the Smart Grinder Pro, SCG820BTR, Black Truffle

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 :).

Breville is fantastic, you can't go wrong with this for Aeropress I started the journey from freeze dried , instant "Coffee", to real coffee, pre ground, in an aeropress and found what I was missing for decades. Then I read more and realised that I was missing out by using preground coffee. So I bought a Hario, but the one on Amazon was a cheap chinese mini which took 7 minutes to get me a double shot. So I got an original Skerton from Japan, which was much better. Then I realised that I really dont have much time in the morning, even though proponents of hand grinding are enthused about the zen effects of slow hand grinding So I did m research, and as most know, blade grinders just don't cut it (at least regularly enough). Then I read about Baratza and didn't like the feature to price ratios, Then i read about the Breville, but I needed a 240 v version and that in the UK was sold under the Sage brand (There's a local Breville manufacturer in the UK, hence the Sage rebrand) I had a great experience with another Breville product, one of their juicers and hence was sold, even though many reviewers complain of the number of settings and the unsuitability for espresso I'm glad I bought this. The finish is exceptional, the magnetic holder for the grounds container, the air sealing of the container and the rubber cap for it, the sealed bean hopper, the dials and the LED lighting, all perfectly executed. There's start button for grinding and another button engineered so as to be pressed when you push in a container under the grinder, and it stops when you stop pressing the container There are two porta filter holders (53 and 58mm) and and they latch on magnetically I haven't used another burr grinder, but this one is designed so well, that I can't think of anything extra I would want on this, really, I am so impressed with Breville's attention to detail, I applaud their engineers! The burrs dissemble easily for cleaning and they even incorporated a handle to remove the top burr, a tiny handle that just folds in They provide a brush to clean said burrs and have a magnetic shelf just below the grounds can to hold it The grind is great for aeropress, I have to try a real espresso maybe later The machine is quite silent, but I don't have any other to compare to I short, the machine grinds well, looks great and Breville engineering's attention to detail rivals Apples. Buy it, you won't regret it!

I’ve had a Sage Duo Temp Pro espresso machine for nearly a year now, using pre-ground coffee. I’d always intended to eventually get a grinder so when this had a significant price reduction I took the opportunity. I’d watched coffee experts talking about ‘dialling in’ espresso and it seemed like it might take a while before I started pulling acceptable shots while I played around with my new toy. So I bought some low-costish beans to play with, figuring it would take a while. The nice people at Sage suggest, in the manual, that grind setting 12 is a good place to start for espresso.So I tried that. The grind size scale goes from 60 to 1, 60 being the coarsest and suitable for cafetières. Setting 12 produced a quite acceptable cup of coffee with a touch of bitterness. Bitterness can come from too fine a grind so I shifted it to 14 and the bitterness disappeared. I experimented with 16 and started to detect sourness (which is from too coarse a grind), so I settled with 14 for the beans I was using. I buy single origin beans from a mail order roaster, rather than supermarket offerings. It seems beans are at their most flavoursome roughly 2 to 6 weeks after roasting and it isn’t easy to achieve that with supermarket beans that have an 18 month to 2 year use by date. Back to the grinding. I’m using the Sage 54mm portafilter and the default grind time comes up at 19 seconds. This grinds far too much coffee. After playing around I’m now using11.6 secs to obtain about the right amount of coffee. Because I’m putting as much coffee in the portafilter as the espresso machine recommends (using their razor tool to level the grinds in the portafilter), adjusting the weight of coffee isn’t really an option, because I like a mug of cappuccino and anything less produces too weak a brew. Once you have found the right time, you can press and hold the time control until it beeps. This programs that time onto the shot number visible in the centre of the display. 2 is the default. So whenever you select that number of shots the time will set itself. You can still adjust it, but if you always make 2 shots it means that when you turn the machine on all the settings are correct and you just have to press the ‘go’ button. It seems to remember the last grind setting anyway. The bean hopper comfortably holds a 250g bag of beans, which is the size I buy. The space left looks as though it would fit another 250g, so I’m guessing you’d get 500g in. This grinder comes with two portafilter holders. One for 54mm, and one for the industry standard 58mm sizes. I tried the holder at first and found that a mountain of ground coffee rapidly built up and so I needed to constantly shake the handle to settle the grounds. I soon got fed up with this and bought a 54mm dosing cup. The grounds go into that, and the portafilter then slots onto the top of the cup, a quick inversion, and the coffee is ready for tamping. One thing to note. There is a switch that the rearmost tab on the portafilter pushes when using the holder and this turns on the grinder. Most dosing cups come with matching tabs, but the one I bought is too tall and so its tab misses the switch. This isn’t a serious problem because the control panel switch is easy to push, but I mention it in case you head down the dosing cup route and it is something you need to be aware of. I make two or three cups per day. I find the first cup gets a little more coffee than the remaining two. This may be due to grounds retention. It’s only a gram or two, but if you aren’t weighing the grounds then it will make a difference to the brew. Although the machine allows 60 grind settings, it is possible to also adjust the space between the grinding burrs, this will alter all the grind sizes. Mind you I’ve found I’m making delicious coffee without any more fiddling than trying a few different grind settings and grind quantities. I’m quite happy with this grinder, it does what I want it to.

