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By Rachel Wharton and Liz Clayton diamond grinding wheel types
We are currently testing the Baratza Encore ESP, an all-in-one grinder from the manufacturer of our top pick.
If you want to make better coffee at home, the most important tool you can buy isn’t an expensive brewer or fancy filters, but a good burr grinder. No matter how you choose to make your coffee, even the best beans won’t be as delicious if they aren’t ground consistently. We’ve been testing grinders (and using our picks daily) since 2015, and we’ve found that the no-frills Baratza Encore delivers high-quality, ultra-consistent grinding. It is also easy to maintain, clean, repair, and even customize, all for a fair price.
This all-around workhorse grinder produces the consistent grind required to brew delicious coffee, and it doesn’t cost a fortune.
For a steeper price, the Virtuoso+ has everything we like about the Encore in terms of reliability and consistent grind size, plus a few improved features.
This compact grinder is easy to use and has a wider range than most budget grinders, but it’s a bit less consistent than our top picks and less repairable.
For those who want an affordable yet high-quality portable hand grinder, the Timemore Chestnut C2 is the best in its class for speed, ease of grinding, and consistency.
This all-around workhorse grinder produces the consistent grind required to brew delicious coffee, and it doesn’t cost a fortune.
The Baratza Encore grinds coffee more evenly, and on a wider range of settings, than any other machine we’ve tested at its price level—and many that cost more. It’s a time-tested, reliable, straightforward tool that takes up a modest square of counter space. It’s easy to clean and maintain, and an investment you can rely on morning after morning.
This grinder should be great for anyone who makes drip coffee or uses other methods that require beans ground at medium-fine to coarse settings (like pour-over, Chemex, AeroPress, or French press). The Encore is our only pick (besides the hand grinder) that doesn’t have a timer or some automated way to measure out beans, but we’ve found it’s easy enough to measure your beans before you add them to the hopper. Plus, Baratza also makes a smaller 60-gram hopper, which lets you use its top lid to measure out beans, streamlining that process.
For a steeper price, the Virtuoso+ has everything we like about the Encore in terms of reliability and consistent grind size, plus a few improved features.
The Baratza Virtuoso+ is a great grinder with a burr set that’s a little faster and more consistent than the Encore’s, and it offers a slightly broader range for both fine and coarse grounds. Unlike the Encore, this grinder has a precise, 60-second digital timer that allows you to grind a set amount of beans from the hopper—meaning you don’t have to measure them each time you make coffee. (You can also add hopper extenders, which would allow your Virtuoso+ to store a whole bag of beans.)
The Virtuoso+ also has a light for the bin, so you can easily see how much you’ve ground. Even so, this model is not significantly better at grinding than the Encore. You’re paying for incremental improvements that may be important if coffee is a blossoming passion or hobby for you.
This compact grinder is easy to use and has a wider range than most budget grinders, but it’s a bit less consistent than our top picks and less repairable.
The OXO Brew Conical Burr Coffee Grinder is the best we’ve tried in its price range of about $100. (We’ve found that any electric grinder below that price represents a significant step down in terms of grind consistency and durability.) The Encore offers a more consistent, versatile grind and a long-term maintenance and repair program, but the OXO hits the sweet spot in terms of price, grind quality, and ease of use.
If you wanted to fill up the OXO with a bag of beans and just hit a button every morning, you could: It has a 12-ounce hopper and a timer ranging from zero to 30 seconds that lets you automate how much to grind. It’s also easier to clean than the Baratza, as the hopper comes with a shutoff valve so that it can be easily removed with the beans still inside, and the top burr has a little handle that lets you twist out the top half.
If you drink mostly drip or French press coffee, the OXO’s relatively even grind, wide range of settings, and more-convenient features make it a good alternative to the pricier Baratza Encore.
For those who want an affordable yet high-quality portable hand grinder, the Timemore Chestnut C2 is the best in its class for speed, ease of grinding, and consistency.
