Sage - The Smart Grinder Pro - Conical Burr Coffee Grinder - Programmable, Automatic - 450g Coffee Bean Capacity, 60 Precise Grind Settings - Brushed Stainless Steel

I was a little hesitant, buying this machine as a replacement to my Ascaso i_Steel grinder (which finally died after 6 years). I feared that perhaps the Sage brand was all style over substance; but in fact this is a brilliant machine. It looks gorgeous, it is designed very well, and it has very useful features. I love it.The grind size is wide and varied and easy to adjust. The dose amount is also easy to change and also to programme. Grinding is either automatic (hands free) or fully manual. The hopper holds loads of beans but doesn't look overly large from design point of view.Day to day use it has been consistent and reliable.It also looks gorgeous -it is actually stainless steel rather than (like its cheaper brother) silver-coloured plastic.So far, extremely pleased with it.

Great grinder to match with a small espresso machine, burrs needed a little adjustment on the internal settings out of the box but since then has been rock solid.

This grinder really is good. It’s the best of several coffee grinders I’ve had over the years. I note other reviews will gripe about this and that but so far I’ve had no problems. It’s the first grinder I’ve used on which you store beans and discharge what you want rather than grind a whole bag of beans. A more important factor is that the grind can be so fine it turns out the best taste ever.

A lot of people hate on this grinder in the home barista scene, but don't be put off.I've been using this same grinder now for 6.5 years, it has served me well and is still in use today. I use it solely for Espresso, but it is ranked very highly for pour over, French press and percolator by many; i cannot comment on this however.I have paired this with both my Sage Barista Express, and my Sage Dual Boiler. When it comes to the Dual Boiler, it is at the very limit of what it can do, due to the 58mm, flatter wider puck; you may want more oomph from your grinder BUT, this WILL still put out amazing coffee in a 58mm machine.Today for the first time, i have adjusted the internal setting from the stock 6, to 5 as the burrs have worn enough to warrant this action (remember, over 6 years...). For those who don't know what I'm talking about, the sage grinder has 2 great additional features...1. Clutch, many don't have this. This will stop the grinder from eating its-self if it gets jammed up, think of it like an electric screwdriver when there is too much resistance.2. You can very easily take out the top burr, change the factory setting of "6" to "5" or even "4" to put the burrs closer together thus, increasing fine grind-ability. I do however not recommend this until the burrs start to wear (this is what the feature is for, if you change this too early expect to hear the above clutch working early on to save your burrs).This grinder like many of the cheaper more budget options, WILL struggle with light roasts; however most people do not drink these. Bare in mind, if you buy this for espresso you are going to want to stay in its lane in the medium/dark roast area to maintain that 1:2 ratio in 25-30 second margin.I am a single dose user, so the hopper does not see any use however, i have to say i am extremely impressed with the retention on this grinder. If i put 21g of beans in, i get 21g out, or 20.9 sometimes, but a little love-tap on the lid and that quickly adds back up. The retention for a grinder of this price point is extremely good.One thing many say, and IS true; is that this does grind a bit clumpy. Now to remedy this you can pay several hundred more on a new grinder, or; you can drop £10 on an EDT needle tool. I recommend buying a dosing jug and an EDT, single dose grind in to the jug, EDT briskly in there to remove clumps then move it to your porta basket, and EDT Finley again; this makes clumps a none issue.If you are new to the wonderful world of home barista, this is the perfect grinder. If you like french press, pour over or filter coffee, this is the perfect grinder. If you like light roasted coffee, put the money toward a better grinder.Have the Barista Express? Or other in-built grinder machine? Many say this is the same grinder that is in the Barista Express, and...Well it is BUT, it has a lot more settings and fine adjustment. It also means when you outgrow your built in grinder machine and want to upgrade, you have a separate grinder.For the right people this is a fantastic grinder :).

Alright, this is a bit of a toughy.Let's start with the price. It's a real investment at 150 quid give or take! I haven't tried the more affordable burr grinders, but having done so much research, I'd say the cheapest I'd buy is that Bodum one for about 60 quid, but then again I don't know if it would grind fine enough for proper non-pressurised espresso.Now, this takes me to my 2nd point. I needed a grinder for espresso. Not barista style espresso, but still, with a non-pressurised basket, which requires a much finer grind than the typical Lavazza Qualita Rossa you would buy at the store.Let me say this right now - if you are not making espresso with non-pressurised baskets, this grinder is probably overkill. Spend a third of the money and get a more basic one. Apparently the Bodum burr grinder at 60 quid is a good option.Now, for espresso (again and throughout, non pressurised), this grinder does the job perfectly well. It has managed to grind 7 different varieties of coffee that I roasted at home (i.e. which I didn't perfectly clean before feeding them to the grinder), and it can go so fine that it clogs up my espresso machine.I did expect to also use this for French press brewing, but unfortunately I don't think this machine is practical for both use cases. It is more a set it up once and leave it be forever kind of thing.There are two issues with changing grind coarseness:1- each time you change the coarseness you waste at least one espresso shot worth of coffee. This problem is most likely attributable to all burr grinders, I guess, but yeah, if you change the coarseness all the first part of the grind will still come out with the previous coarseness.2- even if you didn't care about wasting your precious coffee grinds, you might need to take the machine apart each time you want to switch from fine espresso to coarse French press. This is because the range you get with the side dial is not really that effective, and luckily you can remove the top burr and adjust yet another 10 levels (I believe), but this requires removing the hopper, throwing away a bunch of beans that just sit on the burrs (or grinding them down), etc. Way too tedious and wasteful a process to do even once a week for a weekend French press. Not for me.Otherwise, the operation could be a bit simpler. Seriously, I don't think many people need the ridiculous amount of coarseness levels that we get, it's simply not practical.Also, whilst you can program for how long you grind, this is also not very practical because it depends a lot on the beans, and how they move down the hopper, etc.Finally, one very important reason why I got this particular grinder is that it can grind directly to the espresso filter basket. This works very well, however you need to constantly pause and tamp the grinds a bit and continue, otherwise the basket overflows quite quickly and half of your grinds go to waste. You probably won't notice this if you grind a bit coarser, say Lavazza level. It would have been great if there was some sort of cilinder adapter that would go down to the basket and keep the grinds from falling off it somehow. The annoying part in this process is that the machine will only wait for like 5 seconds in pause, and then reset the grind timer, meaning that if you take too long to push the grinds down you will not be able to continue where you paused.So, for 150 quid, you get a machine that can grind as fine as anyone would need, that is great quality and that can grind directly to the filter basket.For coarser brewing methods, I don't really see the point, but then I have no experience with the cheaper alternatives.Also it is clearly not designed to have their settings changed regularly. If you really need both options I would get two cheaper grinders for even less of the cost of one of these.

Excellent addition to the coffee station.Perfectly ground coffee every time, super easy to install.

Only had this grinder for a couple of weeks and so far we are very please. The grinder reacts exactly to the settings selected and though it may seem a little expensive we have found it excellent value for money.

Amazing item. Thanks !!!