If you’re looking to replace an existing grinder, or looking for your very first grinder, we’re going to give you a breakdown of the Mueller ultra-grind conical burr grinder. We’ll give you the details you need about it and about home coffee grinders.
As a coffee enthusiast, you know that a good cup starts with freshly ground coffee beans. Looking at the Mueller burr grinder was an interesting experience. There are certainly some “Wins” with this grinder and some losses.
Unseen features of the Mueller burr grinder
The Mueller ultra-grind coffee burr grinder has hardened alloy steel burrs. The benefit of this Hardened alloy steel burrs is that these burrs will last much longer than regular steel or ceramic burrs. Generally, hardened alloy steel has a higher hardness and strength than stainless steel, which makes it more resistant to wear and tear. These kinds of burrs are usually reserved for commercial grade grinders. So, the two pieces of hardware that do the most work, are made of the toughest material.
Another nice benefit of the Mueller burr grinder is the motor. The motor is a gear reduction motor and grinds the coffee at a slower speed while still doing a great job of cutting the beans. Don’t worry, you won’t need to wait longer for you beans to finish grinding. The difference in speed is unnoticeable, what is noticeable is the quieter grind. Now, it isn’t stealth quiet, but it is quieter than your average grinder.
Of course, as mentioned, this grinder is a conical burr grinder. Have a look at our article on home coffee grinders to get the full impact of a conical burr grinder, but for now, think of it as the best way to get the perfect grind for your coffee. This is a feature you want!
If you like flavored coffee, you are going to want to clean out your grinder regularly. Don’t get me wrong, you’ll want to clean it out regularly even if you don’t use flavored coffee. Just when grinding flavored coffee, you won’t want that flavor carrying over to the next batch of beans. You know this, if you’ve ever used those grinders in the grocery store that say, “Don’t use on flavored coffee.” Those flavorings can be left behind in the small particles that don’t fall. We’ll talk about the static a little later. Anyways, this grinder has a removable top burr for easy cleaning! Not only that, I think the folks at Mueller want you to keep it clean because they include a free cleaning brush that snaps into the top of the hopper cover!
There is a free coffee scoop which is also hidden under the hopper lid.
Seen features of the muller burr grinder
The hopper of this coffee grinder holds 8.5oz of beans at the top. 8.5oz will make 30-32 cups of coffee. If you’re an 18oz drinker like me, you should only need to re-fill the hopper about once every 10 times you make your 18oz coffee. That’s roughly 3 times a month (assuming you drink 18oz every day–including weekends like me).
The Mueller Ultra-grind burr coffee grinder is 13.5″ tall, 4″ wide and 9″ tall. Think of it as a large book being tall and deep. It should be compact enough to fit in with everything else you have on your countertop.
A modern coffee grinder isn’t much good if there is no adjusting the size of the grind. If you can’t adjust the grind size, it isn’t worth it–unless of course you will only make one kind of coffee for the rest of your its life. That being said, the muller burr grinder comes with 10 adjustable grind sizes. To be fair, while there are 10 specific settings available, there are a number of adjustable spots in-between. In actuality, there are 100 different settings so if you want to be REALLY picky about the size of the grind, you can get what you want out of it.
The grinder comes with one button touch to start the grinding process. You can use the same button to stop the grind early if need be. The only thing we haven’t talked about is the timing of the actually grinding. For that, there are 5 settings for the duration of the grind. To be clear, there are 5 different settings from short to long to gage the amount of coffee that will be ground at one time. The system will auto stop once the internal timer finishes.
Coffee grinding
With all that in mind, the actual grinding is great! This coffee grinder grinds for every kind of coffee brewing. The fine grind is good enough for espresso. The course settings is good enough for French press, Moka pot, drip coffee makers, percolators and Turkish brew.
The five settings for amount of coffee to brew is good enough for regular usage. I will note, that if you want to grind the entire 8.5oz of coffee, you may have an overheating issue. If the system is run continuously for too long, the system will shut down so that it can cool down. It will not allow you to grind for another 30minutes. If you need this kind of coffee grinding, you may want to look at something more commercial in size and capability.
Not Static-free
The Mueller burr coffee grinder is not static free. The issue is, the grinding of the coffee can generate a good deal of static electricity. Static electricity will cause the coffee grounds to stick to the inside of the grinder and the grind receptacle.
This static electricity can make clean up difficult. If you can imagine cleaning coffee grounds off of a statically charged balloon, you get the idea.
Conclusion
While the Mueller coffee burr grinder does fall short, mostly around clean-up, it is an excellent coffee grinder. If you’re careful, you should be able to manage the clean-up issues. It does makes up for these shortcomings with sturdier burrs, easier to clean interior, and small footprint. It is worth the investment as it should last a long time.
