I bought this coffee grinder 3 months ago to pair it with my gaggia classic machine.
I visited the website of coolblue on friday at 11:45 pm...and i got my grinder next Tuesday because there was a mistake with my bank and the payment was only done at 12:00 pm.. I called the service people next day, but unfortunately they could not do anything. There where holidays on Monday.
As always, coolblue people are great with non Dutch native speakers. They where immensely polite and professional.
Besides this first moment of frustration i am very happy to have bought this grinder. At the beginning my grinder worked great and I managed a couple of good espresso shots. I was able to change the size of my grinds easily depending on the kind of beans I was buying. Before that I had a manual grinder, excellent, but my arm was very tired after a few weeks. So I decided for the baratza.
I found out that it worked great for freshly grounded coffe, but the packed beans from the supermarket suffered a lot. Specially if they where old and greasy. This beans will get trapped in the machine and I had to take the machine apart and clean it.
In another hand if they where too dry, the grinding got a bit coarse for espresso.
I visited the baratza website and they had instructions to change the calibration and make it work better with this kind of beans. It makes a finer grind. If you are not planning to prepare filter coffee this is highly recommended.
CHANGING THE GRINDER THIS WAY DOES NOT VOID THE WARRANTY!.
That worked great. It was very simple but you will have to take the box that covers the inside the machine.
Here is a link to the baratza website: https://www.baratza.com/troubleshooting/
There you can download the PDF with instructions.
Since I changed it I had no problems whatsoever with any kind of beans(except the really bad ones and only because I became spoiled with good beans). Remember the really oily beans are in principle just OLD coffee.
The machine is not extremely noisy, but it will make your cat run out of the kitchen, and the simplicity of the function is a plus.
I stopped using the box to catch the coffe and grind directly on the portafilter which is better in order to avoid channeling. It is to my surprise not messy at all after some practice. I also stopped using the middle button, it just makes you tired.
The box comes with a useful brush and some special tablets to clean it. I have never used them. I find the brush is usually enough even for the oily beans mentioned before.
Over all. I think it is magnificent machine for the price. If you are on the espresso budget side, definitely think in this one.
Buy it in cool blue, it is worth your eight euros. You will save more money and time this way!.
