The Best Espresso Grinder Under £250

Summary

Highlights

• James evaluates 5 espresso grinders under £250 through a series of tests, spotlighting performance and value. 💰
• Baratza ESP impresses with its affordability and quality, though it's a bit noisy. 🤔
• The DF54 delivers clarity and sweetness in the cup, making it James' favorite. 😍
• Varia VS3 struggles with grind consistency and clarity, despite its solid build. 🤷‍♂️
• Sage Smart Grinder Pro has been a staple for years but shows signs of aging compared to newer models. ⏳

Key Takeaways

• James Hoffmann reviews espresso grinders under £250, presenting a variety of affordable options for coffee enthusiasts. ☕
• The grinders are tested for espresso shot quality, workflow, and technical aspects like particle size. 🔍
• The Baratza ESP and DF54 stood out for their taste and value, while others had notable limitations. ✨
• James critiques aspects like noise level, build quality, and ease of use, offering honest insights. 🎤
• He emphasizes the importance of personal preference and encourages audience feedback. 💬

Overview

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction to Espresso Grinders Under £250 The chapter introduces the topic of affordable espresso grinders, particularly focusing on those under £250. It contrasts the current market with the past, noting that good espresso grinders were once much more expensive. The author expresses excitement about the decreasing prices, making quality grinders more accessible. The chapter sets the stage for a review of five specific grinders, starting with the Baratza ESP, guiding readers on where to spend their money for a first serious espresso grinder.
• 00:30 - 01:30: Overview of Grinder Models This chapter provides an overview of various grinder models available in the UK. The cheapest model discussed is priced at approximately £160. The Sage or Breville Smart Grinder Pro, noted as the oldest model in the group, was released about a decade ago and is listed at £200, but typically sold for around £180. The Fellow Opus is another model available for roughly £200. The Varia VS3 is slightly more expensive at about £240. The chapter also mentions the DF54 model.
• 02:00 - 03:00: Workflow Testing of Baratza ESP The chapter titled 'Workflow Testing of Baratza ESP' discusses the workflow involved in testing the Baratza ESP grinder. It starts with a mention of the grinder's price, which is just under £250. The author plans to pull a shot with each grinder, explaining the process of dialing it in and making necessary adjustments. The chapter includes a taste test of various espressos and engages in detailed, technical discussions about particle size analysis, retention testing, sound, wattages, and other technical aspects of the grinders.
• 04:00 - 05:00: Workflow Testing of Sage/Breville Smart Grinder Pro The chapter titled 'Workflow Testing of Sage/Breville Smart Grinder Pro' discusses various aspects of testing coffee grinders, particularly focusing on filter coffee tasting, such as brewing a single cup V60. The author shares personal nitpicks and complaints about each grinder tested. The chapter also includes a discussion on an unexpected purchase, the Smeg grinder, which at £220, was suitable for espresso machines with pressurized portafilters but not capable of grinding fine enough for traditional espresso. The chapter concludes with a summary of the findings from testing the grinders.
• 06:00 - 07:00: Workflow Testing of Fellow Opus The chapter titled 'Workflow Testing of Fellow Opus' discusses the evaluation of a specific espresso grinder model. The narrator is surprised that the grinder, despite its appearance, does not produce the fine grind required for espresso. They criticize its high price and poor performance, recommending against its purchase. The chapter includes testing workflows with other models, such as the Baratza Encore ESP, which is noted for its physical similarity to the well-regarded Baratza Encore filter coffee grinder, known for home use.
• 08:00 - 09:00: Workflow Testing of Varia VS3 This chapter discusses the technical challenges and features of the Varia VS3 grinder. Specifically, it addresses the issue of the grinder's inability to grind fine enough for espresso while having a range suitable for both espresso and filter coffee. The chapter highlights the grinder's design, including a large hopper suitable for single dosing rather than continuous use, as it lacks an automatic timing mechanism. The chapter also describes how to adjust the grind by twisting the hopper.
• 10:00 - 11:00: Workflow Testing of DF54 Chapter Title: Workflow Testing of DF54 This chapter explains the workflow testing of a coffee grinder called DF54. It begins with the description of an indicator that guides the user in dialing the appropriate grind size, specifically highlighting the espresso range. The chapter emphasizes the technical success of the grinder, noting the precision in the burr movement when adjusting the grind size. Detailed instructions are provided on the operation of the grinder, highlighting two methods: using a push button on the front and a switch on the side. The chapter concludes with a demonstration of grinding into a dosing cup, which is accompanied by a little base, and mentions the adaptability of the grinder for both espresso and larger doses like filter coffee.
• 11:00 - 15:00: Espresso Tasting and Evaluation The chapter titled 'Espresso Tasting and Evaluation' discusses the use of the Sage/Breville Smart Grinder Pro, highlighting its longevity as it has been in the market for a decade. It reviews the grinder's functionality, emphasizing its simplicity and efficiency in workflow. With each brewing step lasting around four to five seconds, the grinder is noted for its fixed recipe capability rather than being stepless.
• 15:00 - 17:00: Particle Size Analysis The chapter titled 'Particle Size Analysis' apparently involves a review of the Smart Grinder Pro, contrasting it with devices from a previous era of home espresso making. The narrator describes the grinder as having a large hopper, suitable for storing coffee beans ready for grinding similar to commercial grinders, albeit on a smaller scale. It features a modern display with technology that was advanced at the time of its release, equipped with buttons to control various functions.