If you have a modest budget, a very small kitchen, or a desire for a more portable or off-the-grid burr coffee grinder, we’ve found the Chestnut C2 Manual Coffee Grinder to be the best option under $100. The C2 is the lowest-cost grinder from coffee gear company Timemore, whose manual grinders are well-regarded among coffee experts. To sell the C2 at a lower price, Timemore uses durable, high-quality plastic in the interior shaft rather than the metal in its higher-end models, and gave it a slightly less complex burr and crank arm, which is still easily removable for storage or travel. The C2 has an impressively smooth and speedy grinding action, and is sturdy and well-built. Some options come with a pebbly aluminum surface that’s easy to grip.
Like the electric models in this guide, the C2 is not designed for espresso making, and because it is much smaller than an electric grinder, it can make only enough grounds for a cup or two of coffee at a time. But it only takes a couple of minutes—even cranking slowly—to grind through that, and it is easy to refill.
Rachel Wharton is a senior staff writer at Wirecutter. She has decades of experience in breaking down complicated culinary subjects for readers, as well as a good grasp of sensory analysis and coffee-brewing principles.
Writers Cale Guthrie Weissman and Liz Clayton also worked on previous versions of this guide.
If you’re reading this guide, you’re interested in making better coffee at home, or buying a grinder for someone who is. You may have already read that the most important component of your coffee making setup is a quality burr grinder, one that will grind beans evenly—no matter how coarse or fine you want your grounds. The reason is that unevenly ground beans yield muddy cups of coffee with unpleasant sour or bitter notes—or both.
When you grind coffee beans, coffee writer and researcher Scott Rao told us, “There are going to be dusty little particles we call ‘fines,’ and there are going to be some larger particles we call ‘boulders,’ and a whole bunch of particles in the middle that are going to be the size you want.”
Even the best burr grinders will produce some fines and boulders, but good grinders will yield a lot fewer of them, and the ones at the right size will be more consistently shaped, too. And that makes for better coffee. The short explanation, said Rao, is that fines will brew too quickly and thus too long, giving you the bitter, astringent, tannic flavors of over-extracted coffee. Boulders brew too slowly and thus not long enough, giving you the weak, or even sour, flavors of under-extracted coffee.
If you’re currently using a subpar grinder—especially a budget, blade-style grinder—our testing shows that by switching to a quality burr grinder, you’ll significantly improve the flavor of your coffee. Make your brew with properly ground beans and you’ll easily detect a difference in aromatics and complexity of flavor, in sweetness and acidity, and even in the coffee’s texture and body. A good grinder can have a tremendous positive effect on your brew, regardless of the quality of your beans or the brewing method you use.
The consistency of the grind is so important that some experts recommend buying coffee ground-to-order from a high-quality source (like a reputable coffee shop) over using a blade or bad burr grinder.
But owning a good-quality burr grinder also gives you options. You can bring home one bag of coffee, and then perfectly grind the beans to various sizes for a broad range of brewing devices and styles. And after many hours of taste-testing, we can’t stress enough how even small variations in grind size can make a huge difference in flavor.
The one thing the grinders in this guide aren’t great for is making espresso. If you’re serious about making espresso, you’ll want a dedicated espresso grinder, which can produce fine, precise grounds, and allows for small adjustments to the grind size.
We rated electric burr grinders first and foremost on the quality and consistency of their grind. But there are other features and factors to consider, like how easy the machine is to use and how long it lasts. A good grinder should be simple to operate, maintain, and clean, and it should last for years, with proper maintenance. Here's what we paid attention to:
Burr sets: The quality of a grinder’s burr set will affect everything from how consistently it grinds to how long it lasts, though ideally you should also be able to replace the burrs when they do wear out. Burr sets—they have two pieces, a top and a bottom, which work a little like teeth—can be made of steel (or sometimes ceramic or plastic, which are not ideal and not currently a part of any machine we recommend), and they come in a variety of widths and configurations.
