Sage - Smart Grinder Pro (BCG820)

I sold my smart grinder pro recently and have a k6. The k6 is way better, less retention etc. A manual grinder can be annoying but I use an electric screwdriver if I dont feel like cranking.

The K6 will be considerably better for both espresso and filter coffee, but a lot less convenient and more physical work. I owned a SGP and replaced it with a Niche Zero which was a big upgrade. The Niche produces too many fines for my liking with v60s so I bought a K6 which was another big upgrade for filter. I tried the K6 for espresso and found I preferred it for light roasts to my Niche Zero as it's more acid forward! The Niche is my preference for darker roasts but the K6 is really impressive.

This was exactly why I replaced mine. It was so massively inconsistent. The Niche was such a massive upgrade in both taste and stability. But so is the K6...

I have the SGP and if I upgrade it will be to the DF54

I could make coffee with a smart grinder pro. I never made a coffee that i really enjoyed with it though. Someone else may be able to comment on whether newer models use a baratza burr set like the barista pro built in grinder, as that would change things a lot. Either way the build quality was pretty shitty The K6 is absurdly high quality (build and grind) for the price and i love mine but i wouldn't want to hand grind every shot of espresso... Personally I would probably look elsewhere. No experience with the DF 54 or 64 personally but people rave about them for a reason, provided you're happy with newer disruptor Chinese brand rather than tried and tested brands with history (i own a timemore sculptor atm. No judgement for challenger brands) Baratza and mahlkonig have also recently released cheaper smaller grinders for the home which are worth a look, albeit probably also a slightlyhigher price point than you were thinking of

My experience with the Smart Grinder Pro was terrible. Inconsistent, huge retention issues and terrible build quality. I would avoid and get a decent hand grinder.

Right. I have ESP and I upgraded from sage smart grinder pro and I like it more.

I have the SGP and it’s been …fine? I was on a budget and wanted something easy my wife could use. It has gotten more frustrating over the years though. It was fine for a year and now it almost feels like my settings change day to day. My guess is the retention issues that mess up my shots. I’m aiming to get a Silenzio soon, and I’m hoping for more consistent results. So yeah the SGP will work depending on your budget.

Get the best grinder you can afford. There's no substitute for freshness in coffee grounds, no matter what the bag says! I have an Etzinger etz-i, but if you're unwilling to spend £200 on a hand grinder, there are plenty of other choices! James Hoffmann did a review on the [KinGrinder P1](https://youtu.be/EPbVUR6Y83k?si=LdQ82LSeqs3EpFdm), which only costs £30ish. It's reviewed well, it might be a good starting point if you're on a budget. Stepping up, you could look at other offerings from KinGrinder, Timemore or 1Zpresso, they're the big names for budget grinders. Check the reviews, but it's my understanding that you can't go too badly wrong with their offerings. If you want to go electric, look at a Sage, Baratza Encore or Sette, Fellow Ode or Opus, or Wilfa Svart for good starting points, they can all be had second hand for not a lot, but I do see the odd Fellows going for £150 or so new. There are bargains to be had here and there! I kind of gloss over electric grinders not because they're no good, but because the money you spend is put to better use if the manufacturer doesn't need to pay for electric motors. Grinding as coarsely as a moka pot needs isn't too onerous, and the money just goes into making a decent grinder. Electric grinders start at well over £100 for anything worth looking at, so unless you're grinding for 4 espressos every morning, you'll get much more bang for your buck grinding by hand. I do make 4 espressos every morning though, for which I have a DF54. Worth a look for an espresso-capable grinder you can grow into, and you want a nice kitchen gadget. (Who doesn't?) Another wise investment is a jeweller's scale, or drug scale, depending on your upbringing. It doesn't need to be anything expensive or fancy, as long as it measures to 0.1g. Use it to measure out your beans before grinding them, and weigh the water into the base, so if you find a recipe you like, you can repeat it. A standard kitchen scale is no good for the coffee world if it only measures to the nearest gram. If you're weighing out 500g of flour, you'll end up between 499.5g and 500.5g. Pretty negligible in a loaf of bread. When you're working with 20g of coffee, you'll taste the difference between a 19.5g and 20.5g cup. Amazon is the place to look, they're a tenner well spent. Finally, when you make the leap, hand or electric, get yourself a burr grinder. If it costs three eighths of bugger all and has a little spinning blade at the bottom, don't waste your money on it. Blade grinders are near-universally regarded as crap by the coffee world because the "grounds" they produce are so horrendously inconsistent. You want a nice uniform(-ish) particle size, which blade grinders just aren't capable of by their design. You'll have coffee particles ranging in size from half a bean to icing sugar in the same batch. Unusable for making anything you'd want to drink. Also, avoid grinders with ceramic burrs like the Hario Skerton. They aren't as awful as blade grinders, but they don't produce good grounds either. Ceramic burrs are the very cheapest you can get, which shows how much thought and effort went into the rest of the grinder, and the quality of coffee it'll produce. You get what you pay for.