Customer Reviews

Black & Decker CBM220 Burr Mill Coffee Grinder, Stainless Steel

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

The Black & Decker Burr grinder is an affordable solution for having the freshest, best tasting coffee in your home. This unit is easy to use and has multiple safety features to prevent any accidents.

PROS:
*Burr Grinder - this is important as it will keep your grind consistent (in theory) and won't burn them like a blade grinder can.

*Easy to use. - Simply open the clear hinged top lid and pour in your beans. Close the lid and hold the button down until beans are ground.

*Removable canister, which allows you to dump your grind into the coffee maker

*Small, attractive form factor. Looks nice on your counter.

CONS:
*Unit only operates when you are holding down the grind button. It takes approximately 60 seconds to grind a full batch. It would be nice if it would automatically grind to that point and then turn off.

*Hard to clean. As with all coffee grinders, you'll need to clean this after every use. It prevents your next batch from tasting rancid. However, since the unit is small, it has many small places that your ground coffee can get trapped. The small cleaning brush that is provided is average at best at getting the ground coffee out. If the unit isn't fully cleaned properly, the grinder won't grind the beans consistently. It takes me approximately 5 minutes to fully clean this unit after use. Something I'm beginning to resent.

*As expected, this unit is loud. It's my first grinder, so I cannot compare the noise to others. However, I cannot use it until the family is awake as it will wake them up.

*Messy. When operating, a small amount of grinds comes out of the container onto the counter. This has happened since I first used it. The seal of the container onto the grinder doesn't appear to be engineered with a tight fit.

CONCLUSION:
We've had this unit for about 5 months and it is starting to wear out on us. While the unit worked very well for us in the first 2 months, it is now getting louder and the grind is far from consistent. I've wasted a lot of coffee in the last 2 months due to this grinder and am looking for a replacement unit. At $30, I would hope this unit would last longer than that. I would like to find a larger unit that can handle the workload of daily use and is easier to clean.

I have had this product for quite a while now and have finally just come to terms with the fact that this is a terrible product.
At first glance it appears that you are getting a great looking grinder at a great price. But as I should have well known, if it's
cheap, then it's probably cheap!

First off, this is a very good looking grinder. The stainless steel, while cheap, gives the appearance of a much pricier product.
This, like all stainless products, is a fingerprint magnet. But ultimately, this product presents itself well. I think this is the reason
that I purchased it in the first place. My thinking was that even if it doesn't work as well as the blade grinders, it should work just
as well and look so much better. Well...........I was dead wrong. I was so much more happier with my
Mr. Coffee IDS77 Electric Coffee Grinder with Chamber Maid Cleaning System, Black

The Black & Decker burr grinder just doesn't cut it when it comes to grinding coffee beans. I like my coffee beans to be ground
a little bit on the fine side to get that stronger taste. Well, from day one I have had to place the knob on the finest setting and the
result is very inconsistent. There are some fine grounds in there but, they are mixed with course chunks of beans. I always have
to run the grinds through one or two more times just to get a result somewhere in the neighborhood of what I had wanted. So
this is a big fail!!!!!!!!

Cleaning this product isn't as bad a some people say. Yes it can be difficult, but nothing out of the ordinary. It is a burr grinder
by the way and will be more difficult to clean. Some people say that it must be cleaned after every use to get this best grinding
result but, in my experience, it really makes no difference. The grinding consistency will be horrible no matter what.

It is loud but they are all loud. Nothing unusual here.

This grinder is extremely messy. When you remove the plastic chamber after grinding it is impossible to prevent the grinds from
depositing all over your counter top. The design is just not great here. The entry window on the plastic chamber doesn't seal very
well to the bottom of the hopper chamber. This allows for grinds to be deposited outside of the plastic container. Once you
remove the chamber those grinds will find their way to you counter top. Also, there is a build up of grinds around that entry
window which can allow another route for grinds to end up everywhere.

In conclusion, this product doesn't cut it. If it produced better grinds then I would probably give it 4 stars. Because for the price
I could deal with the mess. But the grinds are so inconsistent that this is not the case.

I have read a review stating that you can alter the design to make the grinding more consistent. By taking the grinding head apart
and inserting a homemade gasket they stated it would produce consistent grinds. I haven't tried it yet because I have given up on
this grinder. However, I do plan to try it and will report back with the findings.

*****Update 6/29/2011*****

So, the gasket appeared to make the grinding better. I say better not great though. For most people this will work just fine but it still won't grind as fine as I would like. I am upgrading my rating from 1 star to 3 stars. Still is messy but for the price it's not bad.

Having ground my own coffee for years, I purchased this to see what all the hype about burr grinders was about. I don't see any difference in the taste, but do note that the grinder does not grind as well as the little hand held one I had used for 10 years. It also makes a mess and takes up a lot of room. I do not recommend it.

Since purchasing this grinder, recently, I've used it one time. Right out of the box, and after washing a few parts, I put three scoops of coffee beans into the hopper, turned the grind selection dial to its coarsest setting, and pressed the power button. The grinder is fairly loud and it took a bit longer to grind the beans than I expected. Once the grinder was finished grinding I noticed some "coffee dust" in the grind receptacle and on the lid of the hopper and the ground coffee was coarse but not as coarse as I had hoped for. Nonetheless I scooped the grinds into my Bodum Chambord 3-Cup Coffee Press and I had no problems with grinds or particles escaping through the filter. All-in-all I would say that, so far, this is a pretty good grinder that assists in producing fresh coffee grounds that could easily be used in a French Press or drip coffee maker.