There are also burr sizes—the wider the burr, the faster it will grind; in this guide, the burrs in most of the best electric machines hover around 40 millimeters in width, while manual burrs are often slightly smaller. Steel burrs, some coated with various other metals, are the most common, are durable and easy to maintain, and can be cleaned with a stiff wire brush.
Motor strength: A machine with a smaller or cheaper motor (and often a lower-quality block burr) can add unwanted heat to the beans, and may be at risk of burning out sooner, because it has to work harder to grind. It also has a harder time pulling beans through the burrs. A poorly built machine also grinds less consistently, because the burrs may wobble or slip slightly out of alignment. This shouldn’t be an issue with any of our picks.
There are two types of grind settings: stepped and stepless. Most home burr grinders are stepped—you pick a preset number on a dial. With a stepless grinder, you can also select any point in between those preset numbers, which means you can tinker endlessly with the size of your grinds. For obsessive coffee drinkers, this is great. But with a stepless grinder, if you change the grind setting at all, it’s not easy to repeat the optimal settings for your daily brews. For this guide, we decided the ideal grinder is a stepped model with plenty of range and clear markings between each step, so that it’s easy to go back to your favorite setting.
All grinders include starter guides to grind size in their manuals. But your grinder’s definition of an ideal Chemex or French press grind may not match up with your own. Be sure to experiment with your grinder to find the best-tasting setting, instead of taking the grinder’s recommendations as gospel.
Repairs and maintenance: With proper maintenance, a good grinder should last you many years. To maintain your grinder, it’s essential to be able to easily clean inside the burr chamber. This is especially true if you have a taste for oilier, darker-roast, or flavored coffees.
In our tests we looked for machines that had easily removable parts—particularly around the burr set—to allow for regular cleaning and, if necessary, replacement. (With normal use, a good set of burrs could last for a decade before needing to be replaced.)
We chose grinders with easily accessible, transparent customer service in the United States. Being able to replace all kinds of parts—such as the entire burr set (not just the top), the bins, and even the motor—is also a plus.
Price: After years of testing grinders, we’ve learned that a good electric grinder currently costs at least $100. Even our budget pick doesn’t dip below that price, except during occasional sales. We know that it still may be a tough sell for those who don’t consider themselves major coffee geeks, but we think spending more is well worth it for most coffee drinkers.
If price is an issue, you can also look online for a used Baratza grinder. Because Baratza grinders are so durable and repairable, used ones are a pretty safe bet, and you may be able to find a good deal (we’ve seen refurbished Encores going for around $100). You might also consider our manual hand grinder pick.
Dosage measurements: Some grinders come with features that allow you to easily grind the same amount of coffee—known as the dose—each time, so you don’t have to measure the beans before or after you grind them. (This means you could just store your beans in the grinder’s hopper, even though most experts don’t recommend it, as they’re more exposed to light and air.)
Machines without integrated timers, scales, or presets require you to measure the beans yourself. Although it’s nice not to have to take that extra step, it’s also not a huge inconvenience to do so, and many people who invest in a daily coffee routine are already doing this. The most precise way to measure coffee is to weigh it because beans are not all the same shape, size, or density. (If you need a scale, we recommend the American Weigh Scales LB-3000.)
Dosage measurement usually adds $100 or more to a machine and has varying degrees of precision or usefulness. It also adds an extra potential point of failure to your grinder.
Messiness: Every electric burr grinder will create some static or mess, and that’s normal. (If this is your number one issue, you might consider a manual grinder; they’re less messy and also easier to use over a sink or a trash can.)
This can vary depending on a number of external factors: a room’s humidity, the type and age of the coffee you’re grinding, the grind setting, whether your machine has a flat or conical burr, and even what kind of surface your grinder sits on. Dry environments produce more static, and lighter roasts produce more chaff than darker, oily ones do. But we kept note of any grinders that were excessively messy.
The top-ranked manual grinders, those with the broadest range, best design and most precision, are still more expensive than our budget pick, but there are now at least a few options at the lower end that produce excellent results.
