Well, after far too many years of suffering with my first burr grinder, the Cappresso #551, I finally decided to upgrade. Due to budget constraints (we have a little one on the way), I needed to keep my purchase under $100 and quickly found there are not too many grinders in that price range. I read several reviews of the Solis Maestro Plus, which would have been my first choice, except for the price. When I first came across the Infinity I was a little leary, particularly since the units with metal housings are nearly the same price as the aforementioned Maestro Plus. The unit I eventually settled on had an ABS plastic housing, which seemed like a fair trade for the price differential.
After the initial cleaning and set up of the machine, I immediatly ground some beans (Ethiopian Yirgacheffe/Sumatran blend from a local roaster) on its medium setting, and found that to be a little too fine for the pot I was using (Bodum e-Santos). I eventually discovered that I actually had to set the machine slightly beyond its graduation for the coarsest setting in order to achieve the proper grind. My initial concern was that it probably wouldn't grind coarse enough for a French Press, though after referring to some of the other user reviews, I am suspicious that it just needs to be calibrated.
Nonetheless, I was pleasantly surprised with the even grind this machine produced. Perhaps even more exciting, was how well the oily beans I was using fed from the hopper into the grinding chamber without sticking, thanks to a "screw-like" mechanism at the bottom of the hopper. At this point, the only problem I noticed, other than the fine grind, was the tremendous amount of static that was produced, causing a small amount of grounds to actually "fly" out of the container and stick to my hands. Honestly, I wonder if this cannot be, at least in part, attributed to the ABS housing.
A few days of use revealed the only other issue that came up with the Infinity. It is a little noisy. While compared to my previous grinder, this has a much lower timbre thanks to gear reduction. It does produce a low rumble (similar to that of a garbage disposal) that resonated through the wood on my coffee bar and eventually led me to place a cloth beneath it to help reduce this effect. Again, I have my suspicions that this might be mitigated in the units with metal housings.
In summary, for many coffee enthusiasts the shortcomings of this machine (at least in the ABS model) should probably lead them to consider higher-end grinders. Even still, I feel this is a good value grinder that is sufficient for anyone who wants to make brewed coffee with properly ground beans. |