• 17:00 - 19:00: Retention Testing The chapter titled 'Retention Testing' delves into the intricacies of grinding coffee beans, focusing on how the grind time can influence the portion of beans ground. It emphasizes setting the grind time to control the dose, which is particularly relevant in modern espresso practices like single dosing. The chapter also highlights the functionality of grinding machines, such as preset memories for different time amounts, and adjustments for grind coarseness affecting the output measurement from shots to cups.
• 19:00 - 21:00: Grind Speed and Power Consumption This chapter discusses the relationship between grind speed and power consumption in coffee grinders. It highlights smart features in grinders that adjust grind time based on the coarseness setting, as coarser coffee grounds grind faster. The chapter also explains the concept of stepped grinders, including how they are designed to show numbered adjustments that correspond to brew times. It gives an example of a grind and brew scenario with specific measurements and mentions the use of a catch cup for grinding.
• 21:00 - 23:00: Sound Testing The chapter titled 'Sound Testing' discusses the process of using a coffee grinder for optimal results. It mentions the option of grinding into portafilter holders or a catch bin, with a slight preference towards the catch bin to ensure even distribution and minimize clumps. The chapter also briefly mentions timing adjustments to ensure all coffee is ground thoroughly, with a brief transition to a different coffee grinder model, the Fellow Opus.
• 23:00 - 25:30: Filter Coffee Tasting In this chapter titled 'Filter Coffee Tasting', the speaker discusses a specific coffee grinder they purchased from the US, which operates on a power converter. They advise against using power converters generally. Although the power difference in wattages could affect the machine's performance, the speaker believes it does not significantly impact the way this particular model grinds coffee. The focus of the chapter is on the grinder's features and performance, rather than the functionality of the motor. The discussed grinder is a single-dose model with a snug-fitting hopper lid.
• 25:30 - 35:00: Nitpicks and Issues with Grinders The chapter discusses the appropriate size for coffee grinders, emphasizing a size that accommodates a good amount of coffee without wasting space. It highlights the importance of having a guide to suggest grind settings and explains the simplicity of grind adjustments, which generally follows that a smaller number indicates a finer grind. However, it notes that when dealing with espresso grind settings, the click adjustment should not be the same as for other types.
• 35:00 - 39:00: Conclusion and Recommendations In the Conclusion and Recommendations chapter, the focus is on the innovative design of a two-step adjustment system involving a main adjustment and a secondary micro-adjustment. The discussion highlights the changes in operation and potential initial confusion due to this novel adjustment mechanism. The design allows for finer or coarser settings by pressing and adjusting internally once the main hopper is removed.
• 39:00 - 40:00: Community Feedback Request The chapter titled 'Community Feedback Request' discusses a dosing cup designed for flexibility in coffee preparation. The speaker explains the features of the dosing cup, which includes a lid with a smaller inner section ideal for espresso, allowing it to fit on a traditional portafilter. Alternatively, the lid can be replaced with a normal one for grinding larger quantities of coffee conveniently.

The Best Espresso Grinder Under £250 Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 - Today we're gonna be looking at the best espresso grinder under £250. We've done the best espresso grinder under £500. This one actually, I'm more excited about, because as a category, when I got into coffee, there wasn't very much. If you wanted an espresso grinder that was good, you had to spend serious money, and now prices are coming down, that makes me happy. But if you are looking for a kind of first, serious, good espresso grinder, where is your money best spent? To answer that question, we have these five grinders here. First up you've got the Baratza ESP.
• 00:30 - 01:00 In the UK, this is the cheapest grinder, coming in at about £160. Next up is the kind of oldest grinder of this bunch. I think this was released 10 years ago now. It's the Sage or Breville Smart Grinder Pro. Lists at £200, but you see it for about 180. Here is the Fellow Opus. This, in the UK, about £200. Next up you've got the Varia VS3. Little bit more expensive again, about £240. And then at the end here, you've got the DF54,
• 01:00 - 01:30 just under £250, at £246, I think that we paid. First up is gonna be workflow. I'm gonna take each grinder and pull a shot with it and talk you through dialing it in, adjusting things, how it works. Then we'll taste a bunch of espresso, obviously. Delicious times. Then we're gonna get into some nerdy stuff. We're gonna look at some particle size analysis because we can do that here. And then we'll look at things like retention testing, we'll look at sound, we'll look at things like wattages and other technical aspects of these grinders.
• 01:30 - 02:00 We will, of course, talk about filter coffee tasting too and how these do, if you're brewing, say, a one cup V60. Then, my favorite bit of the whole thing, I get to talk about my nitpicks, my little complaints that I have with each of these grinders. And then, of course, we'll wrap up with a conclusion. Now there are five grinders here, but we actually bought six. We bought a Smeg grinder. It was about £220, looked like an espresso grinder. It's not, it's really not. It's designed for espresso machines with pressurized portafilters and so it cannot grind fine enough for espresso,
• 02:00 - 02:30 which is wild to me that they have released this as an espresso-looking grinder, that it can't go that fine. I have no idea why they're charging that much money for something that just does not work very well. So that was purchased for this video, but it is not included in the testing because it can't do it and I can straight up say I do not recommend that grinder in any way. Let's get on with some workflow testing. So first up, the Baratza Encore ESP. Body-wise, it's pretty much identical to the Baratza Encore, which was one of the kind of great, entry-level filter coffee grinders for home.
