Code 3337 from previous post works again - https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/685305
I purchased the double black version for $516.21 shipped. The double black is currently $699 from 'alternativebrewing' and 'kbean'.
Code 3337 from previous post works again - https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/685305
I purchased the double black version for $516.21 shipped. The double black is currently $699 from 'alternativebrewing' and 'kbean'.
Yep. Got mine at Christmas during their last deal.
Same delivery timeframe from Italy. Yet AusPost couldn't deliver something 20 km's away in a week…
I couldn't believe how quick this thing arrived from Italy (to Perth) when stuff from over East takes weeks.
How does the coffee taste?
There's a guy on reddit saying the coffee tasted watered down compared to his Breville Smart Grinder. (Using the same beans and coffee machine etc)
it's a good machine.
it depends on how you dial this grinder. if it's watered down, it needs to be dialed finer.
OK cheers, just ordered one. :)
$516 for a coffee grinder for home use? Why is this one so popular here?
It's honestly hard to explain to someone unless they really appreciate the consistency of a good coffee.
Agree.
Been using mine for 2 years now… this grinder + Breville dual boiler= perfect combo.
this is a significant upgrade compared to the breville smart grinder?
@johnthepg: some upgrades
-stepless - more adjustability for better dialing in espressos (if you don't make espresso then its not as important)
-flat burrs have better grind consistency*
-bigger burrs - faster grind, less static/clumping, less temperature
-better build quality - it's basically a mini-tank, built to last
-it's a quieter machine due to the build quality and bigger burrs
*there are advantages to conical burrs on the Breville such as faster grinding, lower energy usage and lower temps but it's all offset by the bigger burrs on the Specialita
built to last
I can vouch for this. I got a eureka mignon (not specialita) 12 years ago, based on the receipt in my email. It's still going strong with typically grinding over 500g of coffee per week, and makes very consistent, very good coffee.
@brucemcbruce: Wow, having recently bought the specialita I'm glad to read this. Just hope the screen lasts that long too.
@johnthepg: Short answer…..YES!
@Solrak: I really shouldn't as I just purchased my Breville smart grinder but at this price, I feel like it would be rude not to.
@johnthepg: Final answer. YES!
I used to use breville smart grinder pro, Hugeeeeeeeeeeee upgrade.
im genuinely curious, i love my coffee, what will this bring to the table?
can say an EM6000 (https://www.sunbeam.com.au/kitchen-and-home/coffee/espresso-…) actually extract the flavours of a bean well enough during the poor to have such an expensive grinder?
Or do you need to be able to push more pressure more consistently with a beefier machine to extract those kind of floral flavours?
i use the em6000 as well and it's runs fine. some accessories for it make a huge difference though like a scale, VST basket, precision 58.5mm tampers like Pullman and a WDT tool.
you generally want to have a better grinder than machine, it's a bit like a gaming pc with a top end graphics card and a mid range cpu.
regarding bars, more pressure doesn't mean good coffee, you can end up overextracting and the coffee will taste burnt and bitter.
it only needs 9 bar pressure for standard shot which the EM6000 is capable of.
@Kraise: Hi, tell me about these baskets and accessories, I've been looking for stuff for this machine but am never quite sure if the things will fit. Where did you get the VST basket?
@mackaxx: bought mine from Dukes Coffee - 18g is the standard double shot
@Kraise: Thanks for that, will upgrade the basket. Im still using a smart grinder and fairly happy with that. Whats the next most important thing you would recommend? The WDT tool perhaps? Looks a bit fiddly but if its worth it..
@mackaxx: yep WDT would be the next thing, it's used to evenly distribute and declump the ground in the basket.
I just bought acupuncture needles online (its like $5-10) and stuck it to a wine cork. finer needles have better results, sewing needles and paperclips aren't as good.
@Kraise: Fantastic on this information.
