were going to use this grinder for espresso, I'd definitely want to do the mod above to turn it into an on-demand grinder to grind directly into the basket. It basically involves gluing down the sensor that tells the grinder the grinds container is in place and fitting a piece of pipe to extend the grinds chute out into your portafilter.

It’s compact and can go pretty much anywhere with you. Its small size means you could even take it to work. It can sit on your desk or in your staff kitchen. Your colleagues will be jealous! Different Grind and Cup Settings These very cheap grinders use burrs with blunt teeth, and as a result, they produce similar poor particle uniformity as with blade grinders. Clean it as many times as you want, especially if you plan on using it all the time. Most buyers have said they didn’t need to clean it often, which I like the idea of. The material lets you wipe away any old coffee residue pretty easily. ProsFor me, the word “espresso” means traditional espresso and traditional espresso is made with traditional filter baskets, which require a fine and precise grind. Yes, you'll probably manage to get a grind fine enough for espresso with dual walled baskets, also known as pressurized baskets, with one of these blade grinders and with most of the budget burr grinders, but listing them as being capable of “espresso”– can be problematic, as they're not making it clear that this is espresso with dual walled baskets. This guarantees that each cup of coffee you brew tastes exactly the same. Adjustable Grind Settings Some of the marketing blurb does have me shaking my head, if I'm honest, for example, this is listed as working for espresso, cappuccino, and Americano… The obvious error with this is that they're all the same thing, cappuccino and Americano are of course made from espresso, and actually, saying that a grinder is compatible with espresso is an error, too, although it's an error many of the grinder brands make. I'm going to start off with a review in a nutshell, for anyone who just wants to know the main pros and cons of this machine so they can decide whether to buy it without reading all of my waffle.

So what they've done is devised a wa OK so as I've said, we've taken a big jump in cost price, and we're talking some serious grinder here, with 83mm flat burrs, super fine worm dial adjustment, and very smart macro adjustment. I've included the previous few paragraphs about grinding speed to give some context to this so that people don't take this purely as a positive, because in this case the fast grinding speed of this grinder is probably at least partly responsible for the negative points of this grinder, including the heat of the grinds, static, and the inconsistency of the grind, which I'll get to shortly. Grind Consistency One of the changes I'm referring to is that as well as the 30 macro grind steps, meaning bigger grind adjustments, there is an additional stepless micro-adjustment for espresso. I think this is genius and is something I think Baratza has really got right with the latest iteration of the Sette 270.This is clearly a commercial coffee grinder, but it's one that has the ability and the price point to make it a good choice for high-end home barista use too, especially with the short bellow hoppers that Baratza also offers.