While our espresso machine is undergoing some maintenance, I’ve pulled out the Hario V-60 and an old electric President’s Choice (PC) burr grinder (about 20 years old).  I don’t like changing the grind setting much on my espresso grinder – a La Cimbali Jr. grinder, since the adjustment from espresso to a grind setting suitable for pour over requires a couple minutes of spinning the adjustment dial.

The PC grinder was a bargain  at only $19.99, but was fragile, and created a huge amount of static resulting in a mess every time it was used.  It does still work, but alignment pins in the hopper have broken, and the lids to hopper and the grinder prompted me to find an inexpensive non-manual replacement.  Main requirements were price (< $100 CDN), little to no static, and uses a burr grinder.

After some Googling, grinders such as the Baratza Encore come up – here that’s around $200 – so scratch that.  I ended up on Amazon, reading through reviews, and perhaps tossing the dice a bit, but ended up choosing this one – a Shardor Conical Burr Grinder (CG855B).  Thousands of ratings with an overall score of 4.4/5 stars.

It was only $79, and a $10 coupon was available on top of that!  There are a couple even less expensive ones, but I liked the grind adjustment setting, and the fact this model specifically includes mention of being anti-static.

Once I received it, I was amazed.  It’s noticeably quieter than my old one,  was easy to adjust, and no static at all!  And the uniformity of the grind was a huge surprise.  For fun I even tried grinding for espresso – and while it did the job and worked, it did bog down a bit while grinding.

We will see how long the grinder lasts, but so far it’s a winner.  Nice and uniform grind, easy to clean, and no static!