A machine with a smaller or cheaper motor (and often a lower-quality block burr) can add unwanted heat to the beans, and may be at risk of burning out sooner, because it has to work harder to grind. You’re paying for incremental improvements that may be important if coffee is a blossoming passion or hobby for you. With each grinder, we used the Kruve tools to calibrate a medium-fine grind for drip coffee, and later to visually quantify which machines had the most grounds in the target range. The Encore grinds beans quickly and evenly for every application, apart from advanced espresso making, and it’s simple to use and adjust.

If you're on a tight budget, and you want all of that budget to go on build quality and performance, for manual brew methods, I think the Baratza Encore is quite a difficult grinder to beat. The catch bin collects most loose grounds, although some users have noticed that static causes the grounds to stick to the inside and make a mess when you try to clean out the grinder. Grinds Left in Grinder: To maximize freshness, the Encore minimises the ground coffee left in the grinder. These two types of burrs work in slightly different ways, and you’ll find plenty of experts arguing that one type is slightly better than the other for various reasons, from speed to minimizing heat retention. She switched because she found a Baratza for free on the street, but otherwise, she would have happily continued using the OXO.We intentionally designed the Encore to fit nicely under most kitchen cabinets without sacrificing power or quality and to bring value to your daily grind. With a manual hand grinder, features are also minimal: You can grind only about 18 to 35 grams at a time. Featuring 40 individual grind settings, from fine to coarse, the Encore can please any palate with its gamut of accurate and repeatable grind settings.

I grind at 18 when I do pour overs (mine has a permanent metal mesh filter), and there’s enough coffee dust to almost completely clog the filter. Finally, it feels worth mentioning that Fort Collins, Colorado—where we live—is also a fairly-arid climate.The most precise way to measure coffee is to weigh it because beans are not all the same shape, size, or density. This sounds complicated at first, but it is not very hard to master, especially if you’re the only one using it every day. Even the best burr grinders will produce some fines and boulders, but good grinders will yield a lot fewer of them, and the ones at the right size will be more consistently shaped, too. Yet to be determined, but if the Encore delivers on a decent espresso grind, this can only be a good thing. Burrs: Manufactured in Europe, the Encore’s 40 mm conical burrs will grind for many styles of coffee.