Mr. Coffee 12 Cup Electric Coffee Grinder with Multi Settings, Black, 3 Speed - IDS77

This is a very simple and easy-to-use coffee grinder! While the grind is nowhere near that of a burr mill grinder, it does its job. I use a 4-cup machine and I find that 2 scoops of beans on the 4-cup setting and at a medium coarseness works very well. I've worked in the coffee business and managed coffee shops, so I've had my hands on everything from $10,000 burr mills to $20 common retailer models. Some of the gripes I've read on here were:- Settings- Maintenance & CleaningSettings: This grinder has 3 buttons: brewing size, coarseness, and grinding. The reviews on here showed frustration for it not saving the setting you prefer but how frustrating is that really? It defaults to 6-cup at a medium grind, and I have to cycle through to 4-cup. It takes maybe a second to tap the button 3 times. Done. Press the top grind button and hold until the machine automatically turns off. Easy. You do more work starting your car or making cereal. For those who buy beans at coffee shops: the "fine" setting spits out a #3-4 grind which is good enough for most espresso and moka pots, the "medium" does a decent #7 for drip, and "coarse" provides a good #13-14 coarseness good enough for a press.Maintenance & Cleaning: All coffee grinders get build-up. All of them. Coffee beans have oils and debris that stick together; the fresh arabica beans are the WORST offenders but make such a GREAT cup. This is why coffee shops devote about a half-hour of dedicated cleaning and disassembling of their burr mills. Every. Single. Day. It's a lot of work, but you'll break the machines if you don't do it. With this grinder, there are a few tricks:- You will have build-up if you pour from the top flip-lid. A hack is to twist the top as if you were removing the lid. There are plastic scrapers on the inside that will dislodge almost all of the build-up. Lock the lid back in place and pour into basket or press.- Once a week I'll take about a coffee scoop or two of rice and run that through. Toss it and then take a pastry/basting brush and get the dust out. Oil build-up can be wiped with a clean, dry coffee filter. Not joking, those things suck up oil and cost nothing, less than a penny each. We used those in the industry, albeit much larger ones, to clean oils out and off of machines and coffee mills since detergent cleansers cannot be used due to health code and quality reasons ("Mmm! Soapy, chemical-tasting coffee!")Also, allow the grinder to cool-off between cycles. I mean, you should be grinding as needed but I can understand why people would want to grind a pound at once for convenience, but that coffee will be stale in a matter of days (5-7 days) and the oils start to turn rancid. Freezing is okay, but only gives you a week extra before it tastes freezer-burnt. A busted grinder and bad coffee is not fun so just use this grinder daily. Use a coffee scoop: 1-scoop of whole beans for 2 cups of brewed coffee. Don't overload the grinder or you'll burn it out.I've been using this consistently, almost daily, for the last couple months with no issues. The reviews had me worried but I quickly realized that people may not be caring for their grinder the way it should be cared for. Fresh coffee at home is almost ceremonial, so caring for your grinder is essential and you'll appreciate your coffee so much more.

April 2016: STILL grinding. Everything still works. We grind about 15 cups worth a day, and it shows no sign of slowing down. In this day when everything seems to come with planned obsolescence, this little thing is well made.October 2013: Returning this to 5 stars. This little thing just keeps chugging. I am so happy with it. Losing the little Chamber Maid Cleaning System was really not a big thing other than a momentary disappointment. But in a world of planned obsolescence, this grinder keeps working like a charm. I love the many stage variable grind it allows because I can use it to grind coffee for French press, pour overs, brewed, and espresso. And we still find that we use substantially less coffee to achieve our preferred flavor than with other grinders.April 2011: After 6 months, I had to downgrade my rating because the little Chamber Maid cleaning system crumbled one morning as we ground our coffee. Just broke into several pieces, leaving us with a great grinder, but now without a way to easily clean out the last of the coffee which tends to remain in the grinder and get stale. I realize that for $14.95, I could just purchase another one, but I would have expected it to have lasted at least one year. Planned obsolescence irritates me. Leaving my original review below, because I was thrilled with it until that six month point.October 2010: Read Joseph Marsh's 4 star review of this product to get the whole scoop, but I just had to put my 2 cents worth in. I gave it 5 stars because I'm absolutely ecstatic with it. I've had a small, simple Krups grinder for years, but we wanted something with a larger chamber to grind at least 12 cups at a time. I looked at other brand names, ignoring the "Mr. Coffee" for a while thinking I wanted something more sophisticated. ::shakes head:: But I was not happy with the reviews and the prices of "more sophisticated" grinders.With my little Krups, I was doing a count-the-seconds:shake:count-the-seconds:shake:count-the-seconds routine to get just the right grind. This Mr. Coffee grinder takes all the guess work out of it, and I found we were even using LESS coffee per full pot because of the perfect grind.I also love the Chamber Maid Cleaning System -- so simple, yet so worth it rather than having to dig out the fine grind with my scoop handle every time as I did with the Krups.The removable chamber is great, too. Just neater and handier than having to unplug and drag the whole grinder over to scoop out the coffee.Best and most fun product I've bought in a long time!!! (Oh, and we're still using the Krups for grinding nuts and spices for which it actually seems better suited.)