If you think that affordable coffee grinders can’t come with interesting perks, we have to tell you that that’s not true. There are grinders like the Capresso Infinity and the Baratza Encore that are almost as affordable as the best manual grinders, but that still grind the coffee beans very well. These two grinders, in particular, give you the opportunity to brew the ground coffee with different methods and get great coffee drinks. Let’s see what they have to offer.
Summary
Capresso Infinity
Key features:
- On/Off button
- Commercial-grade steel conical burrs
- Removable upper burr
- 16 grind settings available
- Auto-grind timer
- Aroma preservation technology
- Removable 8.8 ounce bean container
- Removable 4 ounce ground coffee container
- Made of ABS plastic
Pros
A straightforward grinder
Doesn’t start working if the bean container in not properly locked into the grinder
Its motor doesn’t produce much heat and friction
Compact
Durable
Cons
Coffee dust accumulates under the burr after a couple uses
Baratza Encore
Key features:
- On/Off button
- Pulse button for grind on demand
- Commercial steel conical burrs
- Removable upper burr
- 40 grind settings
- 8 ounce bean hoppern
- 5 ounce ground coffee bin
- Burr rotation speed of 200, 250, and 299 RPM
- DC motor
Pros
It won’t heat the coffee beans during the grinding process
The technology behind the grinder makes it easy to fix if damaged
Great accessories which can be bought separately make the grinder even better
Compact
Durable
Cons
A bit noisy
Our pick: The Baratza Encore
Picking the winner between the two coffee grinders wasn’t that hard. Offering you a larger repertoire of grind settings and adjustable speed of the burrs, the Baratza Encore is certainly far more versatile when it comes to grind seizes than the Infinity. Furthermore, the many accessories that you can buy separately and use with the Baratza Encore boosts the number of things the grinder can do and make it even better.
About the Capresso Infinity
The Capresso Infinity is an entry-level coffee grinder that holds the reputation of being the slowest grinding grinder in its class. The grinder has a nice design and can be purchased I three colors (black, stainless steel, and brushed silver). It is primarily made of plastic and is quite compact, which makes it a great grinder to use at home.
This coffee grinder uses a commercial-grade conical burrs made of steel and offers you 16 grind settings which fall under the categories of extra fine, fine, regular, and coarse. It comes with an 8.8 bean hopper on its top and a grind speed from 1.5 to 3 g/sec.
The grinder also has an auto-grind timer which goes from five to 60 seconds and helps you grind the right amount of coffee needed for your coffee drink. However, it will take you some time before you figure out how much time the grinder needs to grind you the quantity of coffee you need for the beverage.
The Capresso Infinity is a grinder we’d like to call smooth. This is because in comparison to other grinders, there’s less friction created between the coffee beans and the burrs. Furthermore, the motor of the Infinity helps the grinder grind very slow means less heat implied to the coffee beans, so this grinder won’t make the oils from the coffee evaporate. This results in fresh and aromatic ground coffee.
This is a quiet grinder that has a safety-lock system meaning that the grinder won’t start grinding until the bean hopper is correctly locked in place.
About the Baratza Encore
The Baratza Encore is one of the best-rated entry-level coffee grinders that come at an affordable price. This is a highly-consistent coffee grinder that has many interesting features and it grinds the coffee beans very precisely without heating them up and destroying their oils. The grinder does this with the help of its DC motor which you can manually adjust for different speeds depending on your preference and on the coffee drink.
The Baratza Encore offers you 40 grind settings so that you can grind the coffee beans precisely for the coffee drink you’re about to make. To grind the coffee beans, the grinder uses a pulse button for grind on demand or a convenient on/off button. The burr can be adjusted to have the speed of either 200, 250, or 299 RPM. Furthermore, the bean hopper of this grinder has a capacity of 8 ounces.
In case your Baratza Encore gets damaged and needs to be repaired, the manufacturers of the grinder offer you their full support. They want you to not throw the damaged grinder away, but to be environmentally-conscious and take the grinder at their service offices to get it fixed. The Baratza Encore, furthermore, gives you the opportunity to pair it with different accessories that can help you use a portafiler on the grinder easily and even ‘add’ a weight balanced shut-off feature to it.
This grinder is mainly made of plastic, it is durable and very compact. It comes in black and it looks good. The upper burr of the Encore is removable which makes the cleaning of the product easier.
Similarities between the Capresso Infinity and the Baratza Encore
The Capresso Infinity and the Baratza Encore have a lot of things in common, which is why many people often wonder which one of the two grinders is the better option.
For starters, both of these grinders are made mostly of plastic and they both have certain steel parts. They are both very-well designed and compact, which means that you’ll have no problem finding a place for them on your kitchen counter. Furthermore, both of these grinders have multiple grind settings and they will both not heat the coffee beans to the point where the beans lose their aromatic oils.
Finally, both the Capresso Infinity and the Baratza Encore are very affordable.
Differences between Capresso Infinity and the Baratza Encore
As similar as these two grinders are, they do have some differences worth exploring.
There’s an obvious difference in the bean hopper capacity between the Capresso Infinity and the Baratza Encore. While you can put 8 ounces of coffee beans into the bean hopper of the Encore, the hopper of the Infinity has the capacity of 8.8 ounces. Therefore, the hopper of the Infinity is 8 ounces larger than the one of the Encore. However, the ground coffee bin of the Encore is larger than the one of the Infinity.
Another difference between the two grinders is that the Infinity has only 16 grind settings available, while the Encore offers you 40 grind settings. Obviously, the Encore gives you a lot more flexibility when it comes to grinding your coffee beans at the right grind level. Also, the Baratza Encore gives you the option to manually adjust the motor speed, which is something that you can’t do on the Capresso Infinity. However, it is the Encore that is the louder grinder from these two grinders.
Furthermore, if you ever want to upgrade any of this grinders, you will definitely have good luck in doing that with the Encore, but not so much with the Infinity. This is because there are some interesting parts for the Encore that are being sold separately from the grinder that can take its performance to the next level. However, that is not the case of the Infinity which will just continue being the same old grinder for as long as it lasts.
One of these accessories (the Baratza Esato) that you can buy for your Encore has to do with ‘adding’ a shut off feature to the grinder. This feature will help the grinder grind the perfect amount of coffee for your coffee drink based on the weight of the coffee quantity. Even though the Infinity has an auto-grind timer, you’ll have to put in some effort to learn how to get the grinder to grind the right amount of coffee with the help of this timer.
Another accessory of the Esato will make the grinder more able to extract the ground coffee directly into a portafilter. Finaly, you can also buy a separate bean hopper for the Baraza which will increase the grinder’s bean capacity for nine more ounces.
Out of these two grinders, the Infinity comes in more colors (black, stainless steel, and brushed silver). However, the Baratza is the more compact of the two grinders measuring 7 x 7.5 x 14 inches, while the Capresso measures 9.6 x 14.6 x 7.8 inches.
Which one should you go with?
We would recommend the Baratza Encore because it has more grind settings, lets you manually adjust the burr speed, and can be paired with many accessories. However, if you are interested in a simpler grinder, you can go for the Capresso Infinity.