Over ten years ago I received a grinder from the fine folks at Breville to review. The Breville Smart Grider. And everything was good. I reviewed the unit at the time and found it a very nice machine. My main takeaways from the review at the time were the ease of use and the myriad of settings available. Read the full review to get my first impressions of the machine.
Fast forward 10 and a half years and the unit is still in my kitchen, still grinding coffee and still performing amazingly. I figured it was time for an update. I was recently gifted with a coffee subscription, so I have 12 months of beans heading my way. And they will all go through the Breville Smart Grinder. My preferred method of brewing right now is the french press so the Smart Grinder handles that very well. With the adjustments available to me I can tick the strength of the coffee up a notch, or down as I see fit. The settings you see below are how I take my french press coffee. Currently, I’m drinking coffee from Ecuador, a nice medium roasted blend. And the machine handles it like a champ.
The Grind IQ Settings still work wonderfully and the machine is a joy to clean. Did you hear that? A Joy to clean a coffee grinder. Everything comes apart easily, there is no forcing too small parts into any place, everything twists and locks just in place. Rining off the parts and pieces and cleaning old coffee grounds out of the burrs is simple. I even run rice through it in between deep cleaning to get the oil off the burrs. All works like a charm.
Another thing I still really enjoy is the size of the bean hopper. I can fill it with an entire 12 oz bag of coffee at a time. It isn’t quick big enough for a full pound but that’s fine it takes me a while to get through the coffee anyway.
The only thing I don’t really use is the portafilter attachments because I no longer have a stand-alone espresso machine. One house can only take so many different ways of making coffee before it starts to get cluttered.
One of the features that I still find the most useful is the magnetic tray and the airtight container for ground coffee. Using magnets to align the parts was a genius idea, it greatly reduces the amount of coffee that gets lost. Not having to clean up coffee grounds from the countertop is a good thing.
Breville hasn’t sat on their laurels all this time after producing a fantastic machine either… Nope, they have continued to improve it. The current model now has grind time to the list of things you see on the screen. So If you were to buy a new Breville Smart Grinder Pro, you would get a ton of new features and the same good construction. Would your machine last 10 years? I can’t say, but judging from its predecessor I think you have a good chance of making it.