• 02:30 - 03:00 The problem with that grinder is that it couldn't grind fine enough and precisely enough for espresso. And actually it's an interesting technical challenge behind this grinder to have it have an espresso range and a kind of filter coffee range. Now as you look at it, you can see pretty big hopper on top. You can use this as a single dose grinder or of course you could theoretically fill this up with beans but it has no automatic timer mechanism here, so probably best used as a single dose grinder. (beans pouring) The grind adjustment is done just by twisting the hopper here
• 03:00 - 03:30 and you'll see an indicator that kind of lines up with these little dots here and we're in the espresso range. The technical sort of success of this grounder is the fact that this click from here to here is a much smaller movement of the burrs than it would be if you were here and moved one click coarser. Lots of specificity here. To grind coffee, there's two choices. You can push and hold the button on the front or you can use the switch on the side. Here we're grinding into a little dosing cup that it comes with, which is nice, and a little base for that. If however you are grinding filter coffee or a larger dose,
• 03:30 - 04:00 you can grind into this dosing chamber here. Ultimately a nice, simple workflow. Let's grind some coffee. (coffee grinding) As a quick end note. Each step, I think is small enough, it's about four, maybe five seconds of brew time, sort of, for a fixed recipe, but obviously it's not a stepless grinder. The Sage Smart Grinder Pro or the Breville Smart Grinder Pro if you will. Now, as I said at the start, this is a much older model of grinder. It's been around for a decade now
• 04:00 - 04:30 since they released the Smart Grinder Pro version. And you can sort of see it comes from a different era of home espresso making. Sort of from the top down, it's a pretty big hopper on here, and this is a grinder, I think that was designed to have you fill this with coffee beans and then draw down a dose from that hopper of beans each time you were pulling a shot. More like a kind of commercial grinder works, but in miniature. As such, on the front here you've got a lovely display, a surprising amount of technology certainly for the time, with buttons that you can control a few different things.
• 04:30 - 05:00 Here, you've got your grind time. Because you are theoretically grinding a portion of beans and that portion is determined by time, you would wanna set your time to set your dose. However, today we will use it as people do in the sort of modern espresso world and we will be single dosing this. So I have a weighed dose here that I will just grind through. Next button along is your sort of shot/cup so you can have preset memories of different amounts of time. You've got your start-stop/pause button here and then your grind adjustment here. What's interesting is as you take it coarser, it moves from saying two shots to saying two cups
• 05:00 - 05:30 and then the grind time shifts as well because it knows that at coarser settings, coffee just grinds faster. So interesting little bits of smartness in there. Turns of the grind adjustment, again, it's a stepped grinder and it's showing you those steps and those numbers. And each step is probably similar in that kind of four-ish seconds range of brew time for a pretty standard, let's say, 18 in, 40 out kind of recipe. This will grind into either a catch cup like this one where you might wanna sort of grind it into this,
• 05:30 - 06:00 give it a little shake before diverting into your portafilter, or it does come with two portafilter holders. I've never been a huge fan of taking a cheaper grinder and grinding straight into the portafilter. You have to do a bit of extra work to get rid of clumps and get the distribution right. Grinding into a catch bin is generally a better thing, but these just slot in. But let's go back to the catch bin for now. We'll take the time up a little bit longer just to make sure we're gonna get everything ground through. And away we go. (coffee grinding) Next up is the Fellow Opus.
• 06:00 - 06:30 Now this is a grinder, full disclosure, that we bought on launch from the US and it is running on a power converter, which I wouldn't recommend in most cases, and when it comes to stuff like wattages later, that may impact things but it's not too important. Ultimately I think its performance is pretty reflective of how it would be if this was a 220 volt model, because most of what I wanna talk about is nothing to do with how the motor runs. Let's talk about how it all works. It is a single dose grinder. You have a very snug-fitting lid to your hopper here and this is your small enough hopper,
• 06:30 - 07:00 big enough that you could put in a good amount of filter coffee or, you know, a large dose if you're going to, say, grind 60 grams but, you know, not too big that you're wasting space. Inside here, you do get a little bit of a guidance on your sort of suggested grind settings, which is a nice little touch. And then you've got the grind adjustment. This is relatively simple, the smaller the number, the finer the grind, that's true of pretty much every sensible grinder. But as we said with the Baratza ESP, when you get down to kind of espresso grind settings, you don't want this click to be the same as say,
• 07:00 - 07:30 this click over here, right? You need larger clicks over here and smaller clicks down here. They've gone a different route here, which is if you take off the hopper, you have a second, smaller, kind of micro adjustment inside here where you would need to press this down and move it that little bit coarser or that little bit finer. It's an interesting two step solution and it does sort of change the way that the sort of readings on the outside work as well, which may be slightly confusing at first.
• 07:30 - 08:00 It takes a little bit of getting used to. The dosing cup. Here is an interesting thing, it's a pretty big dosing cup which you wouldn't necessarily want for espresso, so they have a lid with a smaller inner. I take this off and you can sort of see a bit more what I'm talking about there. So you grind into this for espresso and then it's designed to fit nicely on a traditional kind of portafilter. If you don't wanna do that, you can take this off and just put on a normal lid and you can grind much more coffee much more easily there. So nice flexibility in that.
