I've though about buying it too..it gets mixed reviews on Costco.com.

So I stick with my old blade one for now..I grind fine for my drip. I use a gold filter.

It's a good grinder. Not great, but good. I've gone through two of them. The first one lasted a little over a year. The second one still runs, but I got tired of having to empty the beans out every week or so to brush everything out because the blades would spin, but it wouldn't pull the beans down into the blades. Finally ended up buying a Bodum Bistro Electric Burr Coffee Grinder at Amazon. A bit pricey, but worth every penny I spent. I was given an Amazon gift card for Christmas which paid for a good portion of it. I just checked and see that I actually purchased it on Christmas Day, 2011 and it hasn't jammed once in the two years I've had it. We really like it.

Here is a link that might be useful: Coffee Grinder

I also use a gold filter...no paper in my coffee !

Most coffee experts recommend burr grinders over blade ones. Burr grinders allow more uniform grind settings from fine to coarse and a more predictable result. Capresso makes good stuff too.

There's a dangerous chemical in coffee that measurably raises your cholesterol. Paper drip filters remove it, other methods of making coffee (using gold filters, french presses, or espresso processes, etc) don't.

Google "cafestol" for more info.

Thanks, all!

I think I will pursue the same logic I did twelve years ago when selecting a washer. I bought the cheaper Frigidaire for a third the price of the fancy, heavily advertised brand, thinking I could replace it twice and be even. I have replaced it once after a house-sitter overloaded it, and I am still money ahead. It washes just fine.

I'll gamble $30 on the Costco 'bargain' grinder.

re: Bodum Bistro Electric Burr Coffee Grinder

Are you FREAKING kidding me?

Nearly a hundred dollars to grind coffee?
Seriously people.

Ok, I get it, donna, you had a gift card, and you didn't actually SPEND that on a coffee grinder. This is not about you personally, I hope you know that....it's about the ridiculous prices of things that don't NEED to be that high. And, for that price, I would sure hope to heaven it hasn't jammed.

I have had my cheapo Proctor Silex for so long I can't remember how old it is. It is only my second coffee grinder. The first one was purchased prior to 1990.

I have a Cuisinart Grind 'n Brew....with a stainless steel thermo carafe.
It has a timer, so I can load the water tank and beans the night before and get hot coffee with freshly ground beans, that keeps hot if i'm slow getting up.

snidely -- How interesting about the bad chemical in coffee. (I haven't been able to go to a link from this forum for weeks, but I read what you posted.) We've used a Krups drip coffee maker with Melita unbleached filter papers for at least a dozen years.

I braved the cold (22F here with winds making it feel like 3F) and the Saturday crowds at Cosco this afternoon. I have the $30 Cuisinart ready to go tomorrow morning. We'll see if the same beans taste better 'home ground' than the bit I have left that I ground in the store grinder last week.

I think I'll like keeping the whole beans dry and separate before loading them, ground, into the coffee maker to drip through into the Krups carafe.

I don't know what I'd do to replace the Krups. The coffee makers I've seen with carafes do not have a sealing lid on the carafe. I preheat my carafe with hot water before starting the drip.

Jeaninwa, I totally agree with you. But sometimes "they" just have us over a barrel. I probably would never have made that purchase if I hadn't had that gift card, but now that I have the item, if it ever needed to be replaced, I would look for the exact same item again. Kind of off topic, but DH and I like REALLY strong coffee and had trouble brewing it to our liking until I discovered that the beans alone did not make all the difference. I also make a very strong pot of coffee at work, but we start with already ground coffee, not beans. Yet the coffee tasted better than what I made at home. I decided that the pot made the difference and I was right. We have a DeLonghi Esclusivo at work that sprays tiny amounts of heated water at regular intervals, allowing the water to soak the grounds before actually starting to drip into the pot. I bought the exact same coffee maker for home (and paid way more than I wanted to) and IMHO, I now make the best coffee in the universe, LOL. And if it dies, I will search for that very same pot again!

chisue, anyone who goes to the trouble of preheating the carafe (an excellent idea, by the way) must make terrific coffee. I'm sure you'll like the home ground beans, now the next step is to try to find the freshest coffee available nearby to you that you like.

donna, you're right, the coffee maker makes a big difference. Cooks Illustrated did a recent review of them and found that most don't heat the water hot enough to extract all the flavor. And with "hot", more isn't better, because if the water is too hot, the coffee tastes burned. Smart of you to use one that produces the result you like.

If you like it strong, be sure to use enough coffee. I think the recommendation is something like two full tablespoons per 6 ounces of water. Water can be added if it comes out too strong for your liking, but nothing can be done if it's too weak.

The problem I have found with a good deal of pots is that when the recommended amount of grounds per cup is used, the water mixed with the grounds will back up and then overflow, creating a huge mess. Not so with my current pot.

I also have a Cuisinart Grind and Brew, and its one step to grind the beans and make the coffee every day.

I hate coffee but make it for my husband on the weekends. We used to have a grinder but it drove me nuts. It was electrical but you couldn't remove the grinding mechanism to wash it so I had to do my best to wipe it clean. Obviously I wasn't using it for anything else because one ground of coffee flavour in anything is apparent to me. And you know who always manages to get the coffee/mocha chocolate...

In 1986 we bought a Braun burr grinder and it worked wonderfully for about 20 years. Then when it gave out, we got another exactly like it. But ever since we got the first one, we had problems with static cling of the ground coffee on the plastic container that the ground coffee goes into. You'd pull out the container and when you opened it to get the grounds out, coffee would suddenly go everywhere.

So, several years ago I bought a KitchenAid Pro Line coffee grinder. Yes, it's expensive, but it's quieter than other grinders, and the containers for the coffee (both the beans and the ground coffee) are glass, so there is no static cling!

I've had two of those. They both fell apart within about a year of light use. I would NOT recommend. They are also very loud but maybe all burr grinders are loud. We had one at our weekend lake place and DH would take it outside to run it if we had guests because it would wake everyone up.

I have one, love it...it's about 5 years old and have never had any problems with it.

We braved the cold and the Saturday crowds at Costco and bought the $30 Cuisenart burr grinder. (Also two bags of Ghiradelli squares -- on special -- and some Woodbridge cabernet.)

Sunday morning I got about one tablespoon of much too finely ground coffee at first -- with the setting at 4 servings. Second try I got about 3 servings, so I added some pre-ground to get a cup. It was good -- a little better than the store ground.

This morning I set it for less fine and put the serving marker between 4 and 8. You'd think that would give me 6 servings, right? Nope. It was still too fine, and still not a full cup measure.

Tomorrow...I'll set equidistant between Fine and Medium to see if my guess of a 6 will get me a full measuring cup!

(Just wanted to update and thank you all for your input.)