Cuisinart DBM8U BURR MILL (18 Position Grind)

This coffee mill has been in near daily use since 2004 when we found it in a homeware shop in Truro. At the time, the high price (as I thought at the time) concerned me, but a colleague and real coffee afficionado had been talking to me of the benefits of a burr mill for a number of weeks. He was right in every respect. A burr mill removes the variation in the grind size that you get in a blade based mill, and the coffee is subjected to a lower heat as it passes through the mill rather than remaining in the chamber while the blades continue to chop. This apparently helps the beans keep more of ... more

If you are buying fresh coffee then unless it's in those vac packs it is always best to buy it as beans rather than having the shop grind it for you. Coffee goes stale quite quickly after it has been ground and should be used within a few days to have it at it's best. If bought as beans it will keep for up to a month and you can grind it as it is needed. It also means you can grind it to suit different machines. I use both a cafetiere and an espresso machine, which both need different grind settings. I bought this coffee grinder after my cheap blade mill finally gave up. It was expensive (£56) ... more

Having had a Gaggia coffee grinder for fourteen years and having had various expresso machines for over twenty two years I think I have a rough idea about what coffee should taste like. My faithful Gaggia grinder gave up the ghost about two months ago and I told my wife I'd like a new grinder for my birthday. I thought that despite not being a coffee drinker she couldn't go too far wrong with this. The grinder is quite large, much larger than the Gaggia grinder but doesn't do anything that the Gaggia didn't except that it holds more coffee which isn't really an advantage as you don't want it ... more