Gaggia RI8123/01 MD15 Coffee Grinder, ABS, Black, Stainless Steel

Product Information

They also released the 2019 in a range of colours, not just the original stainless steel version, which I think is a good thing, it's certainly a good thing for me & anyone else trying to record videos of coffee machines using reflective stainless steel machines! 😉 This is the updated version of the Wilfa Svart, with a slower, lower-temperature motor, with the goal of reducing the heat in the burrs so as to have less negative impact on flavour. It's just about the same grinder, other than the change in motor.

But then on the coffee side of things, the Barista Express is very user friendly, and the temperature stability is going to be better with the Barista Express, with the PID, and it comes set to 9 bars of pressure (overpressure valve), while an un-modded classic pro will be slightly higher pressure (12 bar, I think, off the top of my head but very easy to mod), and less temp stable so temperature surfing requires (simple enough) or fitting a PID. There are only 15 grinding steps, and moving the burrs closer together means it can grind finer, but it doesn't make the adjustments any smaller. When I've dialed in with this grinder, I've easily got into what I refer to as “ballpark dialed in” but the grinding steps aren't small enough to really precisely dial in as you'd be able to do with stepless adjustment or a much bigger number of smaller steps. In this day and age it’s so refreshing to have something that doesn’t just instantly die on you the second the warranty is up. This has kept me going for nearly eleven years and the only cleaning I have done with it so far, has been with my hoover!”The Melitta Calibra is a relative newcomer when it comes to coffee grinders, but they're not a newcomer to coffee in general, in fact Melitta invented filter coffee!

As far as these kinds of grinders go, which are geared towards brew, or espresso only with pressurised baskets, I think the Encore is one of the best quality choices, but it's one of the most expensive too, so it should be really.

While some of these complaints may not be false, we would wager to say that these are more of the forgivable kind of flaws, rather than the kind of complaints that actually point to this being an inferior product.

At the bare minimum, I'd recommend either the Sage Dose Control Pro or Smart Grinder Pro, or the Baratza Encore ESP. You can use the Gaggia MD15, if you shim it with the shims that come in the box (it's very simple to do), but you only have 15 adjustments, and they're quite big, so you won't be able to precisely dial in. If they made it 9 bars out of the box, in theory it's not going to work as well for that first category, and I suspect this probably represents as much as 80% of users. I've heard some people saying that the Classic pro-2019 came with this Aluminium plate, but I don't believe that's correct unless the first pro-2019 models did have that plate, maybe. I have the 2019 Pro, and mine has a solid stainless dispersion plate. Solid Stainless Steel Portafilter The Encore has 40 grind settings, and it'll do fine for brew methods, however, if you're looking for a grinder for espresso, the Encore won't quite get fine enough for espresso with standard filter baskets. If you're using the Classic with “normal” coffee beans from the supermarket, and not freshly roasted coffee beans, then most grinders will be fine, including the Gaggia MD15, for example.Be sure to turn the machine on a few minutes before using it, so it can properly warm up. This guaranteees a perfect extraction of all coffee aromas. The new Espresso isn't a version of the classic, and it's not in the same league, so let me just get this in straight away. This is less than half the price of the Classic, and it really doesn't compete with the Classic at all, for build quality, or espresso quality. So if you're looking for the cheapest grinder on the market with actual burrs, this is probably it. Personally, I'd usually try to avoid the very cheapest option with whatever I'm looking at buying, if I can help it. I've found that generally speaking, the best real value tends to be somewhere towards the middle. The doser is the one part of the operation that everyone seems to have a problem with. Customers say it’s not big enough, it needs refilling too much, it’s hard to tell how much it needs to be filled, it is not detachable, and so it goes. What it does compete with though, is every other machine within around a hundred quid of the price point!

Remember, no matter what grinder you choose, you'll need great coffee beans to produce great coffee. These are the beans that I use daily:

The Types of Coffee Grinders

Keep in mind that when I talk about using a portafilter, this won't go fine enough for espresso with standard baskets, but it will work fine for pressurized baskets. I did try this, and on the very finest setting, even with very dark roasted beans (which usually don't require quite as fine a grind) I wasn't able to get a shot time anywhere near what I'd be happy with. The DF64 was the first single-dose grinder on the market to give the Niche Zero (below) some competition. It's become a popular single doser, low retention grinder, and it really does have quite a lot going for it.