BREVILLE SMART GRINDER PRO REVIEW: WHY IS IT SO SPECIAL?

The Breville Smart Grinder Pro is beautifully designed and incredibly user-friendly.

This grinder holds all hallmarks of every Breville product I’ve tried. But as we all know, the best coffee grinder comes down to a high-quality set of burrs and precision engineering, not color options or an LCD screen. 

So I was curious to get my hands on the latest Smart Grinder Pro to find out if it’s more than just a pretty face. I’ve been putting one through its paces for the past month, and here are my findings. Keep reading for my in-depth Breville Smart Grinder Pro review.

The Full Breville The Smart Grinder Pro Review

Breville seems to have taken a page from the Apple playbook when they made the Smart Grinder Pro conical burr coffee grinder, modernizing the home grinding experience with a friendly and intuitive machine. Its easy-to-use features and reasonable price make it a fantastic choice for beginner to intermediate coffee lovers. But does it have the chops to satisfy the pros? 

How We Rated It

• Design
• Durability
• Ease Of Use
• Grinding Capability
• Value For Money

4.1

• see on amazon

Let’s take a detailed look at what this grinder offers, who I think it’s best suited for, and how it compares against other top burr grinders.

Burrs, Motor, And Grinding Capability

The Smart Grinder Pro is fitted with 40 mm conical steel burrs, a standard option in this price range. In fact, they’re the same burrs found in the wildly popular Breville Barista Express espresso machine and Breville’s Dose Control Pro grinder. 

They’re driven at 450 RPM by a 165-watt motor. This relatively low speed is traditional with conical burrs. It’s one of their main advantages because it limits heat build-up in the ground coffee beans (1). 

Don’t worry – that doesn’t mean the grinder is slow. In testing, it took me about 10-12 seconds to grind 20 grams of coffee for a pour-over and around 14 seconds to grind 18 grams of finer coffee for a double shot of espresso.

The Smart Grinder has 60 different grind settings, spanning the range from espresso to French press. In my experience, it particularly excels in the medium to fine grind range. It doesn’t really grind fine enough for Turkish coffee or as coarse as I prefer for cold brew. Even when making French press coffee, I generally used the coarsest setting.

While the grind range isn’t as expansive as others in its category, the consistency was really impressive – honestly, better than I was expecting at this price (2). The grind uniformity was excellent, even at the edges of the range. I understand why Breville hasn’t felt the need to update this burr set in a decade.

Is Breville Smart Grinder Pro good enough for espresso?

Breville certainly markets this as an all-around grinder. It has settings to dose double and single shots, and you are able to grind directly into a portafilter. But is it really suitable for espresso brewing?

Personally, I always recommend a grinder with a stepless grind adjustment for serious espresso fans. A rule of thumb is that your grinder should cost about a quarter as much as your espresso maker. If you have a $1000+ espresso machine, I’d advise splurging for a better grinder than the Breville Smart Grinder Pro.

That said, the Smart Grinder Pro grinds for espresso much better than most in its price range. I’d happily pair it with a mid-range machine – like most Breville espresso machines, for example. 

Obvious competitors like the Baratza Encore and Virtuoso only offer 40 settings. Plus, if you’re really keen, you can adjust the removable top burr to get an additional 10 steps of micro-adjustments, giving you 600 possible grind settings.

Is the Smart Grinder Pro easy to use?

I expected this machine to shine in this category, and I was not disappointed. Breville has almost cornered the market on user-friendly design features.

The central blue LCD panel shows the grind setting, grind time, and the number of cups or shots, each of which is digitally controlled by a dedicated button or dial. The sheer number of options feels overwhelming at first, but most mornings it’s a simple three-step process:

1. Select the grind setting using the knob on the side of the grinder.
2. Set the grind time in 0.2 second increments using the dial under the LCD screen.
3. Press the start button to grind into a portafilter or the included bin.

Manual-grind Button: There’s a manual grind button built into the body of the grinder, right where the portafilter slots in. So if you want to control the amount of coffee manually, just press the portafilter in until you hear a click and the machine will start grinding. Remove the portafilter, and the machine stops.

Start/Pause Button: The start button has a built-in pause function too, which is handy if you want to settle the coffee grinds into your portafilter before finishing the dose.

What Makes this a Smart Grinder?

The first Breville Smart Grinder originated in an era before “smart” products were app-controlled devices that connect via WiFi or Bluetooth. So in this case, Smart in the name refers to Breville’s patented Dosing IQ technology.

You program a different setting for each of the four grind categories: Espresso, Percolator, Filter, and Plunger. You can also change the number of cups/shots to grind, and the machine will calculate and set the grinding time accordingly.

How Loud Is the Breville Smart Grinder Pro?

