Home espresso

The grinder matters more than the machine

This is the least popular advice in the category and the most reliably true: if you own a decent machine and a bad grinder, every pound you spend on the grinder improves your coffee more than the same pound spent on a machine would. Espresso is brewed in about twenty-five seconds through a compacted bed of coffee, and the evenness of that bed is almost entirely the grinder’s doing.

What to buy

  1. 1. Baratza Encore ESP

    $200 – $400

    The grinder that makes a cheap espresso machine taste like an expensive one.

    What it does well
    Forty espresso-range settings with genuinely fine steps between them, conical burrs that hold their grind, and Baratza will sell you every replacement part for years.
    What is wrong with it
    Slower than a single-dose grinder and it retains a little ground coffee between doses, so switching beans means purging a gram or two. The plastic hopper looks cheap for the money.
    Check price on Amazon for Baratza Encore ESP (opens in a new tab)

  2. 2. DF54 Single Dose Grinder

    $200 – $400

    Flat burrs and near-zero retention at a price that used to buy neither.

    What it does well
    Stepless adjustment, 58mm flat burrs, and it gives back essentially all the coffee you put in, so you can change beans between shots without wasting any.
    What is wrong with it
    Single dosing means weighing beans for every shot, which is a chore if you make six coffees a morning. Louder than the Encore, and the build is fine rather than lovely.
    Check price on Amazon for DF54 Single Dose Grinder (opens in a new tab)

  3. 3. Acaia Pearl S Scale

    $200 – $400

    A scale fast enough to actually follow an espresso shot as it pours.

    What it does well
    Refreshes quickly enough to be useful mid-shot rather than after it, with a built-in timer, and it is the reference other scales get compared to.
    What is wrong with it
    Absurd value-for-money next to a twenty dollar kitchen scale that weighs the same coffee to the same tenth of a gram. Buy this because you enjoy it, not because your coffee needs it.
    Check price on Amazon for Acaia Pearl S Scale (opens in a new tab)

The verdict

The Encore ESP is the right first espresso grinder for most people: enough adjustment range to dial in any bean, a manufacturer that sells every replacement part, and no ceremony required to use it. Step up to the DF54 if you change beans often enough that retention has started to annoy you.

Questions people ask

Why will a blade grinder not work?
A blade grinder does not grind, it chops. It produces a mixture of dust and chunks rather than particles of a consistent size. Water finds the path of least resistance through that mixture, over-extracting the dust and barely touching the chunks, and the result tastes both bitter and sour at once. No espresso machine can recover from it.
Conical or flat burrs?
Flat burrs generally produce a more uniform grind, which tends to give a clearer, more separated cup. Conical burrs are more forgiving and often give a heavier body. At home budgets the difference is real but smaller than the difference between either of them and a bad grinder, so buy on build quality and adjustment range first.
What is retention and should I care?
Retention is the coffee that stays inside the grinder between doses. It matters if you switch beans often, because your first shot on the new bag is partly the old one. If you drink one bag at a time until it is gone, low retention is a convenience rather than a quality improvement.
Do I need a scale as well?
You need to weigh your dose, yes, and a basic kitchen scale does that perfectly well. A dedicated espresso scale adds a fast refresh rate and a built-in timer so you can watch the shot as it pours, which is genuinely useful for diagnosis but is a luxury rather than a requirement.

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