Cuisinart Coffee Grinder, Electric One-Touch Automatic Burr Coffee Grinder with 18-Position Grind Selector, Cup Size Selector for 4 – 18 Cups (DBM-8C)

I purchased this grinder a while back. It broke the minute I plugged it in. I could smell something burning inside and it just never really worked. My dad insisted he’ll fix it (it was a gift for him) but never did so we ended up throwing it away after a couple of months without initiating a return.
This Christmas, my in-laws bought the same grinder and it worked twice. Third time it started making a weird noise and not grinding. I opened it and cleaned it and it worked again but this is 2 for 2.
This is surprising from Cuisinart as they usually have better quality products but this particular grinder is really poorly made. Please avoid.

Fonctionne super bien
De qualité

First one had chipped container ~ second one ok so far

So, I have a coffee snob in my house. We have a french press and an electric water boiler, my coffee snob drinks it black with a pinch of salt 3 times a day, and having to drink preground coffee was driving them nuts. So I did some research and came to this one.

Pros: A flat burr grinder, a decent reservoir for both grounds and beans, easy to fill and remove the coffee. Extremely consistent grind, very little dust. We use a french press, so we use a mid-coarse grind, so I don’t know how this would work in an espresso machine so keep that in mind.

Cons: This thing is louder than Satan farting after eating 200 sugar-free gummy bears. It’s a blender on steroids. Wear ear protection or get the hell out. However, it’s blessedly quick. We have a little bit of trouble with static electricity inside the grounds reservoir but that might just be our house being really dry or something.

Either way, my coffee snob is happy.

Does a great job, many variations on grind size. First one lasted 5 years. Hopefully this one will last as long.

Works well but, very noisy!

First the positives: this has Cuisinart’s signature of looking both retro and slightly futuristic. The build quality is good, the multiple détentes click reassuringly, and the coffee output container slides in and out easily. And, the flat burr grinder does a pretty good job of providing an even grind.

Now the negative: this thing is probably LOUDER than my full size Dyson vacuum cleaner! Some people said it sounds like a jet engine. I don’t disagree. This is like a leaf blower assaulting your ears every morning.

Granted, it’s not so loud when it’s actually grinding–the loudness is most objectionable when it’s almost finished grinding and you’re trying to catch the last few beans bouncing around. However if you use this machine like how the designers “think” you’ll use it, it’s not bad at all.

But I don’t and here’s why. Cuisinart thinks you’ll fill the hopper full of beans and then select how many cups you want to grind at a time. Then it dutifully grinds that amount. But there’s two big problems with that assumption:

1) Nobody will fill the hopper and just leave it full. The hopper is transparent and everyone knows that coffee beans exposed to light will cause them to degrade quickly.

2) The lowest setting is for 4 cups. I make coffee for myself, so I need 2 cups at a minimum. So I can’t rely on the preset anyway. I must measure out my 2 cups worth of beans each time.

Now with 2 cups of beans and a minimum setting of 4 cups, you can see how the machine will continue to run after the beans are ground. And this is when it’s at its loudest and most objectionable!

Of course, I can always manually shut off the grinder when the beans are ground. But here’s the other problem: being a flat burr rather than a conical burr, I’m finding that many of my beans get “spit out” and fly around the inside of the hopper, rather than get pulled down by the conical motion. So I try to let it run a bit longer to catch those errant beans. And that’s when the machine is at its loudest! 😖

I’m giving this unit 4 stars only because I’m a fan of Cuisinart products. It really deserves no more than 3.5 stars from me.