Review on OXO BREW Conical Burr Coffee Grinder: Precision Grinding with Built-in Scale by Amanda Collins

My boyfriend and I are a bit of a coffee snob and prefer to buy good quality beans and grind them ourselves. For those who really love "real" coffee, grinding the beans is the only way out. However, not all coffee grinders are created equal. Most would agree that the key feature of a quality coffee grinder is the use of a grinder instead of a blade, as blades simply cannot produce an even grind. However, as I looked into different coffee grinders (to replace the failed Cuisinart DBM-8), I learned that one coffee grinder isn't everything. with low speed motor, makes the best of the best. This OXO grinder is one of the few that ticks both the boxes, but what really sets it apart is the built-in scale. The high torque/low speed feature is important and not all burr grinders have it. I don't know how big the overheating issue was for our old Cuisinart DBM-8 grinder, let alone any other grinder, but it seems like a reasonable point nonetheless. I can say that our old coffee grinder ejected ground coffee with such force that it formed a lump on the sides of the hopper, so a machine running at a lower, more controlled speed seems like the right way to design a coffee grinder. Despite the fact that this machine is slow, the earth isn't flung out, but it's not slow at all either - suffice it to say the earth just "crumbs" out of it. Brew a lot of coffee in no time! And is it noisy? Well, not quiet, that's for sure. It's certainly not as loud and harsh as our old Cuisinart DBM-8. With the apparent efficiency of a conical grinder, the noise is smoother and more like a small vacuum cleaner than a grinder. To me it just sounds like it should be in a solid, high quality machine. The conical cutter was a new concept for me, but comparing it to a flat or round cutter design it becomes clear which one will last the longest. I can also say that this grinder grinds MUCH smoother, almost on par with standard grocery store grinders. I thought our old Cuisinart DBM-8 would work just fine until I saw what this OXO does! And don't forget, the burr components are super easy to remove for cleaning, but look and feel like they'll last forever. There are several competing grinders that match what I've just described, but there is one feature that completely sets this OXO apart from the crowd: the built-in scale. Most (all?) coffee grinders have a dial for the number of cups of coffee you want to grind, but they're really just timers so you're actually getting an estimate. Never knowing how big the variance was, I couldn't trust any of them, so I just chopped up a pile and scooped out what I needed with a measuring spoon. That often meant I ground more than I needed at the moment, and if you're not going to brew what you've just ground right away, then why use grain at all, right? The presence of built-in scales solves this problem. I just LOVE being able to set the desired cup size, press a button, and then, without thinking, pour the entire container into the filter. No measuring sticks, no counting spoons and no fresh coffee grounds in the container! The scales are also very smart: they always show how many cups are in the container. So if you want more than what's in the container, just type it in and it will never do more than what you select. Chute and container are not sealed against each other, so an air gap remains. Some of these reviews even included photos, and they all seemed to have one thing in common: the dust looked more like tiny flakes than coffee grounds. Then I thought about the anatomy of coffee beans and suggested that what we actually look like might be part of the shell or outer shell, more specifically of the beans, which can be a bit dry. As long as we use fresh, high-quality grain, we have no dust at all. However, a couple of times we ran into a dilemma and we had to buy some off the shelf bulk products that had been sitting there for who knows how long and they were the ones creating the dust. Could this grinder have been designed a little better to prevent this? Absolutely. But the joy I get from coffee after using this machine, even with subpar beans, far outweighs these inconveniences. With our old Cuisinart DBM-8, we had to remove the grind hopper and then turn the whole machine upside down to dump the beans before removing the hopper. Of course, it wasn't often that we had to pull out a ton full of beans, so it wasn't a big deal. But what makes a hatch really useful is that you can buy additional containers individually (at a surprisingly low price!). I've found that a silly little bean can get stuck in the spring-loaded trap and hold it open, causing the beans to crumble all over the place. And once you start filming the bunker, you won't be able to stop it in such a situation! It only happened once and we only laughed while picking the beans. I only have one issue with this machine, as well designed and built as it is I am very surprised that it comes with a plastic bin. for the base instead of glass, which would be great for reducing static electricity build-up. However, this did not become a major problem. If this becomes really a problem, you can simply replace the plastic container with something else from the closet. Overall I'm very happy with this machine (as with just about every other OXO branded item I've ever owned) and would highly recommend it to all my coffee snobs!