• 08:00 - 08:30 As you can see underneath here, a little magnet, to keep the catch cup in place, and then you've got one button, simplicity. So if you push it once, it will run for about 30 seconds. If you push it twice, sort of tap tap, it'll run for 60 seconds. If you go tap, tap, tap, it'll run for 90, and if you push and hold it, it will run for 120 seconds. Most of the time 30 seconds is fine. One final note on this as we throw this in here. (beans pouring) This is such a snug-fitting lid to the hopper that you can use it as a bellows system,
• 08:30 - 09:00 so when you grind coffee... (coffee grinding) So now that we're done grinding, I can kind of bellows it out. So the Varia VS3 Gen 2, a substantial, chunky, quite weighty all metal body. So one of the heavier grinders here. You'll see on top, lid and then our bellows, and then of course your little anti popcorning disc as well. Pop you back. Obviously this is designed as a single dose grinder. Grind adjustment is done by twisting this piece here, I guess the funnel or, it's not quite part of the hopper,
• 09:00 - 09:30 but this will control your grind setting. Smaller the number, the finer the grind. It is stepless and there's a little indicator ring here. One nice touch. It does come with this. A little, tiny spray bottle so you can spray a little bit of water on the beans. It's called the Ross Droplet Technique. We have made a whole video about this if you wanna go deep into the science. So I shall do as I'm, I suppose, suggested to do. (spritz spritz spritz) And then lid off, we'll go for a hot start, (motor whirring) (coffee grinding) and then bellows to finish.
• 09:30 - 10:00 In terms of the catch cup, it comes with a little one like this, which is held in place via a magnet, which is always a nice touch. So here's the DF54, it's the odd one out today because it has a flat set of 54 mm burrs inside as opposed to a 38 to 40 mm conical burr set. In cheaper grinders, you tend to see conical burrs because conical burrs need a cheaper motor or don't need as an expensive or as a powerful motor as flat burrs do, they'll turn more easily, they'll break beans more easily. Flat burrs tend to require bigger, juicier motors
• 10:00 - 10:30 and therefore cost more. So seeing a flat burr grinder at this kind of price point is definitely interesting. In terms of build, very solid, very weighty, easily the heaviest grinder here, not surprising if it's got a juicy motor inside and all metal housing. In terms of ground adjustment, you've just got a ring at the top here that you twist. It's a stepless grinder which is nice. So infinite adjustment between the steps. In terms of work flow, it's pretty simple. There is another little bellows and lid system here.
• 10:30 - 11:00 And actually, the anti-popcorning disc on this one is all metal, so you have a little hole through which your beans would fall. They'll bounce off this thing and then they won't easily be able to get out again while it's grinding. There's no smart electronics here. There's just an on off switch, so er... (motor whirring quietly) That's it. (beans pouring) (coffee grinding) The grinder does claim to use a de-ionizing system here to reduce static at the output, and I nearly forgot to talk about the catch cup,
• 11:00 - 11:30 which, as you can see, is clear plastic and designed to sort of go upside down on a portafilter for the little twist and dose. You could, I guess, put a portafilter in here. As I said, I wouldn't strongly recommend it. I'd much prefer grinding into a dosing cup and working that way. Let's see how these shots all taste. Now obviously this is not gonna be a blind tasting for any of these. As part of the research and testing for all these grinders, we have done blind tastings but we decided it was probably more useful on camera just for me to give you the summary of my experience as I taste this shot.
• 11:30 - 12:00 Now this is a conical burr grinder and people expect conical burrs to produce more texture, more body but maybe less clarity of flavor. I have to say though, I really do like the shots coming off this grinder, especially for the price point. They have nice texture, they have nice sweetness. They may be not maximum clarity but I feel like plenty enough, they're not overly muddy, just honestly very enjoyable. The Smart Grinder Pro. The shots from this are a little bit more as you'd expect from a cheaper conical grinder. They don't quite have the same cleanness
• 12:00 - 12:30 as some of the other grinders have. It's a little bit muddier, it's a little bit more kind of textured and heavy and you tend to drift into those kind of chocolatey end notes from coffees that may not typically express that with other grinders. Reasonable acidity kind of profile. Not bad. Not bad, just simply not great. Espresso from the Fellow Opus. Espresso from this grinder, and actually from the ESP as well has been a good reminder of me not to have a closed mind about conical burr grinders
• 12:30 - 13:00 that are a little bit cheaper in terms of cup quality. Both of them kind of taste more like flat burrs or the flat burr style you might expect than they do taste like conical burrs. That shot, tons of sweetness, quite bright acidity, nice texture, really you know, very enjoyable. I don't really have a lot of complaints about the shots that I've had from the Opus. Often I've become, you know, in blind tastings, not entirely sure which is, you know, this or the DF, which is obviously the flat burr.
• 13:00 - 13:30 I would say I have been impressed by this and also the ESP as conical burr espressos, having nice clarity, brightness, sweetness, all of those good things. Espresso from the Varia VS3. This has always been a classic, conical burr-style shot. Very heavy, much more in the kind of bassier notes. It is a muddier shot. It lacks the clarity of the other grinders here. If you like those kind of chocolatier, kind of bassier styles of espresso,
• 13:30 - 14:00 this may well appeal to you, like the texture is pretty good, it's thick, it's pretty rich. But for me and my own biases, I just want a bit more clarity of flavor, a bit more explicit sweetness and a little bit less muddiness. And the last of my espressos, to be honest, thankfully, it's the DF54. Shots from the DF54 have been the most classically flat burr-styled shots where you have medium body, really nice sweetness, tons of clarity, comparatively,
• 14:00 - 14:30 maybe not compared to some very fancy grinders, but for this group here, probably the most clarity. Nice acidity, can be a little bit higher sometimes, but not in an unpleasant way at all. For me and my style of espresso, the things that I like to drink, I have really enjoyed the shots from the DF54. It has been, you know, probably if I'm honest, my favorite of the espressos from this collection. Not by a lot. I will say, you know, those two conicals, the Opus and the ESP, the Baratza, are pretty close to this.
