Good coffee begins with good coffee beans, but it doesn’t end there: You’ve also got to know how to do the brew. Before you can brew your beans well, you’ve got to grind them to perfection—which means you need a good coffee grinder. And right now, you can get my favorite grinder for $80—20% off the list price—during Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days. (It’s not technically a Prime “Big Deal,” but this is the lowest price since June, when it briefly dropped below $70.)
I don’t fancy myself a master barista—all of my coffee-making knowledge comes to me the old-fashioned way (from watching YouTube videos and reading Reddit), but if there’s one thing I know, it’s that choosing the wrong grind for your beans will significantly impact your cup of coffee. That’s why it’s important to choose a machine that can offer a precision grind suited to your brew style of choice, from finely ground espresso powder to coarser granules ideal for your French press. And whatever your preference, the OXO Brew Conical Burr Coffee Grinder will get you there, minus the relatively substantial investment in a higher-end alternative.
I’ve been using this OXO grinder for a few years now, and it has continued to perform well. It tends to produce a more consistent grind than my older, cheaper burr grinder, which wasn’t a true burr grinder in that it more crushed the beans than finely cut them, often allowing big shards of irregularly shaped beans to creep in. It is also noticeably quieter (though I still wouldn’t recommend running it while any light sleepers are snoozing nearby). It offers 15 grind settings, which gives you reasonably fine control, and includes what OXO calls a “mess-free hopper” that theoretically keeps coffee from spilling everywhere when you remove the little compartment to scoop out your ground beans. I do find some powder escapes the machine with finer grinds, but it’s markedly less messy than my previous machine.
Is this OXO grinder going to match the performance of pricier offerings that can easily run you $200 or more? Not exactly. But for most casual home brewers, it’s a good bet—and at $80 during Prime Big Deal Days (sigh), it’s an even better bargain.