Manual grinders are great for travel, as a backup if you don’t have electricity, or if you are trying to be extra quiet in the morning. (We’ve found them to be less messy in our testing, too.) They’re a great option for people who have a small, already-cluttered kitchen or those who generally make only a cup or two at a time.
We set out to recommend a good-quality manual grinder that a) cost less than our electric grinder budget pick, b) was small enough to carry in a purse or backpack, and c) was comfortable and good enough to use as your everyday grinder.
Still, for the vast majority of households, manual grinders are probably too small or impractical for everyday use. It’s important to know that it takes a little more time (and elbow grease) than you would need using an electric grinder, especially if you are making a big pot of coffee.
With a manual hand grinder, features are also minimal: You can grind only about 18 to 35 grams at a time. And with most of the hand grinders we tested, you adjust the size of the grind by turning a knob connected to the burr set, which opens or tightens it as you click. While more expensive manual grinders usually have numbers on this knob, lower cost manual grinders usually require that you take note of your selected settings, usually something like 14 clicks past zero for a medium grind or 18 clicks above zero for a French press grind. (This sounds complicated at first, but it is not very hard to master, especially if you’re the only one using it every day.)
We began our tests with a visual evaluation of grounds from each machine to check a grinder’s range and to look at grind shape and consistency. For each machine, we considered the following: Are there obvious large coffee particles (boulders) and small particles (fines)? How fine does the grinder really go? And how well does it handle a coarse grind (something that’s usually inconsistent in lesser-quality machines)? For each machine, we ground coffee at the finest setting, the coarsest setting, and at the recommended setting for a medium grind.
To find the right grind setting on each machine for a taste test, and to test for grind-size consistency, we used the Kruve coffee sifter and guide. The sifter works by separating boulders and fines into separate compartments; grounds at the ideal size are left in between. With each grinder, we used the Kruve tools to calibrate a medium-fine grind for drip coffee, and to visually quantify which machines had the most grounds in the target range. With better machines, you should see fewer fines and boulders and more grounds that are in your target range.
Once we separated boulders and fines, we were able to see how many of those boulders were extra-large or odd-shaped, which can also affect the way coffee tastes. (Kyle Ramage said he worries more about there being too many boulders than too many fines, partly because fines are inevitable as brittle beans are jostled or ground, and partly because he thinks boulders are what really muddy the flavor of the coffee.)
Then we twice brewed coffee from each grinder on an 8-cup Bonavita Connoisseur brewer, a previous pick in our guide to coffee makers that’s known to make great-tasting drip coffee. For all of the above tests, we used the same medium-roasted coffee: the Fast Forward blend from Counter Culture.
We also did further testing with La Colombe’s darker Phocea roast (which is no longer available) and the lightly roasted, natural sun-dried Jabanto beans from Counter Culture, to see how our recommended machines handled a range of beans. (This is especially important for some low-cost manual grinders, as certain roasts can be noticeably hard to crank through.)
During the grinding process, we timed how fast each grinder was at different settings, as well as how easy each was to use and clean. We also paid attention to ancillary issues such as whether the machines were especially large (could they fit under upper cabinets?) or noisy (all electric ones are, but some are more elegant about it than others). And we looked at whether they were especially slow or fast or made a bigger mess than others. We also kept an eye out for potential durability issues, weaknesses in workmanship, and excessive messiness.
In original tests of the Baratza and OXO grinders in 2017, we also had access to professionally trained palates and a suite of brewing and analytical equipment at the Counter Culture Coffee lab in New York City. There, we used a refractometer to measure the extraction percentage (essentially, how much coffee you get from the coffee grounds) and total dissolved solids (TDS), based on the light refracted by the particles within the coffee. These measurements told us how much of the coffee was dissolved into the water, and thus how successful the extraction of the grinds was. (A well-extracted cup of coffee should measure between 18% to 22% extraction on a refractometer.)
