Those who know me know that I’m relatively obsessed with coffee… a harmless vice. I always grind my own beans, but over many years I hadn’t found a really great grinder that wasn’t dedicated purely to espresso. Good ones, sure, but nothing great.
I have to admit, when I first saw the Kitchen Aid Pro Line grinder, I didn’t take it seriously. The overly stylized design, combined with the total lack of any historical “corporate” experience with coffee from Kitchen Aid, basically screamed “keep far, far away”! I mean, come on—these guys make stand mixers, and they’re echoing that design in the grinder!
Then I kept seeing it mentioned positively in a lot of different places, including the utterly obsessed Coffee Geek site. I mean, they liked it? Hmm…
I tend to brew “regular coffee” using various “direct infusion” methods: French Press ("Push Pot"), an Eva Solo Cafe Solo (great pot, actually), and a number of different Vacuum pots. All of these have one common element: they need a coarse grind, or the cup ends up muddy.
It’s harder than you might think to get a consistent coarse grind. Many grinders, including my previous Solis Maestro, can be set coarsely, but the coffee they produce isn’t uniform: fine particles are mixed with coarse ones. So, when the Solis decided that it wasn’t going to feed beans without constant prodding from a chopstick even after extensive cleaning (resulting in a delightful “woody” mix of bean and stick), I decided to give the Kitchen Aid a shot.
And I’m glad I did. I still think the design is over the top, but the grinder itself works great. The coffee particles are remarkably consistent, and there’s very little residue left in the cup. The unit is quiet, and the bean hopper/auger setup delivers a consistent flow of beans to the vertical burrs. And the whole thing is relatively static free, too.
Overall, a big thumbs up. If you grind your own coffee, you’ll love this thing. (And it’s $25 off at Amazon right now if you use the coupon code VALENTIN at checkout.)