• 14:30 - 15:00 This, for me, does just edge it out though. I've just enjoyed it that little bit more, that extra clarity, that little extra bump of sweetness. Now we'll get into some of the nitty gritty, some of the details of the testing that we've done, and we'll start there with some particle size analysis. We use an imaging particle size analyzer and we get a load of data from it. We put lots of coffee through it and I'll show you some of the outcomes. Important to understand with particle size analysis, it's not a truth about the grinder. This will show you differences in how these grinders ground one particular coffee
• 15:00 - 15:30 on one particular day when set for a sort of similar outcome. So I'll show you the espresso first. They're all producing the same recipe in terms of in and out and brew time. Some variants in extraction of course, but we have to standardize it somewhere, but this is not an objective truth about the grinder, it's just a comparative point that is interesting. Let's have a look at the charts that I have here. And you'll see as they appear, that all of the conical grinders grind it in a very similar way, and quite notably really, the flat burr grinder produces
• 15:30 - 16:00 a very different-looking distribution. Its peak is a little bit finer. You can't really tell whether it's producing less fines. Perhaps it is producing slightly less fines. The conical grinders tend to produce a broader range of particle sizes, we've known this for a long time, that do go from finer to coarser in that kind of peak range. But here looking at it, yeah the DF stands apart. That doesn't make it a better grinder but this does explain why and how it may be producing a different style of cup when it comes to espresso.
• 16:00 - 16:30 Conversely, if you look at the VS3, you'll see that it has a bunch of interesting little spikes of particle size at the finer end of things, in the fines and sort of not fine, fine pieces, but like a hundred micron in size too, which is unusual and notably different to some of the other grinders. To me it just speaks to a greater level of inconsistency in its grind setting and would explain perhaps, perhaps some of the additional muddiness in the cup. Now what I'll show you next is, to me, super interesting
• 16:30 - 17:00 because it's gonna be the filter coffee particle size analysis. So they're all grinding much coarser, and as we show you these, you'll understand that there are real limitations to what you can discern from particle size analysis without beginning to potentially kind of over-fit your opinions onto the data. So yes, you could say the DF has the single highest peak, it might look the most uniform. I'm not sure I'd say that when it comes to this thing, I'm not sure I could really meaningfully pick apart any of these grinders from the particle size analysis.
• 17:00 - 17:30 But as we'll see later on when it comes to filter tasting, they do produce very different cups. And so I wanted to show this to kind of undermine myself because as I keep saying, it's not this universal truth or this incredible insight and if you just had a particle size chart for every grinder, then you'd know which one to buy. They sometimes show you stuff and they sometimes don't. And here, I don't feel like there's a ton of really interesting information but it's kind of useful to see that in this way. So when it comes to retention, that's a really important point with single dose grinders,
• 17:30 - 18:00 and we did two kinds of retention testing here. Test one is the traditional test, you weigh 18 grams of coffee, you grind it, you weigh how much comes out, you do that a bunch of times. And so I'll show you a quick comparison to see how these all performed. Looking at the data, I would say probably the most consistent was the DF54 though, you know, the Baratza ESP did pretty well. The Fellow Opus definitely has some challenges around retention. You know, you really need to work the bellows on that
• 18:00 - 18:30 to get sort of, all the coffee out. It does tend to retain a little bit of coffee when it comes to espresso grind settings. Unsurprisingly the Sage Grind Pro, which is not built to be a grind-to-order grinder, well, that also was a little bit more inconsistent in its ability to deliver exactly what you put into it. We did another kind of retention testing though that I think is perhaps more useful. So if you have a grinder that has half a gram of coffee in it and you dose 80 grams in and you get 18 out, well that half gram of coffee probably has been exchanged,
• 18:30 - 19:00 you know, at some point. It's the new coffee has replaced it and it's been pushed out. Can you measure sort of exchange? And so what we did here was that we dialed the grinders in, then pushed them all the way to a very coarse setting, ground 20 grams of coffee through it, therefore exchanging any fine pieces that were left inside for coarser pieces and then brought it back to an espresso grind setting. If there was a lot of retained and exchanged coffee, let's say there's two grams in there, well, that next dose out of the grinder should run faster,
• 19:00 - 19:30 it should have more of these coarse pieces and the extraction should drop, it should be a worse shot and the shot after that should then be better because it's then all of this new grind setting coming through. Most of the grinders did pretty well here. In some cases, you know, the shots afterwards were, in fact, higher extractions so that the grind setting actually may have shifted. Only two of the grinders saw a little bit of a drop off. The DF saw a little bit of a drop off in extraction and the Baratza Encore also saw a little bit of a drop off in extraction,
• 19:30 - 20:00 suggesting they are retaining and exchanging slightly higher doses of coffee. But overall I would say there weren't big fall offs in flavor or extraction, really. They were still producing pretty good shots straight after grinding the very coarse coffee, indicating that almost all grinders here are doing, I think, a reasonable job of real-life retention. Of course we need to talk about grind speed, that's definitely a thing and there's a pretty big variance here. Again, we did a espresso test, a filter coffee level test and we'll show you the data on screen in terms of how long it took these grinders to grind it through.
