Our Picks Best overall Oxo Brew Conical Burr Grinder View details $72 at Amazon View details Easiest to use Baratza Encore Conical Burr Grinder View details $150 at Amazon View details Best for making espresso Breville Smart Grinder Pro View details $200 at Amazon View details
Want the best-tasting coffee for your morning brew? Grinding your own beans can make all the difference. Preground coffee might be convenient, but freshly ground beans are the way to go if you want complete control over your coffee's consistency and quality. Grinding coffee beans with a home grinder will add a few extra minutes to your morning routine. Still, if you've already invested in a good coffee maker or espresso machine, it's worth taking the extra time to freshly grind your beans to get the most out of your equipment.
Coffee grinders, especially electric coffee grinders, are very user-friendly since they get rid of manual cranking. Whether you use a French press or prefer a cold brew coffee maker, automatic electric grinders help you achieve the perfect grind and, thus, the perfect taste for your coffee every time. The right grinder can transform your daily coffee ritual from basic to barista-level.
After extensively testing grinders from Baratza, Breville, Oxo and other leading brands, I've picked the best options for every coffee lover. Alongside my three favorites, I've also included other electric grinders that I've tested. These top picks deliver consistent grinds (from fine to coarse), feature intuitive controls and powerful motors, and are simple to use and maintain. That said, I recommend Oxo Brew Conical Burr Grinder as the overall best, but don't worry, there's plenty to choose from if the Oxo isn't your speed. Whether you're looking for the best budget grinder or a high-tech smart grinder, you'll find something on this list to meet your needs.
Also, be sure to read our guide to the best home espresso machines if you're looking for other ways to improve how you have your coffee.
Best coffee grinders of 2025
Hide our expert take Photo Gallery 1/1 $72 at Amazon $105 at Walmart $72 at Target Best overall Oxo Brew Conical Burr Grinder Photo Gallery 1/1 $72 at Amazon $105 at Walmart $72 at Target If you're a coffee drinker who needs a solid, all-purpose (relatively) inexpensive coffee grinding machine, I recommend the $100 Oxo Brew Conical Burr Grinder as the best coffee grinder overall. In terms of grind consistency, the Oxo Conical Burr Coffee Grinder placed second within my test group. That's behind the $200 Breville Smart Grinder Pro, which ranked first in grinding but also costs twice as much. The Oxo Brew Conical Burr Grinder can grind beans faster. While it has fewer coarse grind settings, Oxo's stainless steel machine is more versatile. The Oxo burr coffee grinder can grind fine enough to be used as an espresso grinder in a pinch. The stainless steel Oxo coffee grinding machine can also produce coffee grounds coarse enough for brewing a cup of siphon, French press and cold brew. Other pros are that the Oxo Brew is easy to clean and creates less of a mess when grinding than other grinders. $100 might sound like a lot, but keep in mind a quality coffee and espresso grinder should grind for a long time. Additionally, this model is often on sale, so keep an eye out. Hide our expert take
Show our expert take Photo Gallery 1/1 $150 at Amazon $150 at Crate and Barrel Pros The Baratza Encore burr grinder is affordable considering it packs 40 coarseness settings to supply a wide range of coffee types and brewing styles. It produces grounds that are uniform in size and texture. It's simple to operate, sturdily built and relatively quiet. Cons It grinds beans slowly. It also lacks any extra features such as a timer, screen or scale. Full Review Read full review Easiest to use Baratza Encore Conical Burr Grinder Photo Gallery 1/1 $150 at Amazon $150 at Crate and Barrel You can't get much simpler than Baratza's $150 Encore. The Encore Conical Burr Grinder has just one control: a switch that turns the grinder on and off. That's not just easy -- that's easy easy. A button on the Encore's front pulses the grinding as long as you hold the button, too. Grounds from the Baratza grinder were relatively consistent in particle size. The machine is also simple to clean and less noisy than many other coffee grinders we've tested. Show our expert take
Show our expert take Photo Gallery 1/1 $200 at Amazon $200 at Best Buy Pros The Breville Smart Grinder Pro grinds coffee beans for many beverage styles including espresso, drip, French press, and cold brew. It measures its grounds with repeatable results using a digital timer. It has an attractive stainless steel design, LCD screen, plus cradles that accept espresso portafilters. Cons It's expensive yet doesn't have a scale to confirm the amount of grounds it produces. It's programmable but only for the number of cups or espresso shots you want, not for full pots of drip. You have to continually hold down a button to grind manually. Full Review Read full review Best for making espresso Breville Smart Grinder Pro Photo Gallery 1/1 $200 at Amazon $200 at Best Buy If you want a cup of espresso, here's an espresso maker to look at. You'll pay a little more for grinding with the $200 brushed stainless steel Smart Grinder Pro, but if you've got your heart set on pulling espresso shots at home, the Smart Grinder Pro is the best coffee grinder for espresso, cup after cup. This Smart Grinder with stainless steel burrs can produce extremely fine coffee grounds, the sort necessary for brewing quality espresso or Turkish coffee. The machine also created the most consistently sized grounds of all the machines I tested. The Breville boasts 60 grind settings, and it comes with adapters for espresso machine portafilters. If you like brewing siphon, French press or cold brew, consider looking elsewhere. Even at its coarsest setting, this coffee bean grinder's grounds are too fine for those methods. Show our expert take
How we test coffee grinders An ideal coffee grinder produces ground particles that are of a consistent and correct size. By that, we mean that the size of ground coffee particles should match its grinder's coarseness setting, fine or not. The size of grounds produced should also be fit for the intended brewing method, as outlined within the product manual. To test each grinder for our coffee grinder reviews, we first hand-wash and dry all parts recommended by the manufacturer. We then set each machine to the appropriate level for grinding drip coffee or automatic coffee brewers (again, as indicated by the manual). Sometimes the manual lacks specific directions. In this case, we select the middle coarse setting for grinding coffee, then bump it up by one more coarse level (from fine grind, such as an espresso grind, to coarse grind). For example, if a grinder has 16 total coarse grind settings (assuming 16 is its most coarse grinding option and 1 is fine), we'll set it for coarse level 9. Watch this: Five things to know before buying a coffee grinder 01:59 Next, we weigh out 10 grams of whole coffee beans to grind. By default, our test beans are Kirkland Colombian roast. It's the same beans we use for our coffee maker tests. (No judgments, please.) When you grind as much coffee and espresso as we do, it pays to be frugal. Then we run our sample beans through the grinder. We also make note of how long the grinder takes to grind coffee beans. Next, we carefully collect the grounds, then sift them with a two-screen sieve for 60 seconds. For that, we use the Kruve Sifter system. Our original Kruve Two unit came with two mesh screens of different aperture sizes (800 and 400 microns). This step lets us measure the grind size and grind consistency of our sample. The Kruve Base has now replaced the Kruve Two and offers five mesh screens (300, 500, 800, 1,100 and 1,400 microns). Enlarge Image We used a Kruve coffee sieve system to confirm grind size consistency. Brian Bennett/CNET A superior electric coffee grinder or hand grinder will produce grounds, preferably with stainless steel blades, that are mostly between 400 and 800 microns in particle size (at our chosen grind settings). Finally, we weigh the grounds that collect between the two screens (800 microns top, 400 microns bottom). A bad grinder will grind particles of varying sizes, from large to small. Blade grinders are notorious for this issue. Unlike a blade coffee grinder, a coffee grinder with steel or ceramic burrs typically yields grounds that are much more uniform in grind size. Oxo's coffee grinder weighs grounds for extra precision +5 More See all photos Additionally, we grind at least two more times. From there, we can record an average optimal yield for each grinder. Show more