Because we were able to at the time, we also compared the grinds from a professional-grade Mahlkönig EK43 grinder, a model frequently found in specialty cafés. We visually evaluated the EK43’s grinds, and we used the Kruve sifters to see which home machine could best replicate the EK43’s consistency. We also ground coffee with a simple Krups blade grinder to see what the opposite end of the spectrum looked like.
Equally important, the Counter Culture team taught us that no professional tool was as accurate as a trained palate when it comes to determining over- and under-extraction. The last step was to have their professionally trained team taste the coffee made with each grinder.
This all-around workhorse grinder produces the consistent grind required to brew delicious coffee, and it doesn’t cost a fortune.
Year after year in our taste tests, the trim Baratza Encore performs as well as or better than any other home grinder, and it’s priced lower than other machines of a comparable quality. It’s the most affordable grinder Baratza sells, but it’s also a workhorse. The Encore grinds beans quickly and evenly for every application, apart from advanced espresso making, and it’s simple to use and adjust. It’s also easy to clean, maintain, and repair, which means it could last for decades.
It grinds evenly. Although even the most consistent burr grinder will produce at least some particles that are smaller and larger than you’d like, we found that the Encore performed incredibly well at grinding evenly. When we used a Kruve sifter set to measure the amount of oversize and undersize particles created on a medium grind setting, the two Baratza machines (the Encore and the Virtuoso+, our upgrade pick) were the best in their price ranges at hitting the target. In our original coffee lab trials, only the professional-grade Mahlkönig EK43 yielded a more uniform grind than Baratza’s machines.
As expected, the grinders that produced the most consistent grinds also produced the best-tasting coffee, both in our own hands-on testing and with our 2017 professional tasting panel.
When the Encore was on a medium setting, it took us about 35 to 40 seconds to grind 68 grams of medium-grind coffee appropriate for filter brewing—in other words, it took less than a minute to grind enough for a pot of coffee, on a par with other grinders we tested.
It's not too loud. The Encore also fell in the medium range for noise: It wasn’t significantly quieter or louder than most other grinders we’ve tested, but it did have a more pleasant sound, as opposed to a high whine or an ugly chug.
We tested the Encore against our budget pick, the OXO, using the CDC-approved NIOSH Sound Level Meter app for the iPhone. We learned that the Encore is slightly quieter than the OXO when the machines are running empty (by about 5 decibels), but slightly louder than the OXO (by about 2 decibels) when the two machines are actively processing beans. But the sound of the Encore is still more pleasant to our ears by far, even a bit louder.
It's simple. The Encore doesn’t have the bells and whistles of a lot of other machines—it doesn’t have a scale, a timer, or any other dials other than a push-down pulse button and an on/off switch. But we found this made it supremely easy to produce a great cup of coffee. To adjust grind size, you turn the hopper to the preferred tick mark on the base (measured in numbered intervals from 0 to 40, with 40 being the coarsest), so you can quickly move from setting to setting and remember your preferences. In contrast with many entry-level machines, the Encore and the Virtuoso+ tend to have a broader grinding range, which is desirable—you want as broad a range as possible, especially if you regularly use different brewing methods. The Encore’s range is more than sufficient for the average home coffee drinker and the budding enthusiast.
Most other machines we tested offer more features. But they were confusing to use and took longer to calibrate, with dials and digital settings that were unintuitive, inaccurate or overly detailed for most users. What’s more, if you want to adjust your approach to make a better cup of coffee, you have to play around with multiple variables that can actually mask the changes you’re making.
The company is reliable and its machines are repairable. Baratza has a great reputation among customers and coffee professionals for durability and customer service. Almost every part of the Baratza grinder is repairable or replaceable, which is rare among grinders designed for home use, and the company has detailed video guides for many fixes.
