Hello:

After making pour-over at home and buying espresso at a shop, I've decided to start trying to make espresso at home, too. I bought a Flair espresso maker and am trying to find a grinder to go with it (my Hario Skerton just doesn't cut it for espresso). I can spend up to about $650 on a grinder but for the life of me, I cannot figure out what I should be looking at to distinguish between, for example, a Fiorenzato F4E Nano V2, a Nuova Simonelli MCl or a Quasar M80 (just to list a few at the high end of my price range). And then there are all the manual grinders to consider . . . . Even though I have been doing some reading on the forums, I'm feeling overwhelmed. Any suggestions on how to narrow down the choices?

As background, at most I'm making two shots at a time and maybe a total of eight shots on the weekends.

Thanks!

Looking at your profile, it looks like you live in NY so ideally you want to find a vendor close by just in case you don't like the grinder or it needs servicing then it's not too much money to send it back to say Seattle, Washington. Two excellent vendors in NY are Chris Coffee and Whole Latte Love. I personally dealt with both and I can vouch for both.
After narrowing down your choices to these vendors you should consider the following:
-How many shots will you be grinding for per day? This won't make much difference with different grinders but it will determine how often you will be doing maintenance/cleaning the burrs. The more shots you pull, the more frequent the maintenance will be, in this case, you may want to consider a grinder like the Ceado with which you don't lose your grind setting when you remove the top burr for cleaning.
-The grinder noise level. Do you care if it's loud? Maybe you live in an apartment building and you don't want your neighbors to be calling the cops in the morning?
-The grinder's grind size adjustability. How often do you change coffees? Maybe you like to try different beans every week or so, in this case having an easy mechanism to adjust grind size is important.
-Will this grinder be dedicated to espresso or do you need it to be able to grind for Drip and Espresso? Espresso grinders such as Mazzers are ideally kept dedicated for espresso as it is not too easy to switch back and forth between drip and espresso grinds. Grinders that can theoretically do drip and espresso are more likely within the Baratza lineup (Vario, or maybe a used Forte)

These are some of the things you need to think about and I'm sure more forum members will be chiming in as well, especially the ones with a Flair. Hope this help

Thank you - in response to your helpful list of questions:
- will be making two shots a day on weekdays and four/day on weekends
- prefer quiet but not a requirement, as long as it won't wake anyone on the 2nd floor of our house
- like to try lots of different beans, so size adjustability is probably quite important
- the grinder will be dedicated to espresso

Your advice is much appreciated!

I really like my Kinu m47. It would be a good companion for the Flair as well. With a grind time of 23sec. for a 15g dose I haven't felt the need to use my old grinder (kitchenaid proline w/mazzer burrs) since the Kinu arrived. It takes longer, but not anything out of the question.

I also think a manual grinder would be your best bet. You are already hands on with the flair, go full manual! Kinu, knock, helor, OE are all great brands with different hand grinders to suit your taste and budget.

jtrops wrote:I really like my Kinu m47. It would be a good companion for the Flair as well. With a grind time of 23sec. for a 15g dose I haven't felt the need to use my old grinder (kitchenaid proline w/mazzer burrs) since the Kinu arrived. It takes longer, but not anything out of the question.

I use the Kinu M47 nearly every day paired with my Cremina. I certainly agree that, without hesitation, I would pair it with a flair.

Thanks all - will probably get a Lido E, given that the Kinu seem to be out of stock for a while.

Did you contact Kinu, or did you look on the Espressoforge site? When I contacted Kinu they had m47's ready to ship. I had my grinder in hand 10 days after I put in the order.

I checked espresso forge. Thanks for suggesting direct contact.