Gaggia RI8123/01 MD15 Coffee Grinder, ABS, Black, Stainless Steel

Product Information

I've used this grinder, and while being completely honest I don't think there's a massive difference in grinds quality and therefore cup quality between this grinder and some of the cheaper 40mm conical burr grinders, the build quality is noticeable better with the Svart vs some of the cheaper, similar grinders – I also think it's a few decibels quieter than some of the cheaper options, but the main reason I'd go for this grinder in a heartbeat vs the cheaper generic brand grinders, is the build quality and the warranty situation. Activate the pre-brewing for an even more intense flavor. A first hot water shower moistens the ground coffee before the actual brewing, so to extract all coffee aromas. The doser is the one part of the operation that everyone seems to have a problem with. Customers say it’s not big enough, it needs refilling too much, it’s hard to tell how much it needs to be filled, it is not detachable, and so it goes.

Out of the box without installing the spacers, this isn't made for traditional basket espresso. You usually have to spend a bit more money for an espresso capable grinder, if we're talking about traditional baskets and not pressurized baskets. So here's an experienced product designer whose ideas wouldn't have been polluted deep-rooted knowledge of the way things are usually done, and the results speak for themselves! While most of the other grinders at this kind of level in the past are modeled on commercial grinders, simply because that's the way things are usually done – James appears to have looked at what the home espresso enthusiast needed and designed a grinder specifically to meet these needs. Keep in mind that when I talk about using a portafilter, this won't go fine enough for espresso with standard baskets, but it will work fine for pressurized baskets. I did try this, and on the very finest setting, even with very dark roasted beans (which usually don't require quite as fine a grind) I wasn't able to get a shot time anywhere near what I'd be happy with. The reason I mentioned earlier that this grinder is good for espresso and small batch pourover, is because, with a grinding range of 230–950 μm, it's mainly geared up towards finer grinding. It'll work well for small-batch pourover brewing with Kalita Wave, Hario V60 & Chemex, but if you're wanting to go more coarse than this for cafetiere and/or bigger batch filter brewing, you may find this doesn't quite have the required range on the more coarse side of things. So at the very entry-level you'll find blade grinders, which of course aren't grinders at all, and really should be referred to as “choppers” because blades don't grind, but I digress.

The other change is that they've introduced a completely new drive system that spins the outer ring burr instead of the central conical burr. What this means is that the coffee falls directly into the grinds chute, and this leads to a lower retention, of approximately one gram, I'm told. Set the length of your espresso via the MEMO function. For a traditional Italian espresso, set it to 30ml. For brew methods like pourover, filter coffee machines, Aeropress and so on, you'll be able to grind fine enough, but still, I'd recommend going for a grinder with proper burrs if you can, as the improved particle uniformity these will provide, should translate into better cup quality.

Espresso specialist grinders usually have stepless adjustments, which makes them great purely for espresso, but not so good for jumping around to grind for different brew methods. Why they've made this change? I think they're generally trying to move away from manufacturing practices that aren't friendly to their manufacturing team, or friendly to the environment, and from what I can tell, anodization and electroplating are processes that are seen as not particularly good in both of these areas, the electroplating refers to the chrome plating that I'm about to talk about. This review is about the new Gaggia Classic 2019, and you’re talking here about the Gaggia Classic 2015, which is a different model. In my opinion, the machines between 2009 to the new 2019 model, were not the classic, but a lesser machine in the body of the classic.I don’t have a comparison video on these two machines, but essentially it’s almost the same as: https://youtu.be/0gFQnWwGiLQ but then of course the Barista Express has an integrated grinder, so it would depend on which grinder you would be pairing with the Gaggia Classic. The Baratza Encore is a grinder which has been around for a good few years now and is one of the most popular entry-level grinders, particularly for manual brew and for espresso with pressurized baskets. Baratza is owned by Breville, by the way (who we know as Sage, in the UK), which is only really anecdotal information as they are run as completely separate businesses. For 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. The timer options seem like a good idea actually, instead of having to remember how long you ground for to achieve a particular grind size, you can just adjust the timer wheel, so once you find a grind size that works (well, a grind time, which should result in a similar overall grind size) you can just leave it at that setting. Best Grinding Wheel Grinders