This Breville grinder is surprisingly quiet, at least relative to other home grinders I’ve used lately. In my tests, depending on the type of coffee beans and grind size, it ranged from about 77 to 81 decibels. That’s below the average of around 85 decibels – quieter than the Baratza Encore and Virtuoso and budget grinders like the Capresso Infinity and Oxo Brew.

Cleaning The Grinder

Clean the Breville Smart Grinder Pro by removing the bean hopper and the top burr. Use the included brush to sweep any visible residue and coffee dust from the grinding chamber and exit chute. An air blow gun can also be useful. Use grinding pellets for a more thorough clean. 

I only do this level of cleaning about once every 3 months, but you may need to do it more often if you tend to use oily, dark-roasted coffee beans.

For detailed instructions on how to clean your burr grinder, read our article on the topic.

Design Features And Aesthetic Appeal

The Smart Grinder Pro looks the part of a premium product from Breville, a brand that strives for a consistent design language (3). It will perfectly complement any home espresso machine, coffee maker, or other small appliance on your countertop.

It comes in 11 colors, including all the Breville standards if you want to match your other appliances. I’m partial to the Royal Champagne.

Breville really put some thought into the end-user when designing this machine. In the box, you will find 2 portafilter holders – one for domestic 50-54 mm portafilters and the other for a commercial-standard 58 mm portafilter – and a plastic coffee grounds bin. 

I like that the grounds bin fits snugly under the spout to minimize spills, and it comes with an airtight lid for storing ground coffee. It also has graduated markings on its side to indicate how many cups/shots worth of grinds are in it – up to 14 cups or 10 double shots.

This is the only home burr grinder I’ve encountered with a 1-lb (18-oz) hopper capacity, and I don’t particularly care for it. For most households, the time it takes to finish a pound of beans is more time than those beans should spend getting stale in a hopper. So the 1-pound capacity just makes this machine inconveniently large for no good reason.

It’s over 16 inches tall, so I have to slide it out from under my cupboards every time I refill the hopper. Although, at just over 6 pounds, it’s not overly difficult to move around.

I do appreciate that the hopper has a lock/unlock mechanism to seal off the bottom of the hopper. This makes it super-easy to swap out the beans or to remove the hopper for interior cleaning without emptying it.

How long will the Smart Grinder Pro Last?

The Smart Grinder Pro’s fit and finish leave nothing to be desired. Though the colored body panels are plastic, it’s stainless steel everywhere that counts – including the main frame and burrs. 

While I haven’t been using mine long enough to speak to its longevity, most Breville products are reliable for 3 to 5 years, with conscientious owners often getting up to a decade.

That said, more fancy electronics mean more space for faults. There’s always the risk of getting a lemon. The saving grace is a 1-year warranty and Breville’s great customer support.

Is Smart Grinder Pro worth it?

A better question is: who is this grinder for? In my opinion, this is a great grinder for anyone relatively early in their coffee journey. Its combination of versatility and user-friendliness make it the best all-around grinder I’ve encountered at this price – perfect if you’re still figuring out your coffee preferences and don’t want to invest in a specialized machine. 

It’s priced around $200, which is a remarkably good value given its quality and capabilities. I’m hard-pressed to think of another grinder at this price that offers 60 grind settings, let alone the potential for 600. The programmability and LCD display are just cherries on top!

Don’t Buy The Breville Smart Grinder Pro If…

• You only make espresso: If you’re an espresso fanatic, it’s worth spending a bit more on a dedicated grinder for espresso, ideally something with a stepless grind adjustment for the ultimate level of control. My pick for the best espresso grinder is the Eureka Mignon Specialita, while I love the Turin DF64 as single dose grinder. But if they’re outside your price range, consider a premium manual grinder instead, like the 1Zpresso K-Ultra.
• You only make drip coffee: If you are not interested in the espresso range, don’t waste money on an all-around grinder.
  Check out my review of the Baratza Virtuoso+ for a great filter coffee grinder at a price similar to the Breville. It only has 40 grind settings, but it is more consistent for coarse grinds, has a better burr set, and features a more precise 0.1 second digital timer. More serious pour-over fans should consider the new generation Fellow Ode II, which has limited versatility but a fantastic burr set and gorgeous design.
• You’re on a tight budget: Coffee grinder costs tend to scale with quality, so you’ll make some sacrifices as you drop in price. But if you want a more affordable coffee grinder, I think the Oxo Brew grinder punches above its weight. Though it only has 15 grind settings, its 40 mm stainless steel conical burr set delivers above-average grind quality at every setting. It’s a worthy entry-level choice.

The Verdict

Breville Smart Grinder Pro is a great fit for any beginner to intermediate coffee enthusiast. It’s enjoyable to use, looks nice on the counter, and has the ability to grind for most brewing methods. I can’t think of another grinder that offers such an impressive combination of features for such a low price.

see on amazon