It's incredibly loud and does a piss-poor job of grinding. Even at the coarsest settings, about 25% of the coffee in the hopper is ground into flour. Sludge city in a French press.
I believe this is because they wanted to get high grinding speed and keep the cost down, so they use small burrs and a high RPM. You want the opposite, big burrs and low RPM. Like my Macap M-4, a hand grinder, or some of the other grinders mentioned in this thread.
It's incredibly loud and does a piss-poor job of grinding. Even at the coarsest settings, about 25% of the coffee in the hopper is ground into flour. Sludge city in a French press.
I believe this is because they wanted to get high grinding speed and keep the cost down, so they use small burrs and a high RPM. You want the opposite, big burrs and low RPM. Like my Macap M-4, a hand grinder, or some of the other grinders mentioned in this thread.
-Joe
I have one of the Cuisinart coffee mills. It's a flat burr mill and I agree with most of what you said. It is better than a blade mill, but nowhere near as good as a conical burr mill. I bought a refurbished one and it was relatively inexpensive at $39 and free shipping. I want to upgrade to the Baratza mill soon. Yes, the Cuisinart is loud. Very loud!
interesting tidbit:
so i ran out of filters in my grind n brew, and i only have whole beans. so i decided to grind in the grind in brew then dump into the french press and live with it for another week instead of buying 100 filters.
the grind is a perfect french press grind! i was really surprised. no sludge at all. i think it may be because the grinds can exit the grinder as soon as they're small enough to pass thru the screen into the filter holder, so they don't get smashed into dust.
well, i received it...haven't run any beans thru yet. turned it on, it runs, lol.
the front nameplate was off, but it was in the box.
the button behind the nameplate was pushed in and i can't get it out.
that button isn't functional anymore since they changed the design anyway. in the first model the side switch was a timer, and the button was if you wanted to just turn it on for a short period of time. the new model, the side switch just turns it on and you just turn it off. no timer. but still, kind of strange.
other that that I haven't looked at it or messed with it. I will tomorrow morning tho. i emailed baratza about it, we'll see what they say. otherwise i'll just epoxy that namplate over the "button"
tried it on setting 35 and 37. next run i'll try it on its highest, 40...we'll see.
also note that my french press is a cheap one. my process is:
add beans. fill halfway with water, stir, fill remainder with water. add top, slowly plunge halfway, bring plunger to the top. steep 4 min, plunge all the way.
I have the Maestro Plus but I got it cheap, the new ones sell for $150. A friend of mine was involved in a bitter divorce and sold me his wife's grinder for $40. The only problem was they use flavored beans in it!!! But I invested a little in cleaning it and there is no smell.
They divorced, sold their house at the worst time and lost a ton, got back together and are buying a house.
I still have the grinder and am very happy with it.
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