OXO Brew Conical Burr Coffee Grinder - Matte Black

(I am an ex professional barista.)CONS:-The grounds container doesn't lock into place and will sometimes vibrate out during grinding. This is the only serious flaw with the product, and I feel it's a minor one. I've gone through many of the reviews and it seems that it's simply a matter of construction inconsistency. Most people's containers "click" into place; a minority do not. I was just unlucky enough to get one of the ones that don't.-You can't remove the bottom burr to clean it. They really did do their best to make this easy to clean and I appreciate that you don't have to undo a bunch of microscopic screws just to clean your burrs, but I really wish I could remove BOTH burrs to give them a thorough wipe-down. It's difficult to clean the one that's stuck inside the grinder. The other lifts out easily by a cute little handle.PROS:-High quality, consistent grind. The brewing methods I use most all hover around the medium grind range, so I haven't really tested the extremes of coarse and fine. Can't speak to those. But as far as the medium ranges, it grinds beautifully and consistently. That's what matters in the end, right?-The beans feed very well, even for single dosing. Never an issue.-As mentioned above, the ability to clean the grinder is taken into account in the construction. No need to delicately deconstruct the whole thing and keep track of a bunch of itty bitty screws and springs. The top part of the grinder and the top burr simply turn-and-lift out, and then turn-and-lock back into place. So nice.-It's aesthetically pleasing and takes up little room on the counter. All the materials have a quality feel.-It isn't super noisy. All grinders are gonna make noise, to be sure, but as far as grinders go, this one has a pretty gentle sound. I've definitely used my fair share of grinders that made me feel like my brain was going to vibrate out of my skull, and this one has a polite hum by comparison.-The price for this level of quality is unbeatable. I can't even believe I paid less than one hundred dollars for this. Real talk, folks: these are steel conical burrs. Solid construction. 40+ grind settings. Did I mention steel conical burrs? I never thought I would own something like this for less than $250. You cannot beat this price point/quality intersection. You just can't. This grinder is price-meets-quality king.USAGE:You're working with three variables: time, grind, and amount. There are two popular approaches to working out your dose.Method 1: You leave 'amount' as the open variable. With this method, you dump all your beans in the hopper and store them there. You then adjust grind and time until you're getting the right dose at the right grind level.Method 2: You leave 'time' as the open variable. With this method, you only deposit the amount of beans you plan to use for each dose, adjust the grind as needed, and let it take whatever amount of time it takes. You're adjusting the amount and the grind, rather than adjusting the grind and the time. (This is called "single dosing.")Go to any coffee forum, and you'll be pages of debate about which of these methods is superior. Honestly, you should use the method that feels best for YOU.The reason I bring it up here is because people seem anxious that Method #2 will damage the burrs over time, since you run them all the way to empty every time you grind.Here's my take: I use Method #2, because I feel that the beans start to taste stale if left in the hopper. (Everyone's tastebuds are different; there's no right or wrong.) This means that I let the burrs run until I hear the sound change from a low growl to a high pitched growl, which indicates that the burrs are grinding empty, and then I manually stop the grind.I honestly don't see any issue with this, and I don't feel any anxiety about it. Think about it: if you're cleaning the burrs between bean swaps, you're letting them run for several seconds on empty anyway. Even the manufacturer instructions tell you to do this when cleaning the burrs! The only difference here is that instead of intentionally running them on empty for several seconds to clean them, you're running them on empty for one single second every day/dose. I'd never recommend doing that on a fine espresso setting, but as long as you're in the medium-to-coarse range, I don't see any possible ways the burrs could damage each other. There's no way the burrs are touching at that distance, regardless of variables like heat expanding the metal and other things coffee nerds like to debate about.I hope this review was helpful. I'll update in a year to let you know if this grinder held up through daily use.

Had a cuisinart disc grinder that died after 5 years. Got the Oxo as a replacement 2 months ago. So much better! Consistent grind times and ground sizes. Good for however fine of grind I want. Non-stick collection cup works great. By far the quietest grinder I’ve ever had. Fits under my cabinet even on top of my pod tray. Comes apart easily to clean. Only slight complaint I have is that to move it, I need two hands because of the rounded shape. I still give it five stars.

I haven't tried it for espresso as my Barista has a built-in that works fine. But as my drip grind is set for just past the middle, I've no doubts this will grind as fine as any pump machine would need, with fine changes.As for drip, I've made a week's worth of coffee with light and medium roasts each morning and the grinder finishes a 12 or 14-cup grind before I can fill the carafe with water. Though the motor goes at higher speed than my last grinder, it is quieter and smaller. Just better motor technology that what I had, I guess. It is also narrower but still holds a 12oz bag of medium roast. Dark roasted beans are generally lighter, so take more volume, and I haven't tried that. From the looks, a full 12oz may not fit. So it will depend on your origin and roast.The grounds container is easy to both measure out scoops for smaller brews than you've already ground, and to completely dump out and stainless rather than the plastic of many so easy to clean and looks good. I wiped the bean hopper before first use and haven't had to again--lighter roasts don't leave much bean oil, YMMV on keeping the hopper clean. The lids of both the hopper and grounds container both fit easily and well. The grounds lid does go on only one way (as you'd expect) so it is easy to orient it and the container back into the grinder.As for any negatives, there's a slip of paper in the instruction manual re-inforcing that you need to press the grounds container into the base until it 'clicks' Calling this out an extra time (it says so in the manual as well) gave me pause. It must be a support issue for them. So there isn't an interlock that prevents the grinder from working if the grounds container isn't exactly in place. However, even if you hadn't read the instructions (as we often don't do), or hadn't read this review, the container does make a distinct extra catch on replacing the container. It isn't inconvenient, but you can't slap it in there casually. Once you feel it, it is unlikely you'd miss doing it again. Of course, that will be mostly "pre-coffee", so paying attention is up to your morning brain.If the OXO grinder continues to perform like this for a few years I'll be highly satisfied.