SHARDOR - Professional 64mm Burr Coffee Grinder

I bought it 2 weeks ago and it is fine but has a lot of retention even with the bellow of the hopper so I want to find just a bellow without a hopper bs it is a single-dose grinder which I prefer.

An update from me, who just got this grinder, it's really good and consistent, way too much bang for the buck

I have an encore esp and I'm being plagued by clumping and retention. I thought of getting a DF54 cause that's all my budget is atm, but thought that that would have been more of a side grade than an upgrade. Plus that grinder also had some clumping and static issues so I decided to not get a grinder till next year, save up for a df65. But then I saw this post, and another, and thought to try this one out. Ordered from Amazon US cause it's not sold on Amazon Canada. Had to pay $15 shipping and $17 customs (USD), for a total of around $157 US which was the cheapest. Waiting patiently for it to arrive!

Hi! Yes! I have been using it and intend to write a review of its quirks and features. DM me if you want a gist of my notes.

I just bought this exact same set up, because my cafe job bought this grinder on a whim when ours broke down and I was decently surprised how it held up in COMMERCIAL use. I was sold enough.

I purchased mine last November when it was on sale for $130. I'm new to espresso and coffee in general, but I had decided on the DF54 as my next grinder. I was getting OK results with my conical burr grinder(also Shardor) before, but I knew it was time to upgrade. Then I found this one and gambled knowing I had the benefit of the long return window due to Christmas shopping. This thing really shouldn't be as good as it is for the price. Take that for what it's worth from a coffee novice. I will say, it makes it very difficult to justify buying a latte at a coffee shop when it's unlikely to be any better than what I'm making at home. It also helps that I buy good coffee from a local roaster. Since buying it, I found a small bellows on Amazon and 3d printed a single does hopper that fit the inlet of the grinder and the bellows. The retention isn't great, but the bellows does a pretty good job. It's rare that my output is more than 0.1g different than my input. I also leveled the top burr using tinfoil shims. It was a marginal improvement, but the increased consistency was noticeable in the shots I pull with it. It is made of plastic, but that doesn't bother me at this price. I'm hopeful that it will hold up, because I am very happy with it and the coffee I make with it.

I have a Chestnut C2 which I use. I'm not a coffee purist, so more often than not when I just want my caffeine fix I'll end up using the automatic grinder, it's good 95% of the time. I have a no name brand, comical burr grinder which has Shardor mentioned on it. It's good for my use case, it doesn't grind fine enough for espresso though. I would assume this uses similar if not better burrs. For 20 bucks I think you'll be fine when compared to something like the IKEA Mettalisk which costs more and is still a manual grinder which is no good.

Its not the bestx but its does the job well, i wouldnt recommend it unles you are on a budget or starting, when i travel to US i Will definitily buy a D54

I've done a detailed review on the shardor one on the sub. You can look it up. Tldr; its good for non espresso usage. Won't make the cut for espresso. Otherwise it's great for the price.

