Pro tip: That $40 burr grinder I bought on sale is actually useless for espresso

Spent three weeks choking my machine and pulling 60 second shots before my neighbor told me the grind setting is just a range, not a real adjustment, so has anyone else been fooled by those cheap grinders that claim they work for espresso?

2 comments

2 Comments

kai65726d ago

That cheap grinder tricked me for a whole month too. Thought I was doing something wrong because the burrs felt loose and the settings didn't change much. Turns out those things are basically just fancy pepper mills with an espresso sticker on the box. My advice would be to save up for a manual hand grinder with actual step less adjustments, even the $60 ones are way more reliable than those electric ones that look like they belong in a dorm room. The real kicker is that half the reviews on Amazon are probably from people who never even tried to use it for espresso. You're not alone in wasting time on that grinder, but at least now you know to check the burr mechanism before buying anything that claims to work for both drip and espresso.

fiona_clark26d ago

The bit about Amazon reviews is spot on. I think half of those 5 star ratings are from people who just use it for drip coffee and don't even know what an espresso grind looks like.