I can say that having used this: https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/174900852553 (IMS 200 IM Precision Shower Screen) its been a hugely beneficial to the shot as the distribution of water over the beans is more widespread and even.
ill look into what you have suggested.
just confirming though, the general consensus is that you do not need more than 9 bar? if @yama131 would like to chip in here, i would love to know what you meant by the many aspects of a "better machine" (please feel free to link an article, happy to read!)
Cheers chaps, and Good coffee to you all
generally speaking if the machine can achieve up to 10 bars of pressure on a NON-PRESSURISED BASKET, then yes you would be able to benefit from a good grinder like the one in this post. The crappier machines will tell you the bars you'll get on pressurised baskets which is essentially synthetic pressure that results in poor espresso and fake crema.
There are a lot of other aspects of what makes a good espresso machine which I won't get into but this grinder should give you a better result.
Note: there is a learning curve with step-less grinders like this one. Research that first and see if the extra trouble is right for you.
If you don't know how to use a stepless grinder then you might make worse espresso.
It's a solid grinder for espresso with low retention at a good price. This is about 200 cheaper than you can get one locally.
That's just above entry level prices for enthusiasts. You can easily spend $1000 or $2000 on a grinder. I mean, not me, but you could.
If I wont the lottery, I'd probably buy something like a DF64 or a Niche Zero - but I'd be hard pressed to spend my own non-lottery money on them.
Having bought this I feel like I will never want to upgrade any further. That said if I won lotto, yeah I'd get a Niche.
I mean, the niche is pretty :D
Ordering a niche from the UK, seems like they don't subtract VAT, which is really lame given it's an export and should be VAT free .. that's 200 AUD in tax alone.
That's why I won't be getting one from them.
this is quite cheap.
my Titus Grinding nautilus has ssp burr set that costs more than this grinder
Buy once, buy quality
This is an excellent grinder and the price is really not that outrageous considering it will last 20+ years easy
Really that's just entry level and it's cheap for this grinder. Sure, you could buy a cheap one but you'll probably replace it multiple times whereas one like this will probably last 10 years.
Hmm if it's based on how long it lasts alone my breville grinder is going strong after over 10 years. Or is it more to do with brand and perception of quality?
Can understand if it also gets more consistent grinding, if manufacturing tolerances are much tougher for example.. in saying this ive only ever noticed issues with mine when it desperately needed a clean
It's not just longevity. I had the Breville Smart Grinder Pro for about 6 years before replacing it with the Eureka.
The Eureka is built like a tank, it's smaller than the Smart Grinder but weighs twice as much. It also grinds the same amount in half the time and is much quieter.
You immediately notice how much more consistent and fluffy the grind is in comparison. The breville was clumpy as hell in comparison, and unbeknownst to me it was effecting the end result. My wife and I noticed a difference as soon as we switched.
@Jebus: Interesting Jebus, thanks for the extra info
@Jonathvic: more likely Ferrari over walking.
@Jonathvic: Sure, why get a coffee machine or grinder at all then? Just drink instant coffee since it gets you to the same destination.
I've got an EM0480, which is still going strong for over 10y.
I needed to do the washer mod to get it to go fine enough. These days seem to still be down at the finest setting.
Wondering if there is any logical upgrade without spending a fortune. It's still fine but dosing could be better as it comes out in heaps into the group handle. Pairs up well with Gaggia Classic all these years, good to not over capitalise but worth checking.
Early/middle parts of a hobby rabbit hole.
My thoughts exactly.
I've been sticking my my Dual boiler and smart grinder pro for years and can't help but fantasize about the perfect home setup whenever I see deals on premium machines. I must resist as I get very good coffee with such a bargain setup!
Reddit loves this one
Thanks, Caghan, Hypnotoad, Joler042, cz888, nubzy, Nebargains and shiny1. Don't know anything about coffee machines and related accessories so I thought this was too expensive for a home use.
$500 for a decent grinder is cheap.
Mine was $2500 + mods and I think it's worth it, I wish I could afford to splurge a little more.