So, time for another review. This time - Its the [Shardor Electric Grinder](https://www.amazon.in/gp/product/B0BQR5CHHY/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1). [Image from the manufacturer. Not mine.](https://preview.redd.it/mdy0yhma6htd1.jpg?width=1500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e7d353795d9f510f40dca3e4d1be474cf8701e2e) A cheap little amazon grinder, that does what it says on the box, and then some. I first came across this device on my search for a sub 5k electric grinder, looked at the options available in the market and decided to try this one out because, of the ones that were available at this price point, this was the one that had a small amount of discourse on the internet. It had 4.1 stars and about 300 odd ratings, so things were looking no bad. So I decided to give it a shot (no pun intended), and ordered it from Amazon. It was delivered pretty quickly, with no issue. The everything was as expected. No issues there. Whats in the box ? 1. The grinder itself, with a hopper. 2. A lid that does a decent job of sealing the beans, its not exactly air tight, but it works. 3. A scoop - of about 4gms of coffee (odd that there's a scoop included in this kind of a grinder) 4. regular documents, and an optional extra year warranty registration paper - giving it 2 years warranty overall. So, does it actually work ? I wanted this thing mostly for Aeropress, but was curious if it could grind fine enough for espresso. So that's exactly what I did. Decided to try it with a medium roast third wave coffee. Loaded up about 15gm into it, set the timer for about 40 seconds, grind settings at almost the finest (3 clicks away from the finest), And let it grind. Here's where I ran into the first issue. Because of the way hopper machines are designed, they are intended to be used with a reasonably full hopper. However, I prefer a single dose grinder, allows for more versatility. So, about 2gms of beans were just left ungrinded in the hopper. Stuck somewhere. A little bit of shaking and scooping sent everything into the grinder burrs, and still there was retention of about 0.5 gms in the machine. So I did get my 14.5 gms of 'fine' ground coffee out of it. However, this definitely wasn't espresso level. So I measured the ground, and it was about 600 micro grams. I usually, prefer something along 200 micro grams for espresso, this was mostly good for an Aeropress. The grind was decently consistent, a bit less consistent than my trusty manual, but the comfort of just hitting a single button and having fresh ground coffee in less than a minute was pretty nice. So I decided to just brew Aero with this, and it turned out fine. It was good coffee, and a decent brew technique, so it produced a good cup of coffee. Now I wanted to test out the finest it can do. So dialed it in, to the max, and repeated the process. I'm not sure what I was expecting. So 30 seconds later, I was looking at the grind, it wasn't as fine as I expected, but it felt decent enough, decided to pull a shot of espresso. However, on thing I did notice was some of the inconsistencies in the grind when tamping, you could see the difference, it was minute, but you could see. A little more fines than with a good manual grinder like the C2. How was the shot ? The shot too, was surprisingly decent. Especially, coming from a sub 5k electric grinder. So I decided to measure the grind - and it just barely made it into the 'fine' category. Most of the grind was around 400 micro grams, with some fines dipping down to 300. While I'm sure, one can get a better extraction, with a finer grinder, this was a very acceptable shot. Again, good coffee, good technique, so it wasn't completely surprising, but pleasant none the less. So, it 'can' do espresso. That said, a couple of things to note. 1. The grinder was surprisingly quiet, compared to the Baratza encore, this was much more quiet. 2. The collecting chamber is fed from the side, and tends to have grind stuck to the cap and the side walls, the designers of the machine did address this issue, by giving you a small tab to tap the ground off the side walls, and dump them down to the bottom. 3. I suspect there are ways to tweak the grind even further than the 25 steps, by manually adjusting or calibrating the burrs directly (Will probably look into it later on). 4. The burrs themselves are easily accessible, just removing the lid inside the hopper, reveals the burrs, a twist, and the burrs come out completely. They came a bit oiled from the factory, I did clean them out, just to be on the safer side. 5. While the standard warranty is 1 year, there's an option to register the unit and get an additional year (Not sure how reliable the service is, or will be). 6. The machine is decently built, no exactly great, but not bad either, but the cost cutting does show, in the quality of the plastics. 7. The burrs are metal, and seem to be well made, no issues there from early inspections. ------------------- So who is this for ? If you, someone like me want a daily driver machine for preferably aeropress / mokapot / french press / pourover. This machine handles all of that pretty well. And removes the hassle of manually grinding. It can handle the occasional espresso, but do not get it, if your workflow is predominantly espresso. Because while, it can pull a decent shot, I would rather manually grind, for when I want an espresso. Competition ? Instacuppa as a similar grinder, which I would presume is basically another chinese rebrand, except that is a single dose grinder, with a porta filter attachment. However, that doesn't make any sense to me because none of these machines are truly espresso grade. The cheapest electric option, for that is the Barattza Encore ESP. And there's no two ways about that. About the company : Preliminary research show Shardor is a chinese appliance brand, that has its presence in a large number of companies. Think of it like Agaro, but they actually design and make their own stuff, unlike our homegrown brands. Personally I think, they offer better value, simply because its directly from the source, but obviously, things like after sales service can be sketchy, making it worth getting from an Indian label brand.