OK, I'll admit it, Coffee Grinding isn't exactly the most exciting past-time I've ever come across, but it can be a very liberating experience. If you've had a bad day at the office, just imagine it's your boss you are grinding in the mill, and you'll get some idea of the satisfaction that can be had with a Coffee Grinder! But let's face it, you won't be grinding your boss, you'll be grinding coffee, so I'll try and keep to the subject (I know that would be unusual for me, but I'll try!)

Grinding you own coffee beans at home ensures that your coffee will be nice and fresh. Of course you have to make sure that your coffee beans are fairly fresh, but coffee beans keep well for quite a while so normally that isn't a problem. But the real beauty of grinding your own beans is that you only grind as much as you need at the time, so there is less chance of your coffee going stale and tasting awful. And the smell is absolutely wonderful, not only do you get the wonderful smell from making the coffee, you get even more when you grind the beans. Especially recommended if you are selling your house, they say the smell of freshly ground coffee is very attractive to potential buyers, I dont know why, it just is!

The problem with buying ready ground coffee is unless you drink an awful lot of coffee, you are not going to use the whole packet at once, and once the packet has been opened, the coffee, will begin to go stale. OK you can store it in an airtight container or keep it in the fridge, but it still becomes stale quite quickly and the key to good coffee is using freshly ground beans.

Well, now we've got that cleared up I'd better tell you a little bit about my coffee grinder. My lovely parents gave it to me as a birthday present, but they are easy to get hold of (the coffee grinder, not my parents who can be very elusive!) This particular model costs $30 but is that $30.00 well spent? Well, if you're buying it to wash your clothes then you're going to be very disappointed, you can't fit many clothes in and it's not to good at removing those stubborn stains, but if you're buying it to grind coffee, then you'll find it very good indeed.

I used to think grinding coffee beans was fairly straight forward, you put the beans in the grinder, press start and Hey Presto, ground coffee. If you want to keep things simple, you can just do that with this model, but where's the fun in that? I want to get total satisfaction from my coffee grinder, and total satisfaction I will get!

The grinder lets you choose the coarseness of your ground beans. You'd think there might be a few different levels you could set it too, maybe 3, one for cafetierres, one for espresso machines and one for filter machines. Sounds enough doesn't it? This grinder has 17 different settings. No that's not a typing error (although I make enough of those!) there are 17 different settings for grades of coffee. The first 6 are for espresso and give a very finely milled coffee, the next 6 are for filter coffee machines and give medium milled coffee, and the final 5 settings are for coarsely milled coffee for use in percolators and cafetierres. And as I have all three of these types of machine I've been having a bit of a play with this grinder.

Having used the grinder, I must say 17 different settings is a bit much! I've only used about 6 of them so far, and I only used this many as I was experimenting and researching for this article. Most of the time you will find yourself using one of the settings, two at most. Still it's always nice to have options.

There is also a timer switch which you set depending on the amount of coffee you have out in the grinder. It is only a rough guide, but at least it means you don't have to stand there holding a button down to grind your beans.

Once you press the start button your beans will descend between the milling wheels and get al churned up and crushed , and the milled coffee is ejected into the 'milled coffee bin'. This has a lid and can be removed and used as a storage jar for any leftover coffee.

And that's about it. These machines have certainly come a lone way from the little, one setting coffee grinder my parents used to own (in fact, I think they still use it!) Who'd have thought grinding a coffee bean could be so technical and so much fun, what can I say I lead a very sad existence!.

Overall an excellent product, coffee can be milled to suit your taste, it is easy to clean and excellent value at around $30.00

Recommended: Yes