Customer Reviews

La Pavoni PA-Burr Coffee Grinder, White

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

This Lapavoni grinder has been a big disappointment. While it is supposed to have 19 grinding settings (from 19 - very coarse- to 1 - very fine), the selector wheel will not turn lower than 3, producing ground coffee that is still too coarse to make really good espresso. If you want to grind coarsely ( say for a French press), the Lapavoni will produce very favorful coarsely ground coffee. One problem on all grinding settings is that the grinder tends to spew small amounts of ground coffee on your countertop while grinding. I contacted the importer of the grinder and they were very helpful (e-mailed me suggestions for making it work properly, etc.), but it still doesn't work properly. I will probably be returning it to the importer for warranty repairs.

I consider myself a coffee snob - so weigh my opinions accordingly. For my residence I use excellent equipment, but for my vacation cottage I just can't justify spending [a lot] on a grinder - so I bought one of these little things. La Pavoni has HISTORICALLY had a great name in the espresso world, so I figured it would be a passable [less expensive] burr grinder.

...you get what you pay for. This is not, in any way, a well made grinder and 'passable' may be overly kind.

I am now on my third one, it gets used intensivly one weekend in 10 and I have only been using them for a year. The burr mechanism is a flat parallel design which has a tendency to overheat the beans as it grinds. Further, the entire mechanism depends on a single small nylon gear which has been the failing point of each one I have owned.

It generates static such that you have to brush the ground catcher after every use and with fresh roasted coffee (we use a Hearthware) it is unusually tortuously inconsistant; it cannot handle Colombain Excelsio grade beans as they are too large.

In all, this little thing is a REAL disappointment. After doing a little research, it turns out this is just a rebadged OEM from a "European" manufacturer. Not the best use of [my money].

I searched for a burr grinder to replace an OLD Braun. The new Braun didn't cut it...I wanted a grinder that I could take apart and properly clean the grinding mechanism. This one is easy to keep clean and free of oily build-up. A bargain at $40!

This is my first burr grinder and overall I find a better more consistent grind than with the blade grinders I have had in the past. The automatic grind time is accurate and a very nice feature. However, the finer the grind, the more fine grounds get spit out from the machine (even with holding the receptacle close to the base unit). The grounds are statically charged and stick to the receptacle and top requiring my brushing the inside and outside in order to get all the grinds. Making a pot of coffee takes longer and between the brushing, wiping the outside of the unit and wiping the counter for the sprayed grinds, cleanup is more of a production. I don't know if this is an issue for all the burr grinders.

As others have commented, this grinder does not grind fine enough for espresso out of the box. However, it is fairly easy to tweak the grinder to go finer. I can now grind fine enough to choke my espresso machine.

To tweak: simply undo the three screws inside the bean hopper. Lift the top off. Adjust the setting to 1 (finest), then lift the adjusting wheel out and reposition to a new setting (I used 7). Reassemble the machine, and now you can go several steps finer. I use a setting four or five steps past 1 for my espresso.

I am not a coffee snob, but I do enjoy the taste of the 25 second espresso shots that I have achieved with the tweaked grinder.

The grinder works OK, especially for regular coffee, but it has several problems. One is that it doesn't quite grind fine enough even at the finest setting for home espresso machines. I run the grinds through quickly a second time, and that seems to get the right grind, but it's a mess. That's the second problem: The grounds do get electrically charged, so it's tough to get them out of the container cleanly; major cleanup job each time. Third, the plastic isn't very good: A light tap broke the grind receptacle, so I have to put my finger over the hole to keep grinds from flying around the kitchen. And fourth, good luck trying to get a part replacement. I ordered a new receptacle, which arrived broken, with no lid, and no packing slip, so now the company that sent it (it's their address and phone number on the box label!) says it has no record and therefore cannot accept a return.
Upshot: Don't bother unless you can get it on a deep sale, as I did. And be prepared for a less than fun experience using it. Better to spend a few extra bucks on a Solis or equivalent at McStarbucks.

I bought this burr grinder in order to avoid the coffee mud that you get with a French Press. Unfortunatly, I concurr with an earlier review by saying that this grinder gave me a lot more powdery grinds and hence a lot more mud than my old blade grinder did. If you're making drip or espresso it's a great grinder, but I'm having better luck with the Solis Maestro Plus grinder for French Press. I also found that this machine was a little messy: it tended to spit some grinds out of the port.

This burr grinder is much better than the cheap whirling blade type of coffee grinder. The controls really do make it easy to grind just the amount of coffee you need, and the coarseness selector does allow for different grinds. However, I normally grind for only 2 cups of coffee to be made in a French Press. When grinding on the coarse setting, it does spit out the coarse coffee grinds but it also spits out about a teaspoon of very finely ground coffee at the same time. This means my cup of coffee from the French Press ends up with "coffee mud" on the bottom. I am going to return the grinder and try one of the expensive Braun models instead.

The very first time I used this worthless machine was indicative of what was to come. A cloud of coffee dust surrounded the machine, and this was on a course grind. I hate to think of what an espresso lover is in for. I am back to using my old reliable Braun. The La Pavoni machine will be dumped on an unsuspecting offspring.

This burr grinder was not designed for espresso machines as it cannot grind the coffee fine enough.

For regular coffee, it is adequate.

Cleanup is a big mess since you cannot run water through the chamber, so you must manually remove the burr an attempt to clean the chamber.

The only positive is that it is a burr, so the coffee doesn't get mashed with blades.