Gets It Done

After moving to New England from the south and, for the first time in my life, experiencing a real winter, I decided I would try to do a few things different to keep myself warm. One was to bundle up, the other was to pump as much hot beverage into me in the mornings as I could take. That led to me looking at starting to drink coffee on a more daily basis and finally to getting a French press and grinder. So almost every single day since then, for the last year, I've been grinding and pressing before work.

I decided on the Breville burr grinder for it's price, build, and positive reviews. Being a newb to the home-coffee thing, this is about all I had to go on so I did the deed and orded up the grinder. I had seen it in the store before, so I knew it was beefier than other similar-level grinders. The outside is a brushed stainless finish imune to scratches, wear, and stains based on my personal experience of knocking it around and not really wiping it down very often. The top cap will scratch over time, though, but not a big deal for me. The other clear plactics seem to be holding up very well. The Breville is built heavy enough that it does NOT vibrate across the counter during use. The rubber base makes sure of it.

The unit is pretty easy to figure out. The entire hopper rotates to different settings with clicks between the settings from coarse to fine. The clicks aren't that that defined, so setting it at an exact same spot every time is not that clear cut. Most people will set it once and leave it, though. The beans load from the top, up to 1/2 pound, and a single button will run the grinder for up to 30 seconds at a time. The timer is controlled with a dial just under the button.

I have nothing to compare it to, but noise-wise, I always shut the bedroom door so as to not wake my girlfriend up some mornings. Not that loud to me, but you can definitely hear it thoughout the apartment. All the hardware feels well-built with exceptions (see below). It takes about a minute to grind out four scoops of beans (sorry, but I don't have the exact measurements) which ends up being six scoops of a Bodum press.

Being that I'm no expert on grinds, I'll  say that the grinds that the Breville produces are good. I don't get a bunch of dust in my grinds, although the coarse, if examined close up, are not all the same size. How can they be, I figure. On the finder settings, it seems more consistent to my untrained eye, but I don't use that as often. The coffee always smells good, with no hint of burning after coming straight down the chute. The coffee always tastes good too. All I could ask for.

I've run several different roasts through the Breville and have no issues with fresher, not too oily beans. When the beans are greasy, though, I've had to slap the grinder a bit to get them to the bottom of the hopper. Maybe that can be a plus on the durability side of things since the unit still works. On the other end, some of the older, or dryer beans will end up clinging to the side of the recepticle; moreso when I have the heater running and the air is dry. It seems that this varies with different beans, however, so results will vary.

The burr is removable so it can be cleaned but I've had to use a thin brush to get into the chute to clean out any grinds. Sometimes quite a bit can gather, again, depending on the beans you use. Again, though, I abuse the grinder by banging it on the counter to clear it out, and again, it still works fine. Solid? Yes.

But, it's not totally super grinder. At some point, one of the plastic tabs from the ring that holds  the burr in place broke off. It hasn't affected the function, so I let it slide. Other than that the only other problem I have is that the timer will intermittently do it's own thing. Sometimes it shuts off after a few seconds even when it's set to 30. I have no idea if it's overheating, or maybe I stopped it early the day before, but it can be annoying when I walk to the other room only to hear the grinder stop and have to restart it.

When I did my research, the peers of the the Breville cost at least $20 more, so I'd say for the money, I did well. The unit has performed well so far under almost everyday use, still looks great, and my coffee tastes good. Good buy.

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UPDATE, September 27, 2009: So after using the Breville Burr Grinder for a year and a half daily with no real issues, it up and quit on me a couple months ago. Well, not alltogether quit, but it would take a couple tries to get it started enough to go through the grind process. The beans were clogging and jamming the device and I suspect it was due to those plastic tabs that had broken off leaving nothing to separate the beans.

I emailed Breville and got a quick response requesting the purchase information. Another email and quick response later, I had a prepaid shiping label to send it back for replacement. Not too long after that, I had a new unit on my counter, ready to go.

After going through the break in process, I set it for my grinds with my usual batch of beans and watched them get sucked down and ground in roughly a quarter of the time it used to take. Wow. Whatever they redesigned, it made a huge improvement in the grind time. I don't have to hit the button twice anymore and rarely have to even tap the grinder to get the beans down.

Another thing that's changed is I don't get the random shutoff. Of course, seeing that the grind time is greatly reduced, I don't think there is a chance for the unit to shut off randomly. Win win!

It's been a couple months in use with the replacement and still no problems. None of the tabs have broken off and I remove the grind ring to clean it after every use. Coffee still comes out fine too. So whether I had a defective unit or they revised it, I don't know. I do know the new one has solved my biggest problems with the old unit. Good job.