Gaggia RI8123/01 MD15 Coffee Grinder, ABS, Black, Stainless Steel

Product Information

With a relatively inexpensive PID and dimmer switch mod, you have a lot of machine for the money, and you can go just about as sophisticated as you like with modding, the Gagguino mod for example takes the humble Classic into Decent DE1 territory! While some of these complaints may not be false, we would wager to say that these are more of the forgivable kind of flaws, rather than the kind of complaints that actually point to this being an inferior product. The reason they've done it, I think it's because they want to move away from electroplating as one of the processes they've marked as being not great for their staff or the environment, but I think having a solid brass group is going to be something that most users would prefer, from the potentially flaky (in the long term) chrome plated groups.

If they made it 9 bars out of the box, in theory it's not going to work as well for that first category, and I suspect this probably represents as much as 80% of users. The Classic does come with both the pressurised (perfect crema baskets) baskets, and standard baskets, and it's a standard 58mm group so you can easily switch to competition baskets, and you can easily switch out the shower screen to a competition screen too, if you wish. The D40, sometimes sold as the SD40 is a conical grinder, with similar 40mm conical stainless steel burrs that you'll find on most of the cheaper conical grinders on the market, but with a finer range than most aimed at covering espresso with standard baskets, and with the same inclined stature and single dosing nature as the DF grinders, and with more grind settings than most other low-cost conical burr grinders. It's important to point out though, that grinders that don't have some kind of failsafe will strip gears or cause other damage when they encounter something too hard for that grinder to cope with.

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For me, the word “espresso” means traditional espresso and traditional espresso is made with traditional filter baskets, which require a fine and precise grind. Yes, you'll probably manage to get a grind fine enough for espresso with dual walled baskets, also known as pressurized baskets, with one of these blade grinders and with most of the budget burr grinders, but listing them as being capable of “espresso”– can be problematic, as they're not making it clear that this is espresso with dual walled baskets. It has the best of both worlds where steaming milk is concerned, too, a panarello for the more normal coffee drinkers, but when removed it has what is essentially a single tip steam wand underneath.

It has 40mm stainless steel conical burrs, a grinds container, and a portafilter cradle, on demand and timed grinding, and it'll perform similarly to the Wilva Svart & the Wilva Svart Precision, both of which are cheaper and come with a 5 year manufacturers warranty vs a 1 year guarantee with the Delonghi. It'll perform very similar to the Gaggia MD15, too, but the MD15 is quite a bit cheaper and comes with the spacers in case you decide to upgrade your portafilter to a standard basket or bottomless portafilter. The new Espresso isn't a version of the classic, and it's not in the same league, so let me just get this in straight away. This is less than half the price of the Classic, and it really doesn't compete with the Classic at all, for build quality, or espresso quality. As I've mentioned this is one of the grinders that have these blunt grinding wheels, and while in theory, I'd rather have burrs than blades, and at least you can select a grind size with these, the fact is that they're really crushing the beans rather than grinding them.Grounds are stored in the built-in doser that can dispense up to 7 grams of ground coffee with the spring-loaded dosing lever. Pull the lever once for a single shot, and twice for a double. The MDF enjoys a small footprint compared to many grinders of its class at only 13 inches tall; a perfect fit under any cabinetry.