• 20:00 - 20:30 Now the kind of standout surprisingly slows for me the VS3, which is a pretty slow grinder. It's also the lowest RPM grinder, it's turning the slowest. It's a small burr set, that really kind of makes sense. Interesting to me is the DF54. That's a surprisingly slow grinding for espresso, especially when you think that it's filter coffee grinding is relatively fast but definitely, definitely quite slow on the espresso front. Not a problem, just kind of remarkable, if that makes sense.
• 20:30 - 21:00 Worth noting, worth remarking upon. As a final note, we also ran power consumption tests on these things. You'll see at the bottom of any electrical appliance, it'll have a rated wattage, what it should draw. We like to test if it does that and typically they'll draw more power at an espresso setting where the motor has to work harder than that of filter coffee setting. Interesting to me is that the Baratza's rating is just way off, weirdly way off. It was rated at 70 watts and we were recorded in excess of 130, so don't know what that's about.
• 21:00 - 21:30 The Opus, totally fine. The DF54, again, and I think the DF64 in a previous video did this, again, above rated wattage. We got to 170 watts at a rated wattage of 150. I don't think this is dangerous, though if you are trying to calculate the amount of total draw going into, say a single socket 'cause you've got them all on extension, you probably would really wanna know what it's actually gonna draw, not what it says it's gonna draw The Sage, again crept up a little bit. 188, not the one advertised, 165,
• 21:30 - 22:00 and then the Varia, pretty low wattage, you know, 96 rating, 80 is about the peak that we got out of it. Now of course for me, personally, and I know for a lot of you watching, sound is a really big deal. So as usual, we've done the same setup where we have a microphone a fixed distance from the grinder, we have a sound meter a fixed distance from each grinder and we'll run the grinders empty and grinding and let you listen, I hope very clearly, to how each of them sound. For us it's definitely an assessment, not just of total volume but of quality of sound.
• 22:00 - 22:30 And I think the recordings are actually a pretty good representation of the sound quality. It really matters to me. It's a kind of something I'm gonna go through or hear every morning before I've had coffee. I don't necessarily want a noisy, screaming, screeching thing, and for me, it's a big negative. For a lot of people, though, I know it isn't. But here is the comparison of sound. (coffee grinding)
• 22:30 - 23:00 (coffee grinding) (coffee grinding) (coffee grinding) (coffee grinding) (coffee grinding) (coffee grinding) (coffee grinding)
• 23:00 - 23:30 We did also do a filter tasting here. We actually filmed a blind tasting of the filter coffee tasting. And so for me, in summary, I really do like the filter coffee from the DF54, but I feel like you just have to push it that little bit finer to get a higher extraction and then I think the cups are really very good. You know, if you are someone who measures extraction, and I know there's not a lot of you, but I would just aim on the higher end of things. Or if you have one of those grinders and you feel the cup is a bit lacking, don't be afraid to push it that little bit finer.
• 23:30 - 24:00 I will say the Opus performed incredibly well across testing and I really like the filter coffee from that, and I like the filter coffee from the Baratza as well. I'm surprised that I don't dislike the coffee from the Sage Smart Grinder Pro more. It's not the best, it doesn't really, truly compete with the others, but it's better than I thought it was gonna be. But for me, the one that sort of struggled the most in this testing was definitely the Varia VS3. Across filter brews, it has just lacked the clarity and sweetness that other grinders have been able to achieve.
• 24:00 - 24:30 Even the Sage Smart Grind Pro has been a, I think, a notable step above. Going back to those particle size distributions, I can't see it in there, I can't explain it away with that particular metric. I think that's interesting. But it's definitely been something sort of consistent across testing. It's time for nitpicks. I always love a little nitpick. This grinder is where we'll start, just 'cause we started with it in the first place. I will say, in fairness, I don't have a ton of nitpicks with this. I have some substantial issues in that, the noise for me, like so many Baratza grinders,
• 24:30 - 25:00 is really a problem. It's kind of a deal breaker. I don't think I could invite this into my house and listen to it every single morning without being annoyed by it. That's me, I may be a little bit sensitive to it, especially early in the morning, but I just wish they'd make quieter grinders. They're great, they're affordable, they perform well. I just wish they were a little bit quieter. I think they've done a pretty good job with the grind adjustment system here, though I can't help but note that in a world of increasingly common stepless grinders,
• 25:00 - 25:30 we're still working with steps here, and I'd love a little bit more control and precision here, just for sort of messing around a little bit. I don't really understand why there's a button on the front here. I'm never gonna push and hold a button when there's an on off switch. But actually, that's it. I can't really complain about the build feeling a little bit light and plastic, but it gets a pass. It's 160 quid, which I think is kind of amazing. The Smart Grinder Pro perhaps gets a little bit of a pass for having been in the market for 10 years and having been a kind of pioneering model and option for people at this kind of price point.
• 25:30 - 26:00 I think that's a good thing and a laudable thing. But in comparison to the other grinders here today, there's a few things we should talk about. Styling wise, fit, finish, feels a little bit cheap, not horrific, but that little bit of plastic here. Massive hopper, it feels quite big and bulky, and I don't love how it looks. It's not a great catch cup, it's just not that great to work with. It's really big and weirdly sized and it has this funny lid thing that lets you close the hole and stuff. In terms of other performance, the retention is an issue.
• 26:00 - 26:30 It's just not built to do grind-to-order. And so that's kind of on me for using it wrong. But it is quite hard work to sort of give it a bit of a thump and get all the coffee out if you are trying to single dose with it. As a final complaint, it has a pretty good range of grind settings, but we actually found it couldn't quite go coarse enough without making a second adjustment. Your primary grind adjustment is down here on the grind adjustment dial. There's another way to adjust it by taking off the hopper, accessing the burr and adjusting the kind of burr ring.
