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Interestingly this is the only conical grinder I've seen so far with a 29mm burr set, most in this category have slightly bigger 38mm burrs. In theory, this does mean that the burrs will have to spin at a higher RPM to match the grinding speed of a grinder with bigger burrs, however, they're very keen on pointing out in their marketing blurb that this grinder ensures a great particle uniformity, so I'm assuming they've chosen this burr size for a specific reason. The latest 2023 Gaggia Classic Evo has come with some nice, relatively small updates, and I'll review both of the models shortly, but firstly, let's just get into why this little machine (most models except the 2015 version) is so special. What's So Special About The Gaggia Classic Anyway? Combining a great grinder with excellent coffee will produce the best results. This is the coffee that I choose to drink:
As a result, there is no consistency to the resulting grind. There will be lumps, bumps and clumps, which, as you may know, does not help our brew whether we are going the coffee or espresso route. I don’t have a comparison video on these two machines, but essentially it’s almost the same as: https://youtu.be/0gFQnWwGiLQ but then of course the Barista Express has an integrated grinder, so it would depend on which grinder you would be pairing with the Gaggia Classic. But then on the coffee side of things, the Barista Express is very user friendly, and the temperature stability is going to be better with the Barista Express, with the PID, and it comes set to 9 bars of pressure (overpressure valve), while an un-modded classic pro will be slightly higher pressure (12 bar, I think, off the top of my head but very easy to mod), and less temp stable so temperature surfing requires (simple enough) or fitting a PID. What it does compete with though, is every other machine within around a hundred quid of the price point!
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This didn't turn out to be the case, and the Gaggia MD15 was really designed to pair with the entry level Gaggia options, including the Gran, Viva, and Carezza, and other cheaper espresso machines using pressurised baskets.
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. Martin Nicholson who designed this grinder, was very experienced when it came to designing products, after working as a product designer for a few decades for some of the UK's most well-known brands, but thankfully, he wasn't particularly experienced where coffee grinders were concerned.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! The reason I mentioned earlier that this grinder is good for espresso and small batch pourover, is because, with a grinding range of 230–950 μm, it's mainly geared up towards finer grinding. It'll work well for small-batch pourover brewing with Kalita Wave, Hario V60 & Chemex, but if you're wanting to go more coarse than this for cafetiere and/or bigger batch filter brewing, you may find this doesn't quite have the required range on the more coarse side of things. Unlike traditional thermostats, the P.I.D. guarantees a stable temperature when coffee is brewing, and even during milk frothing. I don't actually think that the price increase has a great deal to do with the new Evo 2023 classic, I think the price increase was coming anyway. Gaggia didn't increase their prices last year when other brands did, and they've clearly had the same kind of price increases all other manufacturers have, so they've probably just waited until the new version came along to introduce the price increase, that would make quite a bit of sense I think.
Coffee grinders differ mainly by their price point, not only, but mainly, and can be categorised as follows.
Keep in mind that when I talk about using a portafilter, this won't go fine enough for espresso with standard baskets, but it will work fine for pressurized baskets. I did try this, and on the very finest setting, even with very dark roasted beans (which usually don't require quite as fine a grind) I wasn't able to get a shot time anywhere near what I'd be happy with.
Yes there are one or two issues, with qualms about the doser being the most prevalent, but like anything else, it can be gotten used to and worked around. So if a big brand with a decent distribution network manages to create a real contender to the Niche, this gives them, via their distribution network, access to this market that Niche has all to themselves.The Baratza Sette may seem to be a grinder that needs no introduction, but it probably needs a re-introduction, as I get the impression that many people aren't aware of the fairly fundamental changes that have been made to the Sette 270. Anyway, as far as I could see the fact the MDF was a doser grinder was the only thing that put off a lot of people from pairing their Gaggia Classic with this grinder, so when I heard Gaggia were bringing a new doserless grinder to the market, I was hoping that they were going to develop something more along the lines of the MDF but on demand, to compete with the likes of the Sage, Baratza and Eureka grinders.
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