If your machine does break after the warranty’s up, and MacGyver isn’t your middle name, you can still send the Encore to the company for repairs, which amounts to cleaning, recalibration, testing, and replacing all worn or broken parts except for burrs (if you want a new burr, you can request it and pay extra). To request a repair, you have to fill out a customer support form. Baratza will send you a shipping label, and give you a quote once they’ve given your machine a once-over. Shipping both ways is free, and according to Baratza, repairs typically take three to five business days.
The Encore—like all Baratza grinders—is covered by a limited one-year warranty, provided that you keep up regular maintenance and cleaning. To clean or even repair the machine, you just twist off the hopper and remove the top burr. And when it’s time to replace the burr set (which the manufacturer recommends after you grind 500 to 1,000 pounds of coffee), you can easily order the parts from Baratza’s website.
In recent years, Baratza has also tried to make the Encore even more user-friendly: The company modernized the body shape, and it now sells a single-dose hopper that lets you use the lid to measure out beans with a scale. Or you can add $10 extenders to the hopper so it holds more beans. You can even upgrade to the slightly better burr set in the Virtuoso+ for just $35 at the time of writing.
Lesley Stockton, Wirecutter senior staff writer, has had her Encore for 10 years and uses it to brew both espresso and drip coffee. She had to replace the plastic holder on the upper burr but says it was a “relatively cheap and easy fix.” She also told us, “The Encore isn’t quite as fast as the Virtuoso+ that the Wirecutter staff uses in our office kitchen, but having the means to make delicious coffee at home is the most important thing for me, and the Encore definitely delivers that!”
Wirecutter writer James Austin has had his Encore for about five years, and even though he didn’t clean it for more than a year (we don’t recommend this!), he said it still handles “both small daily grinds for my Chemex and really big grinds for when I make a big batch of cold brew” without issue.
Meanwhile, senior staff writer Dave Gershgorn has owned his Encore for four years, and it’s still going strong—and he bought his used.
It doesn't measure your beans. The Encore doesn’t allow for a timed grind like the Baratza Virtuoso+. This means you have to measure the beans before or after grinding in some way—with a scale, a scoop, or by eye. But considering that many of us do that when we make coffee anyway, we don’t consider this to be a big deal.
A timer would also allow you to turn on the machine and walk away, knowing the machine would stop at a certain point; this is convenient but not essential, since grinding enough coffee for a full pot usually takes less than a minute.
Fine grinds take a while. Like many machines, the Encore takes a long time to grind on a very fine, espresso-like setting. But we don’t recommend this machine for serious espresso makers, because its range on the fine end just isn’t nuanced enough to allow you to really refine a shot, and it wasn’t designed for espresso grinding. (Baratza now sells the Encore ESP, which is designed for espresso—it has more settings for fine grinding, and its gearbox is specifically designed for the slower grinding speeds espresso requires. We've begun testing it, and will have more to report soon.)
Removing beans from the hopper is a hassle. The hopper has no closure at the bottom. So if you store your beans in the hopper, and then want to remove those beans for any reason (to, say, switch to decaf beans or a different roast), you’ll have to invert the entire grinder over a bowl to empty it out, or just grind through what’s left. (Some coffee grinders, like those from OXO, Smeg, and Zwilling, allow you to close the bottom of the hopper before removing it so that you can move it with the beans inside.) If you don’t usually store beans in the hopper or if you always use the same kind of beans, this isn’t a big deal.
It's a bit messy. Both the Encore and the Virtuoso+ (our upgrade pick) throw off more chaff and stray grounds than our budget pick, the OXO Brew Conical Burr Grinder. Some people suggest workarounds, like gently slapping the hopper’s lid before you remove the bin or even better, placing the machine on a tray. But no method of making coffee is completely mess-free, so this isn’t a dealbreaker.
It's not exactly beautiful. We also feel duty bound to address the fact that the Encore is not one of the most cutting edge in terms of external design, which is a bit of a bummer. But we’d rather you have a machine that can make you better tasting coffee for up to a decade instead of one that’s mere eye candy.
For a steeper price, the Virtuoso+ has everything we like about the Encore in terms of reliability and consistent grind size, plus a few improved features.
