OXO BREW Conical Burr Coffee Grinder Review
Michael C. Smith
$99.95
Amazon.com
The OXO BREW Conical Burr Coffee Grinder adheres to the golden rules of preparing your coffee at home: grinding your own coffee and when you use those grinds (freshness). It costs as much as some entry level coffee makers, priced almost half what you’d spend on the OXO 8710200 On Conical Burr Coffee Grinder that comes with an integrated scale.
Our review model doesn’t have a built-in scale, but for the price we’re satisfied with the design, speed and 15 grind settings (including micro settings).
The Oxo Burr grinder is speedy, crushing through coffee with precision than competing grinders that cost more. However, it doesn’t get premium features like finer controls for the grind size, but if all you need is simple operation and convenience, the OXO Conical Burr Coffee Grinder is an excellent choice.
More: NutriBullet NBR-1201 Blender Review
Design
The OXO coffee grinder cuts a premium profile, one you’d see in a more expensive coffee grinder. On the top is a funnel-shaped hopper that holds whole coffee beans. The hopper empties its contents into a steel grinding mechanism, that then feeds its contents into a stainless-steel receptacle.
You can adjust the quality of your grind between 15 different settings, and depending on your taste, you can choose from either fine enough for espresso or the coarseness for French press. If you need better control over the grind size, the Baratza Encore is a better choice, offering 40 coarseness levels.
Performance
Except for lack of a built-in scale, like its sibling the OXO 8710200 Burr Grinder, the OXO Burr grinder is faster and quiet than most home-use grinders. It churns 23 grams of whole coffee beans into grounds suitable for brewing in 9.4 seconds. Compared: the Cuisinart DBM-8 takes much longer (22 seconds) to grind the same amount of beans.
Apart from speed, grind size consistency is a consideration when buying a coffee grinder. Personally, I saw that the Oxo has an edge with grounds that appeared more uniform in shape and surface area. This is very important in consistently extracting coffee’s flavor, since coffee’s essence extracts faster from fine grinds than from coarse grinds.
The Bottom Line
The OXO BREW Coffee Grinder does a nice job grinding beans for home use, but whether it gets a place in your kitchen or not, depends on what type of coffee drinker you are and how you might be in future. If you’re wild like me, then you prefer to try all sorts of roasts and juggle with various grinds before choosing the perfect cup.
With its greater degree of grind control, better grind consistency, plus a sturdier construction, this grinder is the best way to go. Otherwise, if you don’t mind spending a little more to get a faster grinder with convenience of its own scale, the OXO Conical Burr Coffee Grinder is worth a look.
OXO Conical Burr Coffee Grinder
11 used from $74.96