This grinder really is the one to buy for under £200. The consistency of my espresso has increased immensely. I upgraded from the Krups GVX231 and a hario hand grinder. The hario didn't have enough levels once you got down to espresso fineness, either clogging the machine or producing coffee with no body. The gbx231 suffered similarly, was noisy, fast and plasticy. Luckily I sold it second hand for as much as I bought it for. This Sage (sold as Breville in America for those of you looking for more reviews) really is incredible bang for the buck. And perfect if you're interested in espresso where minute grind differences have more of an effect. It's easy to use, with pre programmed settings to get you started, it even knows you're doing espresso based on the filter holder being fitted. To start you just push the filter handle into the machine and it starts, if you need to pause to level the coffee off, you press again to stop and again to restart, it then runs for the specified time and stops automatically. Refilling is easy with the airtight lid being operable one handed, and the grind tray at the bottom collects any errant grinds well, then removes easily to be emptied. All the attachments fit with a satisfying magnetic click and the grind tin (if you're not doing espresso) looks great quality too. It grinds fine enough to easily clog my De Longhi Dedica (ec685) with plenty of room to go finer. It's relatively quite (far nicer sound than the Krups I had) and doesn't ache my arm like the hario!

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.

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.

Ignore the Crap reviews this is excellent. In fairness this was an upgrade from a old and failing Gaggia grinder with about 8 grind setting and bought this on advice from a friend and online reviews without trying anything else. But this is just phenomenal. It does take some work getting a grind right for your machine and beans but all machines do. This has incredible flex for adjusting both grind fineness and time. You'll get the most out of it with a Sage machine I suspect but the filter holders are of standard sizing (2 cradles one for 50-54mm folders and one for 58mm) although whether your holder will trigger the grind I dunno. 60 grind setting and grind time adjustable in 0.2sec increments. Slightly pi$$ed no free coffee but I'd recently got a Sage Bamino Plus so suspect I only got free bag once. For those giving crap reviews. This grinds excellent espresso, you may need to change your coffeee in the same way as you have to do that when you when you swap espresso machine, and yup you do need to work the right settings out, but if you can't be arsed doing that why are you reviewing this ?

This is one fantastic grinder. It may be celebrity endorsed but I get the impression that he's really added value to the product than just his name like with some products where the celebrity adds nothing. This has so many little touches to make things easy. FIrstly, the bean hopper is big enough for a 250g bag of coffee with room to spare, and it's air-tight so you can keep what you don't use in there for later (although they don't recommend this). Secondly, you can grind directly into your portafilter or into a storage jar for filter/cafetiere. Thirdly, everything you need is removable for easy washing and even the bottom bit can be removed in case any coffee spills over and onto the lower ledge. Now for the grind. It's definitely fine enough for espresso. In fact, it was too fine for my pressurised basket so when I used my non-pressurised it produced a lovely espresso (Starbucks Pike Place if you're interested). 30 settings for espresso and I had it on number 10 (0 being finest, 30 being coarsest). I've never been able to grind coffee so fine before. I have a Gaggia Baby Duo so a pretty good espresso machine but only semi-professional. I can't say if this grinder would be good enough for a professional espresso machine, but I can't see why not. This is so easy to to use. I was considering a Baratza Virtuoso which was more expensive and apparently better for espresso. Well how much better could my espresso have been? I doubt any better with any grinder. This grinder takes the guesswork out of grinding and maybe some "expert" would say it's better to have a more professional grinder, but I'm very happy. Oh, and it also looks pretty sexy too!

This super easy to use and ‘dial in’. Has memory of your preferred setting. No mess when grinding into dosing cup but I do find (as with all grinders) that when filling directly to the portafilter it heaps up and spills so I prefer dosing cup and very happy with that. Nice digital display.

It doe's what claimed to do , very nice machine , I ordered different brands returned some and kept some although not grinding suitable for espresso but this machine doing a good job.

When combined with bambino plus you will get the ultimate home coffee setting. Recommends the black color as it will not leave stains nor fingerprints.

The grind size its not good at all for espresso unfortunately