I like the grind times are about 1 second, it's quiet, it's super consistent and it improved taste over the old grinder which wasn't cheap.
You are right. $500 is very cheap for a decent grinder.
I have this grinder paired with Lelit Elizabeth v3 and I roast my own coffee at home. It makes very good coffee to the point that most cafes out there don't really impress me except a certain few that offer choice of single origin beans.
If you are serious about coffee, you will soon wish you had spent more on a better grinder. I certainly feel that way sometimes.
Yes, I've got a Macao M7D now and am looking to upgrade.
The machine (I've got a rocket dual) doesn't after so much.
I can easily make coffee better than most shops, but much more slowly because of the machine, it takes me 10 minutes to get upto 10 coffees complete.
@[Deactivated]: 10 minutes to get 10 cups of coffee ready at home is pretty impressive even if they are all black coffee! Don't think I've ever had to pull more than 4 cups at any given time
@dji1111111: That's going flat out, but yeah, that's the difference between a single group group home machine and what a cafe needs to do.
I’m sure it’s a repeated question, but what do you folk think about this against Niche Zero? I have been waiting for a “reasonably priced” Niche Zero for so long that its price is now triple than this grinder which is supposed to be extremely capable and also has many many positive review…..
Side question, is it good for single dosing too?
The workflow is different. I had a niche for a while, but didn't like the workflow myself and switched to a Eureka Atom 75.
In terms of in-the-cup, the main difference is the flat burrs of the Eureka vs Conical in the Niche. Neither is "better", but traditional wisdom says flats supposidly give better clarity & sweetness, where conicals give better texture and mouthfeel.
Plenty of people use the Specialita (and the XL) for single dosing, apparently it works quite well but haven't tried it myself.
Ah I see….any chance you know how the user experience like constantly switching between espresso and filter brew grind? Every morning my wife drinks espresso (latte really) and I drink filter brew. I heard Niche is good at switching grind size for diff brew style, but how about this one?
I saw some review about how not good the Eureka “Oro single dose” (not this one) does for switching between….
Two grinders - dialing in the espresso is way too much work for what you just described. We have a mythos 1 grinder for espresso/latte and a breville smart grinder for French press. Way better than trying to adjust the grinder for two different styles
IMO dont buy this for switching, its 100% not worth it. Because of the way the "Dial" works switching between "preset" grind sizes is stupidly hard swapping between filter/espresso will required multipl rotations and the dial is just not precise enough. DF64/Niche Zero is the best.
Buttttt…. We are on ozbargain, I would reccomend the Lagom Mini or the SPTK-38g for "lower" price points.
All the ones mentioned above have big/memorable grind markers so its bery easy to swap between the two.
If it was me today I would buy the Lagom Mini or Niche Zero.
@Jofzar: Why would you use this to grind filter? Grind consistency isn’t as important in making filter coffee compared to Espresso as it’s much easier to get an even extraction from immersion and drip brewing compared to pressure brewing.
Dial is also single rotation and it is a stepless grinder so Its only imprecise in the sense that it has more ground retention (0.1-0.3mg) than the Niche Zero.
Perfectly fine if you’re buying 1KG bags every 2 weeks
any chance you know how the user experience like constantly switching between espresso and filter brew grind?
It will be very inconvenient unless you use it as single dose grinder.
Even if you remember the dial position if you have beans in the grinder you have to have motor running when going from coarse to fine. Eureka is grinding reasonably fast so you will be wasting a lot of coffee during this switch.
If you try to empty grinder before going back - this is not the easy too - the grinder is heavy and you have to tilt it up side down.
Long story short - not recommend for switching.
Workflow as in single dose vs filling up a hopper?
Have a look on etsy and there are plenty of single dosing mods for these. Tilts it forward, bellows and single dose hopper etc.
I actually saw this….but I couldn’t see how I can buy it from the website….
