Why buy expensive coffee grounds when you can grind your coffee beans just the way you like them, in the comfort of your own home? Coffee aficionados everywhere know that freshly ground coffee beans are the secret to the perfect cup of joe. Extract every iota of delicious, caffeinated flavor from your coffee with a coffee grinder!
If you’re a real coffee snob, you know that you can’t just use any random food processor or spice grinder to make perfect coffee grounds. The size and evenness of the coffee particles are key to a delicious cup of coffee, and to ensure evenly sized grounds, you need a good coffee grinder.
This is crucial if you want your morning cup of coffee to taste as good as it possibly can. The Breville BCG820BSSXL and the Baratza Encore are both great options if you’re on the market for a new coffee bean grinder.
Grind Settings
Breville GCG820SSXL
This complex, powerful coffee grinder features a whopping 60 grind settings, allowing you to make the perfect grounds for any coffee, from French press to espresso.
You can further customize your grinding experience by adjusting the dose or changing the number of cups or shots. This model features an LCD screen and Precision Digital Time, allowing you to change the grind time in increments as small as 0.2 seconds for maximum precision and quality.
Baratza Encore
This precise coffee grinder has 40 individual grind settings ranging from 250 to 1200 microns for perfect, evenly-sized coffee grounds each time. Its largest setting perfectly suits drip coffee and French presses, while its smallest size is great for espresso machines. To change settings, turn the grind hopper. This model also features a pulse button displayed prominently on the front of the unit, allowing you to control exactly how much coffee you want to grind.
Conclusion: Both the Breville GCG820SSXL and the Baratza Encore are capable of producing a wide variety of coffee ground sizes, suitable for everything from drip coffee to lattes.
The GCG820SSXL has 20 more individual grind settings than the Encore, making it more versatile. It also features multiple dials and buttons that allow you to customize all aspects of the coffee grinding process intricately. The Encore’s user interface is much simpler, minimizing clutter and providing you with a clean, user-friendly experience as you find the perfect grind setting.
Burrs
Breville GCG820SSXL
The GCG820SSXL features stainless steel conical burrs, providing maximum evenness in ground size. The stainless steel prevents the coffee grinder from overheating and infusing a scorched taste into your coffee grounds. It also protects the essential oils released during the grinding process, ensuring that each cup of coffee tastes flavorful and fresh.
If you want to customize your grind further, you can manually adjust the upper burr to be coarser or finer. Finally, each coffee grinder comes with a burr cleaning brush, making it easy to maintain your machine.
Baratza Encore
The Encore’s conical burrs measure 40 millimeters, the perfect size to accommodate its wide variety of settings. These burrs are hardy and will maintain their razor-sharpness for years to come.
The Encore also features a specially designed burr calibration system to make sure that each unit can produce the full range of ground sizes. Finally, the speed control system maximizes coffee quality while also reducing heat, noise, and static electricity buildup in the grinder.
Conclusion: Both the Breville GCG820SSXL and the Baratza Encore feature conical burrs, which are specially designed for coffee grinding purposes to ensure a perfectly even grind each time. The GCG820SSXL comes with the added bonus of a burr cleaning brush, making it easier to clean your grinder. The Encore features several quality calibration systems to maintain the equilibrium of the burr range and speed. Regardless of which model you choose, you’ll find top-notch ground quality.
Grounds Storage
Breville GCG820SSXL
The upper section of this coffee grinder can hold up to 18 ounces of coffee beans. The compartment is lockable, so you can remove the bean hopper without worrying about spilling. There are several options available for storing the coffee grounds — you can grind directly into the included grinds container, or you can grind directly into a portafilter, paper filter, or permanent filter basket.
Baratza Encore
This coffee grinder’s bean hopper can hold up to 8 ounces of coffee beans. It grinds into an included grounds bin, which is capable of holding up to 5 ounces of coffee grounds. The grounds bin is removable so that you can transfer your freshly ground coffee into the brewing compartment of your drip coffee maker, espresso machine, French press, or other styles of coffee maker. This model is also designed to minimize ground coffee residue inside the grinder, so your coffee always tastes fresh.
Conclusion: The Breville GCG820SSXL can hold over double the amount of coffee beans and grounds compared to the Baratza Encore. If you’re looking to make large batches of coffee grounds, the GCG820SSXL is an excellent choice. The Baratza Encore is smaller, making it more suitable for those who are looking to make just enough freshly ground coffee for one day at a time.
Coffee Grinders: The Easiest Way to Make the Best Coffee
If your goal is to drink the freshest, most flavorful coffee every morning, then you absolutely need a coffee grinder. Both the Breville GCG820SSXL and the Baratza Encore are great options that can fulfill all of your coffee grinding needs. The larger GCG820SSXL is more suitable for coffee fanatics that want ultimate precision and control, as many coffee settings as possible, and the ability to make large batches of coffee grounds.
The compact and streamlined Encore is perfect for the coffee-grinding beginner that wants a simple, no-fuss coffee grinder without sacrificing the range of coffee ground sizes available. No matter which coffee grinder you choose, you’re sure to notice a marked improvement in the quality of your morning cup of joe.
