In my opinion, the best conical burr grinder for under $250 in 2019 is:
The Breville Smart Grinder Pro – check the price
This grinder is without a doubt the best value for money when it comes to grinders under $250.
This is the grinder I always try to convince people to get if they don’t yet have a grinder yet. There just isn’t one better for under this price.
Let me clarify a few things first:
A conical burr grinder is slightly different from a flat burr grinder but they essentially do the same thing. The conical grinders have a cone-shaped burr at the base and a flat blade around it so as you adjust the grind coarser or finer, the top blade moves up and down, closing the gap between the cone.
Conical burr grinder parts with the cone-shaped burr (right) and the top burr (left)
Flat grinders are usually much faster grinders and the blades won’t heat up and start to affect the grind. But don’t mistake a burr grinder for a blade grinder (as in they have slicing blades like a juicer) you definitely want to avoid these at all cost.
What makes the Breville Smart Grinder Pro so good?
It creates a nice and consistent grind. What I’ve learnt over the years in coffee is that the more consistent the coffee grind, the better the extraction. And not just a little bit better, but a lot better! In fact, if you had a $5000 grinder and then tamped it with a kiwi fruit, you’d get a better result than if you ground it on a grinder that produced inconsistent grinds and then tried to tamp it with an expensive tamper. Believe me, I’ve tested it!
Grind consistency and distribution is one of the more significant variables that make or break a great coffee.
While the Breville Smart grinder Pro isn’t exactly a $5000 grinder, it does a very nice job of keeping the grind consistent and with 60 grind settings you can dial in your espresso coffee with ease and precision.
The grinder has 40mm conical burrs which means it won’t be the fastest grinder you can get but the reason for its slow speed is actually a good thing: the blades won’t heat up and affect the grinds.
Conical grinders tend to heat up when they go too fast which will start to prematurely cook your coffee before you’ve had a chance to extract it. So, while it might take 35 seconds to grind your dose, it’s actually preserving the freshness of the coffee oils and flavours.
The grinder has a few other key features including a digital LCD display, a portafilter holder (so you don’t have to hold the portafilter while waiting 35seconds for the grind), an adjustable dial for fine tuning in the amount of coffee down to a 10th of a second.
A finer grind will grind more slowly so if you’re using the auto doser make sure you set the timer to allow for more coffee to grind through.
If you’re like me, and you adjust the coffee grind every couple of shots each day, then you can use the continuous grind button which just keeps grinding until you’ve reached the amount your desire. But if you’re in a stable environment like airconditioning and you always use the same beans you can dial the grind to the right settings and then just leave it. But make sure you always watch each extraction as you don’t want to get into the habit of just set and forget because over time the extractions will get worse.
So if you haven’t yet invested in a grinder and don’t want to blow the bank on your first one, the Breville Grinder is the perfect place to start.
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