Sage BCG820BSSUK the Smart Grinder Pro Coffee Grinder - Silver

Product Information

It'll do a decent job of grinding for the majority of brew methods, and it'll pair well for espresso with most entry-level espresso machines, including the Sage Bambino, Bambino Plus & Gaggia Classic Pro. If you weigh the coffee and it is heavier than your desired dose in your recipe then decrease the time of the grind. If you've not used a grinder before, you might be slightly intimidated when you first get any coffee grinder out of the box, as grinding coffee beans seems like quite a geeky & complex thing to do, to the uninitiated. Looking at all the dials and buttons on the SGP I must admit did set the alarm bells going, to begin with, but I soon discovered how simple it is. It's worth pointing out that they didn't have a clue who I was, I didn't even bother saying on the phone “I run coffeeblog.co.uk” etc., even if I did, coffeeblog probably had three readers at the time, and one of them was my mum, so I doubt it would have made much of a difference ;-). I also believe it's among the best grinders at this kind of price point when it comes to durability.

Hands Free Operation: Grind directly into the portafilter, grind container, gold tone filter basket or paper filter. At the time, the cheapest budget grinders on the market were the De'Longhi KG79 & Krups Expert, and I mainly swerved them because it appeared to me at the time that they weren't as user-friendly as the Sage grinders, and that the grind performance wasn't the best. That being said, I am a drummer, and for many years I didn't wear earplugs when I really should have, and I'm a loud drummer, the guitarists in the bands I've been in have been just as loud, so my hearing isn't the greatest. This is the aforementioned internal burr adjustment, and it's such a clever, and useful feature, and one I very rarely hear anyone talking about.

The verdict: Sage smart grinder pro

So all I actually needed to do in this situation was to take the grind more coarse and use these beans either via the dual walled baskets or for manual brew methods. I bought this grinder for pairing with my Gaggia Classic, which was a used 2003 model, but also for Aeropress, cafetiere, and V60, and this is the main reason I was looking at the Sage grinders in the first place, as they appeared to be perfect for varied use. This is something else that I think is fairly important, most of us are grinding coffee early in the morning, so a grinder that sounds like a Boeing 747 probably isn't the best idea.

It's true that the hopper lid on the Smart Grinder Pro has a gasket, and this is good mainly because it keeps some of the decibels of the grinding from escaping from the top of the hopper, so it dulls the sound slightly, but what it doesn't do is stop air getting in. Don't forget, coffee grounds can get out of the bottom, and the air is infinitely smaller than the smallest particle of ground coffee ;-). It's not just about letting your beans go stale, it can mess with your shots too. It does depend on how fine or coarse you're grinding, the finer you grind the longer it'll take, but you'll usually find for espresso that it grinds at around 1.2 – 1.5 grams per second, and for pourover roughly 2 – 2.5 grams per second. The grind adjustment dial changes the number on the digital screen, smaller is finer, bigger is coarser, and if you didn't think it could get any simpler, it can, because it tells you on the screen what brew method the current grind relates to, so at the finer end you'll see “espresso”, and then that will change as you move it, so if you're grinding for espresso for example, you can just start off somewhere in the middle of the “espresso” range, and adjust from there. In other words, it was the environment that the coffee machine was in, in which the changes were happening, not the hopper, but the hopper wasn't providing any protection against this change in humidity.

I'd seen the Dose Control Pro from Sage, the slightly cheaper sibling of the Smart Grinder Pro, which was tempting, but I just really liked the look of the Smart Grinder Pro, and I'd seen that the power of the motor was slightly smaller on the Dose Control Pro (130W Vs 165W). But for the relatively low price, I'm very happy with the quality of the particle uniformity of the Sage Smart Grinder Pro.

The Smart Grinder Pro is an all-rounder grinder, It'll grind for manual brew methods such as Aeropress, pour-over, stove top & cafetiere, and it will also grind for espresso, with traditional or pressurized baskets. This is my “warts ‘n all” user review of the hugely popular Sage Smart Grinder Pro, and given that you're here reading this, you're probably wondering whether you should buy this grinder, and my answer is, probably, but just hold fire at least until you've read my “nutshell” version of the review, and keep an eye out for the bit where I mention discount codes… A Review Almost Seven Years in The MakingIt has a pair of 40mm stainless steel conical burrs, as do most of the other cheaper grinders on the market. So if you're looking at the Wilfa Svart, Gaggia MD15, Baratza Encore, etc., when it comes to particle uniformity in the medium to coarse grind sizes, it's unlikely that we're going to find much of a difference by going for the Smart Grinder Pro instead of the Wilfa Svart, which is just under half of the price. Some grinders are specialists, there are some grinders that are made specifically for manual brew methods, and many that are made specifically for espresso, but this is an all-rounder. For me, the Smart Grinder Pro is the best all-rounder grinder for the money, overall, especially if you also want to be able to grind for espresso, with standard baskets.