PROS:

*Safe
*Basically ready to use right out of the box
*Fairly clean
*Produces grinds coarse enough for French Press or drip coffee makers


CONS:

*Too loud
*Does produce some coffee dust
*Takes a little bit too long to grind

For the price of this grinder I would say go for it. It's a great grinder for the money. I will update this review after some time passes, if something changes.

... this "review" is actually meant to be a pointer to a "modification" that worked quite well to make the CBM210 into a usable burr-mill, vs. the worthless pile of metal it was before.

Assuming the design of the CBM220 is the same as the 210, the top portion of the grinder should be removable (for cleaning). There may be two or more screws that affix the metal grinder to the plastic hub it's attached to. Remove the grinder and trace out a "shim" from cardstock or a business card, using the metal grinder as a template. Cut out the shim (it should look like an "O", as I recall) and place it between the plastic hub and the metal grinder and reattach the screws. This will position the top grinder a little closer to the lower grinder, regardless of setting, but *should* also, oddly enough, produce a more consistent grind.

Let us know how this mod works for you, if it's doable in this fashion, as it is on the 210.

The 210/220 are not professional quality burr mill grinders, but do a far better job than blade grinders at not burning the beans during the grinding process, which supposedly improves coffee flavor.

I've had my CBM210 for about 2-3 yrs and it's still working great (and produces a decent (not perfect) espresso-level grind) All things considered, for what we paid for it + the shim modification, this unit will suffice til it dies.

I got the unit on sale at Target, so it was a little less expensive, especially when compared to the pricier makes and models.

I got it home and tried it out, and immediately noticed the inconsistency of the grind. Big chunks, and dust that clings to the plastic ground hopper... the coffee grind was the same size whether set on coarse or fine. Sure, the coffee tasted better than the "big plastic can" coffee my parents use for their drip machine... but that was likely due to me using better whole-bean, freshly-ground, coffee and not because of the quality of this grinder.

I found a helpful tip on another review about making a shim/gasket out of a plastic yogurt lid. Doing that helped make the grind consistent. It worked fine for grinding my home-roasted beans for use in the My K-Cup is use in my Keurig. But... I still had no control over the size of the grind. The grind was semi-consistent and worked for what I needed, but still no control over the size of the grinds... which was not ideal when I decided to start using a french press for my home-roasted beans. French presses require coarse grounds... which this grinder is completely incapable of doing... and forget about fine grind for espresso, as well. The "boulders and dust" analogy is spot on. That kind of grind worked fine for a drip maker and the My K-Cup, but not for espresso or french pressed coffee... and to even get it to be a mediocre grinder, I had to modify the burr assembly.

And cleaning... pain in the bottom. The brush they give you is so stiff that when I used it, it scratched the plastic on the inside of the grinder. So much for that. It's a pain, and not only do you have to figure a way to clean the grinder without using the supplied brush, but you'll need to dust the grounds off of your counter because the hopper doesn't completely seal during grinding and grounds escape out.

Needless to say, I'm looking elsewhere for a new burr grinder that'll make consistent coffee grounds... the Bodum Bistro Burr Grinder and the Capresso Infinity Burr Grinders are both well reviewed, though they're each about $80. But... you get what you pay for... a lesson I learned when I thought I "scored" and got a burr grinder for so little.

I bought this coffee grinder several months ago, for the purpose of grinding coffee for espresso. I had read that the burr grinder is the best type for grinding coffee and yours was reasonably priced. As I already had several cans of commercial espresso at hand I did not use the appliance immediately. I tried it out this weekend, having purchased a half pound of espresso coffee beans. To be blunt, this grinder is unsatisfactory. I have been unable to get the machine to grind to the proper grind. according to the manual, the fully counterclockwise setting is the finest. Upon seeing that this was way too coarse, I followed the troubleshooting table by removing the grinding blade and cleaned following the directions in CARE AND CLEANING. I reattached the grinding blade, making sure it was fully integrated, to no improvement. I have tried running the grounds through multiple times, but am still unable to get a satisfactory grind. I can only conclude that this machine is incapable of grinding espresso and will have to get rid of it and purchase a quality grinder.

Unfortunately this is the WORST grinder I have ever used, I thought that spending a little more for this grinder would prove beneficial in the long run, I threw it away and purchased a cheap grinder, I love my beans ground extra fine and this machine only has one setting, "whatever it feels like" I re-ground the beans three times before I was able to make a decent cup of coffee. It looks really good sitting on your counter, but useless unless you want something else to dust. I called Black and Decker and there response was "It works as designed", thats to bad because I will think twice before I purchase any Black and Decker product.

The first one of these I had, the grind wasn't what I wanted and I started adjusting it to get a finer grind. All the settings seemed about the same, and the selector began tightening up. Finally, the selector would no longer turn without major effort. I called B&D. They had me send in the plug with the date code and sent me a second one. Same thing with the grind selector. Maybe lasted a week. Called B&D again. Sent the plug, yadda yadda. Third one arrived. The grind selector failed on day two. Fuggedabout this cheap piece of junk. The selector must be a poorly designed piece of plastic made in China for these greedy bastards with no scruples and no respect for their customers.

I have had this grinder more than 6 months. Bought this burr mill grinder after using a standard grinder and wanting to get control over the grind. Price was reasonable.. This grinder always needs attention. From the discharge chute becoming clogged/blocked, to the mess it leaves when you remove the ground coffee container, to the cover not staying closed and having to hold it closed so it will grind. In addition, getting the ground coffee from the container, coffee sticks to it so you tap it on counter and the cheap plastic cracks....

I would not recommend this product at all..