Yeah I’d be keen to pick one up locally if anyone had them!
@Whorl: yeah same here. all the etsy 3d printed ones are from US and the postage really kills it.
@C-Nut: At the price of some of the ones I've seen I've considered just buying the 3D printer and doing it myself. I can't think of what I'd use it for other than coffee mods though haha. A friend told me I'm wasting my time unless I drop $800-$1K on a 3D printer, not sure if that's correct.
@Whorl: I think the only option is to buy from etsy unless you have a 3d printer at home or have a friend who can 3d print for you.
I got mine from etsy seller based in Canada and took 2-3 weeks to receive.
It does blow out a lot of retention indeed.
A lot of reviews say this grinder has lot retention but i think that's all relative. In my experience I wouldnt call it low retention out of the box
@dji1111111: This.
@dji1111111: Mine seems to output about the same weight as I put in, but then randomly I sometimes get an extra gram or two coming out! I guess that is old grounds that have been stuck for a while, I don't really have a need to single dose, but I'd like to do it just to avoid old grounds coming out at random.
@bleeder: You will be surprised how much old grounds get stuck. A lot of it gets stuck between the chute and the burrs. I did tests with the single dosing hopper and bellows and confirmed that what goes in = what comes out down to 10th of a gram.
I'd recommend getting one of the Etsy ones (I am using one with the Manuale) which come with the bellows (which blows the residual grind out), makes a big difference in terms of retention.
Tilting stand is nice but less important.
I recommend the Etsy ones with bellows, tilt etc.
I found my Specialita was having a bit of retention problems with static causing the ground coffee to build up in the chute. Bellows+tilt solved it
They not comparable, buy Zero if you planning to do single dose, if not then buy Eureka.
BTW, you can buy Zero direct from UK for £499 + £80 delivery
That’s actually not bad…..but fixing it could be a pain if needed at all….
Many people buying direct from Niche UK and from this ESC in Italy with no issue. They provide 1 year International warranty but you have to send back at your cost for repair. If you rather buy local supply, then need to pay $1750 for it.
Plus GST and likely import duty etc etc. I seem to recall Niche wanted only direct sales, so local suppliers could be buying it retail - hence such a high price for it at local stores.
Not too fond of the look of it myself, plus would have to etsy some portafilter holder as grinding into a cup is too much mucking around for me.
@Janko: I understand if item invoiced declared price is under AUD1000 then it's exempted from GST and no import duty as well. (£499=AUD885), but if you add £499+ £80 delivery (£579=AUD1,030), so not sure how it would work, as understand GST 10%, import duty ~5%, + processing fee charged by courier, but still will be much cheaper than local price. BTW, I have Eureka Specialita, not NZ, not really fan of the workflow of single dosing.
@huntabargain: The $1000 GST limit was removed a few years ago, but I see the ATO put the responsibility on the vendor to collect it for items < $1000 with border control not getting involved. Also gave my shipping forwarder the bye by when they started charging it on anything that went through them.
So agree - no GST/duties here as this vendor doesn't appear to add it at the point of sale. But don't use a shipping forwarder (the simps)!
Its about $1k aud delivered with a July drop.
I've bought a moka pot and getting axil to grind the bags or buying Vittoria ground beans from woolies
I'll probably? get the bdb and nz when I get itchy! Never made an espresso lol, don't want to buy then sell gear and don't want it to sit idle!
Been using the moka 3 cup everyday! Started with a 4cup lol. Prob about a week ago!
Using aeropress filters on some axil coffee but it tastes sour!
Bought some usb $35 grinder off aliexpress, hopefully that kills the nz bug I'm feeling. $1k is a lot for something I dunno if I'll notice the diff or not!!?!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x20t5J7zgyw
Not as graceful as the Niche of course.
Or even Sette if its noise and longevity issues are bearable.