If you’re willing to pay more, the Baratza Virtuoso+ is similar to the Encore in shape and size, yet it has a faster, slightly different burr set, a digital timer, and a heavier, mostly metal base, which gives it a higher-end look and feel. It also has a light that lets you clearly see the level of grounds in the bin, which is a nice addition, especially if you grind a lot of beans at once.
It offers more grind sizes and features. The Virtuoso+ has a slightly broader grind-size range, can grind a little finer, and has fewer small particles at most grind sizes. These are small enough differences that many coffee drinkers may not notice them. But the added digital timer is accurate to a tenth of a second, and it saves the time you’ve set it to—so you can grind the same amount of coffee each morning with almost no effort or measuring. You can also set the Virtuoso+ to grind a lot of coffee, and then walk away from the machine, knowing it will stop on its own—very useful for anyone who’s a morning multitasker.
Like with the Encore, you can also add a single-dose hopper that lets you use the lid to measure out beans with a scale or add $10 extenders to the hopper so that it can store a whole bag of beans (the hopper that comes with the grinder holds about 8 ounces, or half a pound/225 grams).
Still, we think this model is worth the extra investment only for more-serious coffee lovers, or those who think the timer will improve their day-to-day experience. And we’d still recommend the Virtuoso+ rather than other grinders with similar time-saving features for around the same price—the others we tested couldn’t beat the grind consistency, breadth, and ease of use of either Baratza.
But the timer introduces some issues. The timer on the Virtuoso+ does make the grinder a little less straightforward to use than the Encore, especially if you’re not using the timer to grind the same amount every day. Unlike the Encore, the Virtuoso+ doesn’t have a simple on/off button that you can just hold down to grind manually. Instead, you have to hold down the timer dial button for three seconds to activate the Pulse Mode; to deactivate the Pulse Mode, you spin the dial.
The dial is also a little finicky. It’s designed to increase the timer by whole seconds when you spin it clockwise and to decrease the timer by one-tenth of a second when you spin it counterclockwise. If you spin the timer dial too fast, it will jump around, which can be frustrating. If you pause in the middle of grinding—by hitting the dial button—the dial stays stuck wherever you paused it. You have to either start and stop the machine again manually or wait 30 seconds for it to switch back to the set time, at which point you can adjust accordingly again.
Like all of Baratza’s grinders, almost every part of the machine is repairable or replaceable. Just like the Encore, the Virtuoso+ comes with a limited one-year warranty. And beyond that, you can still send the machine back to Baratza for repairs (to request a repair, you have to fill out a customer support form). To clean or even repair the machine yourself, you just twist off the hopper and remove the top burr.
This compact grinder is easy to use and has a wider range than most budget grinders, but it’s a bit less consistent than our top picks and less repairable.
For those willing to trade a little consistency and longevity for convenience—or those who simply don’t want to spend more than $100—we recommend the OXO Brew Conical Burr Coffee Grinder. Though it doesn’t grind as well as the Baratza Encore or the Virtuoso+ in terms of range or consistency, the OXO is a very capable grinder with very good grind quality and a simple, intuitive design. It’s a great machine for an average person’s daily pot of drip or French press coffee. It also comes with many nice features that can make grinding coffee to order more convenient, like a timer and an extra-large hopper that holds a whole 12-ounce bag of coffee and is easily removable even when filled with beans.
It's faster and quieter, but shrill. The OXO’s burr sets are also slightly faster (grinding 10 grams more than the Encore in 15 seconds) and just a little bit quieter than those of the Baratza machines when grinding through beans—though the motor sound is a little higher and whinier. While these variations in speed and sound don’t make a huge difference in our testing, they might be very important in your own household.
Grind consistency at medium grind settings was close to—but not on a par with—that of our top picks. And the OXO was less consistent at the high and low end of its range. The coarsest grind was the least consistent and full of boulders. And the machine wasn’t able to grind quite as fine as that of our top picks.