• 26:30 - 27:00 That will give you a bit more range. That's not a great experience and so I kind of wish they'd just given me a little bit more range on the coarse end, assuming that I wanted the fine end to be good for espresso. For its flaws and its failures, it's been a good value option for a long time and I'm glad it's been around. The Opus, I have to say, while it looks nice, the plastic on it does feel that little bit too cheap for me for this price point, especially with some of the other comparative options out there. Now if you've seen any review of the Opus grinder before this one,
• 27:00 - 27:30 you'll have seen people complain about the grind adjustment. It's a really strange decision. It's not a particularly intuitive one. Baratza in the past have done like, two rings that you adjust, you know, a coarser adjustment and a finer adjustment. Something like that would've been nice. But the idea that you have to take off a hopper, awkwardly press and adjust the grind setting inside it like that, that's one of the two big headaches for me with this grinder. The other one really is retention. Like, it is annoying to fight this grinder to get the coffee back out of it again. And I really like the coffee that it makes.
• 27:30 - 28:00 I was impressed by that and that made these other two frustrations doubly annoying. You know what I mean? I just want it to be great. If it was more intuitive to use, if it didn't retain coffee, I'd forgive the build in a heartbeat. I just wouldn't think about it. I'd be like, this is a great grinder for the money. But those two things are frustrating. In addition, I like the idea that you have this solution for dosing into the portafilter. I have reasonably large hands.
• 28:00 - 28:30 I find holding this to dose a portafilter a little bit uncomfortable. I just don't really wanna do that. I'd be much happier just with this. If you gave me this, I would be fine. But this doesn't have the nice little magnet. This doesn't, this doesn't sit nicely underneath. So I kind of wish that I either had a dosing cup or an espresso dosing cup and not a kind of amalgam of the two. It works well. I have no real complaints about its actual function as a dosing cup, but it's just not hugely ergonomic to hold, even if you've got very large hands. A quick positive and a quick negative to wrap up.
• 28:30 - 29:00 I don't like bellows on most grinders. I feel ridiculous doing it. It feels like sort of squeezing a clown nose. I don't like it. This flush-fitting hopper as a bellows doesn't offend me because it looks nice and it's invisible. It's not the best to use, but it works. I really don't mind it. It's not explicitly sort of sold as such, I guess. The downside is that you can see on the inside of here what it looks like just wear and tear from mild usage as bellows. And so I'm kind of confused. Am I supposed to use it for that?
• 29:00 - 29:30 Which clearly works well because I clearly need something to help me with the retention of this grinder. But if it is that, why is it causing such wear on the inside of the hopper? That's just for me, I don't quite get it. The Varia VS3. I'm afraid it's gonna have a little bit of a longer section on nitpicking because it's got a few issues. Start with the lighter stuff, no pun intended. I wouldn't recommend the white because actually this gets dirty really quickly. You know, it's messy enough that it really, really shows. And so for me, probably would recommend the black color.
• 29:30 - 30:00 I will say, the first time I got this out of the box, I was excited because the build on it is so substantial and so solid that I was like, wow, they've really, you know, put money and effort into this grinder. It's weighty, it's solid, it's metal bodied. That was a good thing. It felt like it was gonna last. Now there were a bunch of issues with longevity on the first issue of the Varia and I'm hopeful that they fixed most of those with this. I did not have an issue in my first gen and I have not had an issue in my second gen with any sort of parts failures or anything like that.
• 30:00 - 30:30 Its biggest single frustration for me is its inability to keep the grind that you set it at. At espresso settings, there's enough friction between the burrs that it starts to drag the grind setting away from where you set it. By grinding coffee, you cause the grinder to change its grind setting. That's not okay. That's not acceptable. That's a very frustrating user experience to have. This is not a sort of uncommon issue either.
• 30:30 - 31:00 If you look online, other people are experiencing this too, and there aren't really much offered in the way of solutions. It can be, you know, don't use as much lube on the threading so that it moves in a more difficult way, like there's more friction on this movement. Other grinders have fixed this, other grinders do not have this problem. They have stepless adjustments that don't shift during grinding. And I've seen other grinders that do have this issue, but it really shouldn't be there. It's a fundamental problem and I think it's, it's really not good.
• 31:00 - 31:30 This, in addition, the anti-popcorning disc, does a really good job of stopping coffee getting into the burrs, which is frustrating. So there's no way I would ever grind coffee through this without checking that it had all gone through, because chances are there's a good amount of coffee. This gap is actually pretty small. It just doesn't work very well. And so I probably would just take this out and not use it, but be aware that if you don't get the lid on pretty quick, you might get some popcorning. As I've said, I'm not a huge fan of bellows, generally.
• 31:30 - 32:00 These are fine as they go. At least it's a nice, metal lid that does magnet on top if you wanna take the bellows out. But you kind of need the bellows to improve the retention on this thing. I will say on the kind of mixed blessing front, it is slow to grind, but the upside of that is that it's actually the least offensive to listen to grind. It's the quietest, it probably sounds the nicest of all the grinders here, but it does take nearly twice as long as some of the other ones. So when it comes to sound, it's worth noting that, you know, a short, sharp pain is different to a long-lasting pain,
• 32:00 - 32:30 which is different to a even longer-lasting, relatively pleasant sound. So I guess, points there for slow RPM, small burr set, sure, but not the noisiest grinder. Probably the quietest of the grinders. And that should be acknowledged. And this is one last complaint. This is the power brick for this thing. Now the good news is, in theory, this is transforming it into DC power. So you could switch this cable out and you could run this grinder all over the world and it would work fine. You just have to change that little cable feeding this.
