I purchased this grinder when I burned out my 3rd or 4th cheap burr grinder. Prior to owning this grinder, I did not own an espresso machine, but preferred a burr grinder for grinding coffee for drip or French press. Using Peet's coffee (pretty oily) I had a lot of trouble with clogging and every once in awhile, when I wasn't careful, the motor of the cheap burr grinder would go up in a puff of smoke.
Enter the NS MCF. I used it for about a year strictly for French press. It worked great. The grind is very adjustable, but stable. The doser works fine to collect the coffee without muss. I found a small aluminum tray just the right size to allow collection of the ground coffee and ease of pouring into the French press pot. Although the doser is plastic, it has survived a year of frequent flicking with seemingly no wear or ill effects. It is very easy to brush out almost all of the ground coffee from each grinding session, so there is very little carry over of stale coffee.
Recently, I purchased a Euro 2000 Junior, a machine that is very similar to the Giotto and supposedly made by the same company in Italy. I have now started to alternate between a fine espresso grind and the coarse French press. This is not so easy, as the adjustments don't seem repeatable from fine to coarse. The grinder works fine for both, it just isn't easy to go back and forth. The grind adjustment, in general, is good. There is a range wide enough to go from too coarse for French press to too fine for espresso.
I still like to make French press coffee sometimes so it would be nice to have one grinder to easily adjust to both. If counter space were not a problem, I might consider another grinder to dedicate to French press. I don't know if a potentially better grinder, such as the much publicized Mini Mazzer, would allow an easier transition between the two grinds. In any case, I'm overall very happy with my purchase.
As the other reviewer pointed out, it is very easy to remove the hopper and clean the machine. If I didn't have the NS MCF and were buying a grinder today, I would probably seriously consider the Mini Mazzer as an alternative, however at the time of my purchase, I didn't know about it. I'm very happy with the MCF and it's a very nice size for the home. |
