Choosing A Good Coffee Grinder
If you want to make the perfect espresso you are going to need to invest in a good coffee grinder. It is no good spending time researching all of the decent coffee makers and forgetting about the grinder. It is also no good buying a coffee machine and then buying pre ground coffee to use in it. For the real coffee connoisseurs amongst us, grinding your own coffee is essential.
First you need good quality, freshly roasted coffee beans. You then need a grinder that will grind these beans for you just before you need them, to the precise fineness you need to achieve a good extraction in your shot. You can often make a better coffee with a cheap machine and a good grinder than you can the other way around. When budgeting for your coffee machine you should plan on having to spend at least $200 on the grinder as well. When you are spending over $1000 on a machine, the amount you spend on a grinder should go up.
A good grinder that you can buy for under $200 is the Baratza (or Solis) Maestro Plus. It has many great features and is easy to use as well as versatile. The machine is quite heavy so is very stable and has a wide grinding range with over 40 levels. With so many settings you can fine tune your grind so the resulting coffee can be used with many different machines.
The mid priced grinders costing between $200-$400 are dedicated espresso grinders. The Rancilio Rocky Burr Grinder is a great buy. It has 55 grind settings and commercial grade grinding burrs. It is quiet and powerful and designed purposefully for the espresso market. It is durable and performs well when grinding beans into standard coarse particles or fine powder. You can get this model with or without a doser which is a spring loaded device that attaches to the grinder and shoots out one ground coffee serving per pull.
So do not forget to budget for a grinder as well as the machine when thinking of an espresso machine purchase or you will live to regret it.
About The Author
Chloe Wilson writes a Gaggia Coffee Machine Review Guide.