• 32:30 - 33:00 But this is a lot to house on your kitchen worktop. You know, if you wanna plug your grinder in right by where it is, you've gotta find a home for this and there's no way around it. The DF54 is a fascinating little grinder. it's quite unusual. If I think back to the Best Grinders Under £500, one of the grinders there was the X54, a 54 mm grinder pretty much twice the price from Mahlkonig. And this, half that price, is a substantially better grinder. It's better built, it's better performing. It doesn't have the bells and whistles,
• 33:00 - 33:30 but that's kind of charming for me. It's a very simple thing and I think that's okay. A couple of issues. One: again, yes it has a good anti-popcorning disc, but two: I still don't like bellows. I just don't enjoy that experience. And it is, like many of the other DF grinders out there, messy. This says it has an ionizer. I would not grind coffee with this thing without having spread some water on those beans first. And yeah, a bit like the others, if you are too aggressive with this right at the end, you can blow coffee back out of this thing here,
• 33:30 - 34:00 which is a little bit annoying. I don't mind the plasticky dose cup. I don't mind that it really has a dial and a button and that's it. It has no smart features and I will take that in exchange for a relatively inexpensive, high-quality flat burr grinder. One last little note, I guess, is worth bringing up. This step adjustment dial does not slip during grinding, but it is much more difficult to adjust. So even just small adjustments, probably a two-handed affair, I'm surprised at how hard it is, and it's something you have to worry about
• 34:00 - 34:30 if you wanna take the burrs out. If you wanna go all the way coarse on this, going then back all the way fine, you've really gotta make sure you've gone all the way kind of to zero. It's easy to be kind of one revolution short because it is that hard to turn sometimes. I need to add a little clarification at this point about this grinder. I did complain endlessly about how messy it was and then we gave it a really good clean, including cleaning the ionizer and it performed way better. So if you are having issues with static with this thing, give the ionizer a clean, but it is also annoying that the ionizer gets dirty
• 34:30 - 35:00 kind of relatively quickly and so the performance does degrade. I just felt it was important to clarify that. It's time to wrap it up. What are my conclusions? Well, firstly, I'm very happy at the options available to people at this price point now. I really feel like there's some very good, high-quality grinders able to make very delicious coffee at under £250. And I think that's great. Are all of these grinders of the same level? No, I don't think so. And different ones may find different homes. Starting over here,
• 35:00 - 35:30 the Baratza, I think it's incredibly good value for money. I'm genuinely surprised at how cheap this is and how good it is for that money. It's simple, it's noisy, but it does make really nice coffee. The Sage, I get how it's been successful for so long. It pioneered the market. It's a little bit out of date now and I wouldn't be surprised if there's something new coming relatively soon. Obviously, Sage Breville acquired Baratza a couple of years ago now and there may be more crossover in those lines. You're certainly seeing it in Breville's espresso machines
• 35:30 - 36:00 that have built-in grinders. Anyway, it's a good little grinder. It's maybe not the greatest for filtered coffee, but it's better than I thought it was gonna be. It's okay, it's just not really up to spec, up to modern standards when it comes to grinding to order. The Opus is a point of great frustration for me. I really like the cups of coffee that it made. I really did. I was surprised by them. I think it makes really nice filter coffee. I think it makes great shots of espresso. Some of the usability though is a bit of a headache for me. This thing, if you are only interested in espresso and you really like texture above all else
• 36:00 - 36:30 and you want sort of richness and heaviness and bassieness in your espresso, I could see going towards this. There are a bunch of issues with it and I hope they continue to iterate and improve upon it. I like the build, I like the design, I like a lot about it. It just needs to hold its grind setting and maybe get rid of the giant power brick. Those kind of things would make it a bit more of a contender for me. As someone like me who likes flat burr-style coffee, this is an incredibly good value offering, I think. For a 54 mm burr set,
• 36:30 - 37:00 you don't have a ton of burr options out there, but it's built solidly, it works well. I like the cups of coffee that it makes. It's a simple grinder. If you don't pay attention, it's very messy. But a quick spritz before you grind is not the end of the world. And I would take that as a compromise to get the cup quality that I get from this thing. It's not perfect, but it is really pretty good. And if you're interested in a flat burr grinder, then I think it's a great starting point on flat burr grinding at home.
• 37:00 - 37:30 I'm impressed by this, I think, in many ways. It's not head and shoulders above everything else, but it is a little bit more aligned to my coffee preferences and that's how I should explain these things. But these two here, most definitely worthy of consideration. And you wanna pay attention to things like customer sales and support. You know where you are in the world, you wanna make sure that if something goes wrong, you can get it fixed. And that may rule out a grinder like this and rule in one of these grinders here. But now I wanna hear from you.
• 37:30 - 38:00 Do you own one of these grinders? Have I been overly harsh? Have I been too kind, even? Are there things about them, quirks you've discovered from using them every single day that you want to share with us and the wider community? I would love to hear your thoughts down in the comments below whether you have one of these grinders or whether you don't. If there's things we should have tested, let me know. We always wanna improve the reviews that we do, make them better and more exhaustive and hopefully more helpful to you too. But for now, I'll say thank you so much for watching and I hope you have a great day.