Recommend me a new grinder

[Jetspeed]

Hello,

New to this forum. Was on coffegeek, but it's website is under construction for a while.

I want a single dose machine, for primarily espresso. I'd like my new grinder to compliment (or exceed) my old 17 year old PID'd Ms Silvia machineand replace my Rocky grinder.

Under $1k would be great. What should I be considering??

Kindest thanks!

 

[shadow745]

There are quite a few single dose offerings available as most companies have jumped on the bandwagon. From a burr symmetry POV I'd go the Niche Zero route IF I wanted single dosing and could tolerate the soft design. The Mazzer Kony burrs in it will give fantastic grind quality/consistency for most espresso enthusiasts. Latest craze is with single dose flats with all sorts of variations and not my thing to be honest. Seems most flat burr designs lately are focused more on clarity, less on heavy texture and yes there are different variations available for some grinders to really dial that in, but IMBHO it's getting a bit far out there for something that can cause some to chase their tail in an endless pursuit of perfection. I have an old school Cimbali Jr with 'traditional' 64 mm flats that gives fantastic grind quality fairly quickly.

At the end of the day though I still far prefer a quality hand grinder. Not a fan of single dosing, but of course when using a hand grinder that's by design. No waste, no retention, no electricity consumed, adjustments can be made on the fly and of course using one keeps aging muscle tissue/joints in better shape. For me nothing beats holding a 4 lb grinder while controlling the angle/rotating speed and that lets me feel/smell the level of development I achieve with my home roasting. No electric made will allow that. Yes I'm a bit obsessed with it as I currently use it 95% of the time, which equals around 100 lbs yearly ground by hand for espresso range only.

Having said all that, IF I was in the market for an all-around quality electric primarily for single dosing I'd likely go the Eureka route. Now they do have quite a few models with some variation and my advice would be to look at specs for each and go from there as what works for one person might not for another. People these days are a bit too influenced by all the YouTube reviews and think they just have to buy something because ______ likes using it. I have always liked Eureka's build quality, micrometric adjustment that for my use is far better than the rotating collar like on Mazzers, etc. Just can't really go wrong with the brand (Eureka) all things considered.

 

[Jetspeed]

Excellent. Thank you. I am looking at Eureka's for sure.

 

[MarcBeck]

Can someone explain to me why I see the Niche Zero for sale on some US sites for $500 and other sites for $75??? I don't understand the difference in price! Is the $75 model different? Is it just the adjusting tool or are they legit? I'm happy to post the links to both but there are at least 6 sites selling the Zero for under $100.

 

[shadow745]

Can someone explain to me why I see the Niche Zero for sale on some US sites for $500 and other sites for $75??? I don't understand the difference in price! Is the $75 model different? Is it just the adjusting tool or are they legit? I'm happy to post the links to both but there are at least 6 sites selling the Zero for under $100.

No doubt anything less than $500 (surprised it's that low really) is a scam site as I've read of some getting burned jumping on those 'deals'...