A quality grinder will necessarily cost you at least $100, which is one reason so many coffee lovers linger in the purgatory of affordable, substandard blade-grinder-land. But a good grinder should justify the price: It should last for years with proper maintenance and be simple to operate, maintain, and clean. When these stars all line up, the return on investment (whether it’s more cups at home instead of bought out of the house, fewer crappy grinders needing to be replaced over the years, or simply a higher quality of coffee) should be well worth it for most passionate coffee drinkers.

When researching and testing grinders, we prioritized grind-size consistency as the number one thing good grinders do right. It’s the most important feature if you want to get the most even, balanced extraction with every brew. From there, we sought out a variety of other grinder features, ranging from the essential to the nice-to-have:

Quality burrs

Every grinder crushes beans between two burrs, but not all burr sets are created equal. They can be made of steel, ceramic, or even plastic (not ideal). Durable burrs made of material like steel last over time and are easy to maintain and clean with a stiff brush. Steel burrs are less expensive to produce and thus are more common, while ceramic burrs are harder and dull more slowly. Some burrs are conical while others are flat. A conical burr shape grinds coffee evenly enough for the home user and—experts say—collects less coffee between the burrs than a flat one, making it easier to clean.

Clear grind settings

We looked for grinders with clearly marked grind settings, since those who brew coffee regularly will want to easily repeat the optimal settings for their daily brew. While most coffee grinders will have a range of size selection from finest (theoretically, but not necessarily, espresso grind) to coarsest (for French press or steeping cold brew), not all grinders offer visual clues about where on the spectrum other brew methods might fall. (A nice medium grind setting for a cup of filter coffee may or may not fall exactly between the finest and the coarsest grind.) Such clues are helpful but not essential. More importantly, the steps between each incremental grind size should be clear and consistent so that you can make adjustments easily as you dial in the perfect setting for your particular coffee and brewing device.

Dosage measurements

Grinders with preset dose measurements allow you to easily grind the same amount of coffee each time. Some grinders come with integrated scales, which are the most precise way to measure how much coffee you’ve ground. Other machines work on a timer, so you can set them to grind for, say, 30 seconds, yielding about the same amount of ground coffee each time. Still others will grind preset dosage amounts, roughly based on how many cups of coffee they’ll yield (sometimes you can also program your own dose presets). Machines without these timers or presets require you to time the grind duration yourself and turn off the machine at the right moment, or to weigh or measure out the resulting coffee after the fact. (If you need a scale, we recommend the American Weigh Scales LB-3000 for precise coffee measurements.) Although it’s nice not to have to take that extra step, it’s also not a huge inconvenience to do so, and we tested machines both with and without dosage measurements.

Cleaning and maintenance

To properly maintain your grinder, it’s essential to be able to clean inside the burr chamber (especially if you have a taste for oilier, darker-roasted, or even-flavored coffees, which will leave residue you want to remove for flavor and grinder performance). Most of the machines we tested had easily removable burr sets to allow for regular cleaning and, when the time is right, replacement. Ease of cleanup around the machine is important, too, especially if a grinder is particularly naughty about spraying chaff everywhere. A little bit of mess is normal—and can depend on the type of coffee you grind and the level of humidity in your home—but not a lot.

With all the above criteria in mind, we narrowed down our list of electric burr grinders to test in 2017. Despite long-term love for the Baratza line, both in terms of performance and customer support, we were eager to know what else had come out in the two years since our last test. Additionally, we really wanted to find some more affordable grinders out there, since $100 as an entry-level price is a tough sell for anyone who doesn’t consider themselves a major coffee geek. Ultimately, we brought back our top pick and runner-up from last time, the Baratza Virtuoso and the Baratza Encore, as well as our former budget pick, the Capresso Infinity, plus the OXO On Conical Burr Grinder (also called the Barista Brain) and the Breville SmartGrinder Pro. We also added in the Cuisinart CBM-20N (their highest-quality grinder) and tested the popular Krups GX5000 to see if it’s possible for a $50 grinder to hold up against the big (ticket) guys. In fall of 2018, we also tested the affordable OXO Brew Conical Burr Grinder against our picks.

What about hand grinders?

Because someone will always chime in with the question, “Can’t I just buy a much more affordable hand grinder?” we tested a couple of those as well: the Porlex Mini and the Hario Mini Mill Slim. I don’t ever believe that people will really want to hand grind their coffee every morning like they tell themselves when they’re making this purchase—it takes ages of manual cranking, during which you’re wasting precious morning minutes while the dog is barking, the baby is crying, and you lack caffeine. That said, these grinders are great for travel, with the Porlex even fitting conveniently into the tube of an AeroPress for that coffee geek on the go.

For the two hand grinders we tested, we prioritized speed of grinding and ease of use over all else, since even the best hand grinder is likely to become frustrating to operate day after day, or worse, cup after cup for a thirsty group. While it should have been the most important, ease of grind-size adjustment came second to this, since even the easiest-to-dial-in hand grinder will be a no-go if it takes four minutes to manually grind for one cup of coffee.