Capresso 551 Burr Grinder: Cheap solution for a home espresso grinder or waste of money?
Written: Jun 15 '04 (Updated Jun 15 '04)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Consistent ground size for drip or French press coffee
Cons: Doesn't work for espresso
The Bottom Line: If you are looking for a home espresso grinder, this is completely worthless.
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| puckmugger's Full Review: Jura-Capresso 551 Electric Burr Grinder |
There are a couple basic types of coffee grinders for home use. The more common and less expensive type of grinder is the blade grinder. These are simple grinders with a spinning blade in a round or oval container with a clear lid. The longer you grind the finer your grounds come out.
The problem with a blade grinder is that they simply don’t have much consistency. These are fine for making drip coffee or French Pressing, but for making home espresso, they are pretty hit or miss. Thus after buying a fairly high end espresso maker, I felt the need to upgrade to a more expensive burr grinder.
▪ Burr Grinders
Burr grinders have a pair of discs with a series of blades, or burrs, on them. They vary in design, but all have some sort of mechanism that allows the burrs to be adjusted in distance from one another. One set of burrs is generally fixed while the other rotates.
The big advantage of a burr grinder is that the size of the grounds is preset by the adjustable setting. Once you set it, the grind size remains more or less the same (more on that later).
For espresso, you need a pretty fine grind to pull a good shot. Generally you are looking for a shot time of about 25 seconds for the best flavor. This involves dialing in the perfect combination of the size of grind and firmness of tamp as the pressure on an automatic machine is fixed.
With a blade grinder, it is possible to grind fine enough for espresso, but much of the grind will be too fine and clog the filter. The problem with burr grinders is that many of them don’t grind fine enough for espresso. Most of the models that I looked at cost as much or more than my $400 espresso machine, it seemed a little silly.
Then the Capresso Burr grinder hit the market. It was inexpensive, promised espresso quality grinds, and hey I loved my Capresso coffee maker. How could I go wrong?
▪ Features of the Capresso Burr Grinder
The Capresso Burr grinder has a clear hopper with a lid that holds about ½ pound of beans. A dial on the side allows the selection of the grind size, from 1 to 17. A timer controls the grinder. Set the timer, press the button and it goes for the set time.
Grounds are expelled into a small clear container. This container has a removable lid so coffee can be stored in it for a short period of time. However, grinding coffee to store it more or less defeats the purpose.
Cleaning burr grinders is generally a little more annoying than cleaning blade grinders. The Capresso needs to be partially disassembled by twisting the top burr to remove it. You then clean all of the grinds and any oil from the coffee off with a brush. The opening is a little on the small side so a rather fine brush is required.
As burr grinders go, this is one of the most compact designs that I have seen. It has a footprint only slightly larger than the bigger blade grinders. In height it is a bit larger than a blade grinder though. In all it is fairly attractive.
▪ How it worked
Unfortunately, Capresso couldn’t deliver on the promises that they made. I had ordered a few of these for my shop as it was rather embarrassing to tell people they should buy whole bean, grind it themselves and use it within ten days. Oh wait, you have a Gaggia espresso maker, I better grind it for you, it will work better. No I sell the machines, but I don’t have a grinder that will work with them.
I had actually sold a couple of these before I took one home for myself. I was as excited about pulling perfect shots at home as anyone who makes coffee all day for a living could have possibly been. I put the Capresso together, filled the hopper with some fresh roasted espresso beans and turned it on grinding at setting 9 per the instructions. It worked fine.
I turned it down to setting 3, again per the instructions. It made some buzzing sounds and nothing came out.
Now let me take a moment to mention that I am not some dolt who doesn’t know how to work a coffee grinder. I had commercial grinders that I regularly maintained at my shop. Each of them was disassembled and thoroughly cleaned nightly by my employees who I had trained on basic upkeep and repair. The Capresso was a pretty simple device compared to the commercial grinders in my shop.
I took the Capresso apart and examined it. Hmm The blades were all covered in gunk that resembled tar. I cleaned them with a brush, put the grinder back together, and attempted to grind on the next coarser setting. Nothing again.
It turned out that I could get a good consistent drip coffee grind from the Capresso Burr grinder, but anything finer than that simply resulted in the overheating of the blades. This in turned created a nasty, burnt gelatinous goo from what was intended to be my espresso which clogged the burrs and stopped all grinding. The Capressso Burr grinder was completely worthless for the only thing that I had purchased it for.
▪ Pure Junk
I sent the Capresso back, along with the others that were on the shelf. What annoyed me most was that I had sold them to some of my customers believing that this was the perfect reasonably priced espresso grinder. I had placed my trust in Capresso who makes so many other fine products and likely lost the trust of those two customers who bought this $60 pile of junk from me.
If you want a burr grinder for drip coffee or French press, this one will probably serve you well. For espresso, forget it. The Capresso 551 Burr grinder simply isn’t a good enough design to work.
A few of my other reviews that you might find helpful:
Nissan Insulated French Press
Capresso MT 500 Coffee Maker
Gaggia Classic Espresso Maker
Ethiopian Harrar Coffee
Recommended:
No
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