I single dose on a Sette with 0g retention (19.0g in, 19.0g out but 0.1-0.2g would come from the previous grind though), also no chute, not funnel, no bellows, no spritzing, no clumping. Even grinding into a cup then transferring to portafilter on the Niche is too inefficient for me - I'd have to get a printed PF holder for the Niche.
If you are only making one or two coffees a day it might also be an idea to go a good manual grinder route. Something like the 1zpresso Jmax is comparable to the top end electric grinders in regards to fine adjustments and low retention.
https://alternativebrewing.com.au/products/1zpresso-j-max-co…
Why manual? Just increasing the time it takes and the effort involved. I only make 1-2 coffees a day and no way I'd go manual.
Manual grinders at the same price point genrally provide higher quality burrs / better overall grind consistency, as you’re not putting any of your money towards an electric motor.
I personally wouldn’t want to be hand grinding for espresso, but if you’re predominantly a filter coffee drinker they are a solid option to save some money.
Can always add an electric drill to the grinder if you don't have the muscle to do a 40 second manual grind.
@TEER3X: why the down vote? is this a bad idea? I do 60 grams at a time, it would take too long with the manual grinder.
@nerd1: I use a drill on my Porlex when I visit dad's (he has the drill) - assuming you nail the grind first go a manual grinder is not bad, but redoing or doing multiple coffees starts to suck. Porlex would be closer to a 90 second manual effort though for 18g or so.
1zpresso jx pro works really well for espresso and is more versatile than the jmax
I have 2 motorised grinders and the jmax and if you cranking properly you can espresso grind 19 grams in about 30 seconds - just depends if you want to put in effort, agree re grind quality
Can I ask a silly one? Why 1zpresso over Commandante… I thought that was the GOLD standard and all that. Costs roughly the same.
https://alternativebrewing.com.au/products/comandante-c40-mk…
AFAIK the 1zpresso is designed around espresso grinding whereas the commandante is more filter-focused. In particular, the 'clicks' on a commandante are quite large vs the 1zpresso or other espresso-focused grinders, which can make dialling in more difficult.
Ohhh! Damn fair enough. Yeah I was also going to argue that compared to the above possibly the Lagom Mini would be better buuut again its got a more filter focused grind vs the above I guess. Also again, similarish cost.
I've seen reviews where they say 1zpresso (filter models) are on par with comandante for filter too.
For me i bought a 1zpresso jx pro for about 230 which is supposedly really good as well. Its still hasn't arrived but i chose 1zpresso since it was a lot more cheaper than the comandante
Damn didn't see this when I bought a Breville grinder at BL.
Got it last time, very happy with it.
This had better grind coffee beans into gold dust for this price.
If you think this is as high as the price ceiling goes, have a look at grinders such as the Monolith Flat Max (retails around $3500 USD).
For many the grinder is more important than the machine.
Beans> grinder> machine
Is it like the placebo effect, where the bigger the pill is the more effective the placebo is? Get a placebo injection and it's even more effective. Spent 10k on a coffee grinder and the coffee tastes better, as long as you know the grinder cost 10k.
Not really, but there is definitely diminishing returns.
Of course at some point right up near the very top, it's a massive wank factor. I know a couple of guys with La Marzocco GS3s (10k+) and its a huge wank factor for them.
There are definitely diminishing returns when you're spending upwards of 1k, and maybe for some there might be a slight element of placebo effect. That being said, higher quality grinders do objectively produce more consistent grinds which leads to a better tasting coffee (all else being equal)
Like with buying anything, getting the mid-range of the products usually will get you 90-95% of the functionality.
The last 5-10% is what's difficult to perfect and will cost many times the prices of the mid-range.
And this is precision engineering.
Think watches, cars, etc…
All I wanted was consistency, I was randomly getting shots that flowed like crazy then I'm getting shots that drip and I only get 10g out; all on the same grind setting. With this machine I am finally getting consistent shots, that's all I was asking for. I don't think I'll need to upgrade any further.
i bought it from them. received in 4 - 5 days