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Reviews (5)
May 11, 2009
Sometimes, longevity just beats everything else.
If you have been reading reviews on this grinder, then you have probably noted that there is a "love it or hate it" kind of attitude about it. I'm not sure it's quite that simple, though. Braun's long running grinder is, if anything, misunderstood. Many folks buy it with the expectation that it will perform as well as the high end conical grinders, and those people will surely be disappointed. This grinder is not, I repeat, not to be compared with such heavy weights as Baratza's Virtuoso. It is a class unto itself.
What makes the KMM30 unique, and perhaps special, in its standing among budget end electric burr grinders is that its design is essentially identical to many high end espresso grinders. Huh? No way (yeah, way!). Don't believe me? Remove the grounds receptacle, turn the grinder so that the chute opening faces you, an dimagine a small downspout on the front of the chute. Of course, most cheap flat burr grinders are based in part on espresso grinders; they have flat burrs. But, the Braun is different from its counterparts.
The "precision milling system" actually does work pretty well on this grinder. Yeah, all these cheap grinders say that they use a "precision milling system", but the Braun really works. Unfortunately, and for some odd reason I cannot quite determine, it produces a lot of dust. The ground coffee is made up of very uniform, evenly sized particles, and dust. Dang! Well, not to fret; there's a built in fix for this. Yes, being made with a sturdy ABS plastic housing produces static. And this static causes the majority of fines to cling to the inside of the grounds receptacle just opposite the output chute. So all you have to do is carefully scrape this mound of dust into the wastebin. But, sometimes there will be so much static that when you remove the lid, grounds will literally fly out, swirling around like a cloud of gnats.
The only real negative I find with this product is the amount of noise it produces. The static and the fines are easy to get around; the noise not so. It's loud; really, really loud. Actually, it's not quite as noisy as Cuisinart's newest introduction to the market, the CBM-18. And I'm not just talking about decibel levels here. This grinder makes a high pitched whirry, crunchy kind of sound; almost as though the coffee beans were alive, and screaming in agony. So plan on lots of complaints from your better half if you wake up an hour earlier and make the coffee.
Many users have commented on the difficulty cleaning this grinder. If you go to http://www.coffeecrew.com/gear/294-a-years-worth-of-grime and you can see a pretty detailed instructional on disassembling the KMM30. It can be done. But, the first one of these I ever had, I used for several years without any such cleaning. Eventually, the coffee tasted pretty bad, but years of daily use with no cleaning didn't seem to effect the operation.
And that's the real plus with this grinder; its durability. It's noisy, static laden, and kind of a pain to clean. But, it will outlast many of the higher priced grinders. Actually, I have one that I always had to pull out to use when ever one of my high priced concical burr grinders bit it. So, I finally began just using the Braun full time again. For forty bucks, it's really hard to beat this thing.
Feb 19, 2008
The way coffee was meant to be.
3 of 3 found this helpful Awhile back I began searching for a more convenient way to brew my morning coffee than the Chemex pour over manual brewer I normally use. The Chemex makes a wonderful, full flavored and rich cup of coffee, but the glass carafe does not do a good job keeping the coffee hot. And, I really don't want to transfer the coffee to a thermos, as this adds an extra step, and an additional piece of equipment to clean. Auto drip coffee makers just don't do a really good job of brewing coffee due to the fact that they don't brew at the optimum 195-205 degrees. What was I to do?
I had looked into percolators for some time, but was reluctant to buy one because of all the negative information out there concerning the resulting brew from a percolator. "Percolators are the worst possible way to make coffee"; "Percolators boil the coffee through the grounds repeatedly, destroying all the flavor and causing the brew to be bitter". These are just an example of the comments I found on percolators. They seem to violate all the rules of making good coffee.
Yet, I remembered the smell of percolating coffee from my childhood; from the days before my mother bought her first Mr. Coffee machine. And all the reviews I read on percolators indicated that they made wonderful coffee. And these reviews were, for the most part, from people who had switched from auto drip coffee makers. I, too, had grown frustrated with these flimsy plastic machines over the years, but what could I do? Percolators make bad coffee; or so I was led to believe by all the "coffee experts".
I finally broke down and bought a Farberware 8 cup percolator, and conducted some fairly thorough tests on it before coming to any conclusions. The Farberware heats the water to a perfect 200 degrees, and it brews fast. Using a grind slightly more coarse than auto drip, the resulting brew was very rich and full flavored. It wasn't quite as complex as the brew from a presspot, but it was far better than anything I had made using any other method of brewing. All the experts were wrong!
Farberware's line of percolators brew at "cup a minute speed". This is on par with the best quality drip mahcines, and better than the low end ones. This percolator will keep the coffee hot without scorching it like auto drip machines, nor will it become stale as quickly. The coffee is piping hot, rich, robust, and NOT bitter. Using the Melitta 3 1/2" disc filters helps to significantly reduce the possibility of getting fine particles into the coffee. Another plus for Farberware's percolators is that you can replace the heating elements if they burn out. These heating elements are available through Marbeck Appliance, Goodman's, and other online retailers of small appliances, and are a fraction of the price of a new percolator. I have also found that a high quality grinder makes a dramatic difference in the final brew. With a blade grinder, the brew is okay; with a good conical burr grinder, the coffee is complex in flavor and intensity, rich and robust. If you get this percolator, look to investing in a good grinder. And then, don't look back.
Feb 13, 2019
USA Made, it is. But it still can't open cans.
1 of 3 found this helpful Had high expectations for this can opener, basically being the old USA made Swing Away. Sadly, it does not open cans very well. It skips, especially if the can edge has a slight imperfection or dent. It sometimes lost grip of the can, and came off. After a few frustrating days with this can opener, I went out and bought one of the Chinese made Swing Away can openers, and it works perfectly.