Hello all,

I am planning to buy an electric grinder as a Christmas present for the wife, who uses a French press every day, and if it would work for my moka pot on the weekends as well that would be a bonus.

But I am in Germany, and most of the recommendations I have read on this board are not available (I can't find Capresso Infinity anywhere*) or much more expensive (Barista Maestro plus I can find from amazon.co.uk for $250 + postage making it more than twice as much as the Bodum, rather than the $20 difference that it seems to be Stateside).

At the moment I am looking at a Bodum Bistro since I have seen it mentioned along with the others. Its available for €85 from amazon.de. But is there anything else I should be looking at? There are some cheaper models on Amazon from Black and Decker or DeLonghi but I haven't found them mentioned in these forums as much as the Bodum so I was thinking that was the best bet.

TL;DR - top recommended budget grinders are hard to find in Europe. Looking for best electric grinder for french press and moka I can find online for <€100 (ie amazon.de).

* - anywhere for me is amazon.de amazon.co.uk google product search (uk and de)

The Nivona Cafegrano is a rebadge of the Capresso infinity.

Real good burr grinders start at about 180 or 200 euros. I don't know the Bodum Bistro but for less than 100 euros I would go for a blade grinder (the Krups is very good). For french press and moka they work as well as the cheap burr grinders and are faster, don't retain grinds and are easier to clean.

You could try the Solis Scala 166. On the German forum kaffee-netz.de, this grinder got decent reviews for French press. A blade grinder would produce too many fines for French press in my opinion.

Cheers,

Roland

A blade grinder won't produce more fines than a cheap burr grinder if you:
-do 10 second bursts
-lift the machine off the counter and shake it while it grinds keeping the beans circulating as much as possible and evenly around the blades
Also to obtain a consistent grind you should time the grinding (13 to 15 sec. for french press)
I used to have a Solis Mulino and for french press it wasn't better than a blade grinder nor did it produce less fines.
Anyway any grinder (even high end grinders) will produce some fines for french press.

I would recommend Wilfa CGR1. Here in Finland you can get it for 60 euros. At that price range, it really blows away all other competition.

CGR1 has very nice conical burrs. I have it sitting next to my Vario and like it a lot. I have done some testing and Wilfa maybe even produces a slightly cleaner cup. Of course it can only do coarse, whereas Vario excels at espresso. In any case, my Vario has been retired from coarse grinding for good.

And personally, if an electric grinders needs to shaken while it grinds, it is not really an electric grinder, but half manual...

Bluecold wrote:The Nivona Cafegrano is a rebadge of the Capresso infinity.

Thanks thats really useful. I can find that for €20 more than the Bodum so from what I've read that looks like a better bet.

Thanks also for the other input, but I think I want to get a burr really. I also have trouble finding the Wilfa CGR1 in DE (amazon, google, ebay draw a blank). I found that in the US it is sold as a Breville Ikon but I can't find that here either. Does anyone know what else it might be rebadged as?

I would go for a burr grinder also. A manual one, if nothing else works out.

Wilfa is a Norwergian brand and unfortunately seems to be mostly available in Scandinavia. Maybe some of the web stores would ship to Germany also?

Breville is the only rebranding that I know of.

The Wilfa is a good grinder - A friend of mine in Norway uses one and another friend in Nashville, TN uses one (branded the Breville Ikon in the US). In Germany it is available on Amazon.de under another name - Gastroback.

http://www.amazon.de/Gastroback-42602-D...49&sr=8-27