It's straightforward to use. Unlike those on many coffee grinders, the markers on this machine are easy to use—the timer times (more or less) in actual seconds marked, and the grind setting markers offer a wide span of small, easy-to-read increments, making tiny adjustments uncomplicated.
It's less messy than other grinders. The OXO Brew’s canister sits snugly below the exit chute, neatly catching all of the grounds, and the shape makes it super-easy to pour fresh-ground coffee into your filter.
OXO also says it uses a steel grounds container that bumps up against a grounded steel tab to help reduce static buildup of the coffee grinds, which is an issue with most coffee grinders. We found this didn’t completely eliminate static or mess, though in our long term testing, the OXO was noticeably tidier than the Baratza Encore. (Anecdotally, we’ve noticed that electric grinders that perform the best in our consistency tests are often on the messier side—though we’re not yet sure if that’s a real pattern, or why that would be the case.)
The OXO grinder comes with a two-year warranty, during which time OXO will repair or replace your machine. OXO sells a replacement top burr, but unlike Baratza, does not sell any other parts for repairing your machine.
We also realize that for a budget grinder, the OXO still isn’t all that cheap. It doesn’t offer an enormous cost savings over the Baratza Encore, which still outperformed it. But if you’re looking for a balance between coffee-making convenience, grind quality, and price, this is your best bet. With cheaper machines, which often cut costs by including cheaper burr sets, the grind is often so uneven that the difference is visible to the naked eye. Cheaper models are also often lightweight, with flimsy construction. (As coffee expert Kyle Ramage told us, with burr grinders, you really get what you pay for.) For many ordinary coffee drinkers, the OXO was consistent enough to rival our top picks. This grinder also feels significantly more durable than any other machine in its price range, aside from the Capresso, which the OXO outperformed.
It can occasionally clog. From our testing, we’ve learned that this machine can clog if you grind dark and oily roasted beans, and especially if you don’t regularly clean the burrs or its chute. (In 2022, the company told us that they revamped the chute to streamline their production process. For what it is worth, we ran several pounds of dark roast, oily beans through the newest iteration of the grinder in August, when heat and humidity were at their peak, and never once had a clogging issue.) Most experts really recommend fully cleaning your grinder—that’s taking it apart and brushing off the burrs and the inside of the chute–every two weeks if you grind oily beans. If you own or buy the OXO and prefer a dark roast, we strongly recommend incorporating frequent burr and chute cleaning into your regimen—especially if you’re having trouble with beans making their way through your machine, and extra especially if you live in a humid climate.
Oilier roasts can also stick in the hopper of the OXO and may require a push to get them started, or constant monitoring to keep them going. From our testing, this issue seems to be even worse with lower priced machines, which tend to have less powerful motors and burr sets.
Senior editor Marguerite Preston used the OXO grinder at home for about two years before switching to the Baratza Encore. (She switched because she found a Baratza for free on the street, but otherwise, she would have happily continued using the OXO.) She had only one issue with the OXO, after grinding a lot of oily beans on a very hot and humid day, and after a year of use. “The OXO totally clogged up on me, to the point where it couldn’t grind anything,” she said, but she fixed the problem by taking out the burr and cleaning it and the clogged chute with a stiff brush.
Alejandra Matos, a former deputy audience director with Wirecutter, also had many issues with her chute and grinder clogging after using darker-roasted, oily beans. The clogging occurred despite regular cleanings, and sometimes she found the beans would get stuck in the hopper, too. “The problem is so regular that I now recognize the sound of when the grinder is on but not grinding beans,” she said, “I have to constantly give it a shake, and even that doesn’t work at times.” Since her grinder was still within its two-year warranty when this happened, she called OXO, and the company offered to send a new machine, and she also switched to a lighter roast.
diamond blade grinder wheel For those who want an affordable yet high-quality portable hand grinder, the Timemore Chestnut C2 is the best in its class for speed, ease of grinding, and consistency.