Coffee grinders are not all built the same and a good quality cup of coffee starts with grinding the beans with a good quality burr grinder like the Infinity from Capresso.
Ease of Use/Performance: 25/25
Convenience/Storage 24/25
Appearance/Design 23/25
How much I enjoy 24/25
Total: 96/100
I have learned a lot about coffee and making a really good cup of coffee does not start just with good beans but the coffee grinder and maker you use. Good quality beans that are fresh are not available in your local grocery store but can be purchased from internet or even local coffee shops. These are more expensive but for really fresh coffee that has not been stored for weeks at a time before finally landing on your grocery store shelves the route to go is fresh from the source.
There are several good coffee sellers that sell very fresh coffee beans that you grind yourself for the freshest and best tasting coffee, espresso and cappuccino. In order to get good tasting coffee you need to grind your own beans, the stuff that comes in the cans will not do and buying fresh beans from a supplier or online source is much better than grocery store or even Starbucks bought beans.
The beans available from stores like Starbucks are not as fresh as those available from suppliers who often roast their own or buy directly from sources they have available. So the good aromatic cup of fresh coffee has to start with fresh roasted beans and then you need to grind them into a fine ground coffee for use in your coffee or espresso maker.
The difference between already ground store bought coffee and grinding with a bladed grinder versus a burr grinder are essentially the same. Store bought ground coffee is not as fresh as the kind you grind yourself nor is grinding coffee with a blender, essentially what those blade grinders are, versus a burr grinder.
The first and foremost thing about coffee making is to brew coffee as fresh as you can, from bean to cup. This means that getting your own roasted beans and grinding them yourself will give you a fresher cup of coffee and it will smell and taste better.
This is because the beans have all the flavor of coffee trapped inside them and when heated and water is run through a bunch of the ground beans the water will pick up the flavor. If you grind the coffee and then seal it into a container the flavor is already leaking out into the air whether inside the container or in a room.
That is why coffee smells so good when you first open the can of the ground stuff bought in stores. All the flavor and aroma bursts out when you first open it and then it’s gone. So grinding your own beans makes sense as you are leaving all the flavor in the beans until right before you brew the coffee, but what about the type of grinder.
Using a blade grinder like those you see for coffee and spices heat up the items they are grinding due to the nature of the grinder blade. The constant force of the blade hitting the beans and ground coffee creates some heat and that heat will release flavor from the grounds. Again when you grind coffee with a blade grinder and open the container it smells wonderful, but that flavor and smell is being wasted by going out into the room instead of into a cup.
That’s what we want for a really good cup of coffee, all the flavor, taste and aroma to be in the cup of coffee and not wafting around the room wasted on the air. A burr grinder has a small conical blade that rotates slowly against a round blade that has the same angle as the conical grinder blade so the beans are ground up between the two. As you can see in the one picture of the blades both blades fit easily into each other and will grind the beans according to how close they are to each other.
The motor of the Infinity Burr Grinder is reduced by gears so the blades of the grinder move slowly so as not to heat up the beans and ground coffee when it’s doing its job. The motor can easily handle the grinding and does not heat up when you’re grinding from over work.
The Infinity Burr Grinder model 565 is a nice sturdy grinder with a brushed chrome, stainless steel or black ABS plastic base and plastic, easy to clean bean containers. The bean container on top has a lid for easy storage and the burr grinder that sits inside easily removes for cleaning.
The plastic coffee container that catches the coffee grounds also removes easily for filling your coffee or espresso maker. The grinding operation is controlled with the timer switch so there is no problem with forgetting to turn off the device and having it grind out of beans. The burr grinder can run without beans and will not be ruined but it is not a good idea to leave the grinder unattended while operating.
Due to the possibility of finding small rocks in the coffee beans you purchase you should watch the beans as you are pouring them in the bean container on the top and not leave the grinder while operating so you can quickly shut it off if you do run a rock through it. This should not ruin the grinder as long as you do shut it off and remove the rock but if you let it grind the rock away it could damage the burr grinder parts.
The Infinity Burr Grinder is very easy to clean, simply remove the bean container from the top by twisting to match the two dots and pull off the container. The burr grinder blade comes off by simply pulling up and you can dust out the insides of the grinding area which you should do often.
The burr grinder does a great job of grinding beans but you should only grind the amount you’re going to use at the moment for the freshest and best tasting coffee. The burr grinder comes with a cleaning brush to help get the grounds out of the burr area as well as a scoop for measuring out your coffee.
It grinds from large coarse coffee perfect for regular coffee brewing to the finest Turkish grind for espresso. There are a total of 16 marked settings you can use by turning the top coffee bean container for the various fineness settings. The plastic bin on top holds almost 9 ounces of beans while the plastic ground container holds 4 ounces of ground coffee.
The grinder is a bit noisy but much less so than the two blade grinders I have and will never be using for coffee again. With the timer setting from 5 seconds to 60 seconds of grinding you can grind a fair amount of coffee at one time as well as pulse grind coffee for easy espresso grinds directly into the espresso filter.
The Capresso Infinity Burr Grinder works very well and is an extremely important part of brewing a fantastic tasting cup of coffee, espresso or cappuccino. I highly recommend the Capresso Infinity Burr Grinder for the serious coffee connoisseur or the rest of us who just enjoys a good cup of fresh coffee.
