Rancilio Rocky Espresso Coffee Grinder

You're frustrated! Disillusioned! Stymied! All I want is a "Perfect Expresso" in my own kitchen. How difficult can this be? Want the answer? Read on.... 1. Ok, this Rocky simply blows my mind. What a fabulous & quiet coffee grinder. 2. First, I have to laugh at those who "complain" that their grinder isn't clean. There are coffee grinds in my machine they exclaim! Malarkey. Yes, there are fine remnants of ground beans on both the inside, the outside & the hopper. This is like complaining to a flood victim that your faucet is dripping...ha. As you go through the process of disking in your machine, you WILL get coffee grinds on your table, on your floor and on your hands...there will be coffee grinds everywhere. Good, you have been inoculated, read on. 3. Thank you Seattle Coffee Gear for FedExing my grinder with tons of Styrofoam fingerlings that protected my precious cargo. It arrived in a big box which the FedEx agent said, "there's a whole lot of something in this big box and a whole lot of nothing". Great packing job Seattle Coffee Gear. Kudos to you. Hat tip! 4. Do not fill up the hopper! The fine grain size can only be adjusted when the hopper & grinder are empty. You will thank me for this advice. 5. The two grinding surfaces have to be rezero'd when changing setting, relocating to someone else's house or having been sitting in storage. On an empty grinder, simply turn the setting back to zero then over to your desired setting number. 6. Do not change settings unless you empty your grinder of all loose beans AND have emptied the beans in the grinding chamber itself. Yes, that means after you lift and invert the entire machine, then you MUST run the machine to grind any beans located at the grinding heads. 7. Finally, a left handed coffee grinder! Woohoo! After decades of abuse for being left handed, Rancilio finally decided to make a machine to frustrate right handed people so that they can appreciate the plight of lefties. The grind button on at the bottom left face that can only be accessed with your left hand. Thank you Rancilio, thank you. So far there's two left handed only devices: the Rocky and the 1911! 8. The portafilter holder get in the way. Beats me how this is supposed to work. Holds the portafilter too high such that your mountain peak of grinds backs up inside of the elephant nozzolla that funnels the grinds from the machine to your portafilter. I hold the portafilter stationary with my right hand. 9. In my photo, please strain to see the finest setting of grounds adjacent to a brand new nickel (that's $0.05 cents to those outside the USA). Oh my god, the grinds feel like talcum powder. I'd never known that coffee could be ground this fine. I guess this is for Greek style coffee. Haven't got a clue what's Greek style coffee. I valiantly tried to take a photo to show you how microscopic the particles are as they sit on the face of a nickel. I'd be the first to admit that the talcum-like coffee clumps so it's really difficult to make out a single grind particle. If you strain your eyes to NOT look at the particles but rather at the empty spaces...look for dust! That's the ground size. Truly amazing. This is why the Rocky is such a fine instrument. Yes, I just compared a coffee grinder to a laser surgical tool! 10. I bought (and highly recommend) The Brim Expresso Machine. The reason that I bring this up is because it automatically sets the time an extraction. I previously did not have that feature on my machine. If you are not a PRO, then I will strongly suggest that you will be better off buying The Brim or similar Expresso Machine prior to buying a Rocky. Why? Because you need to reduce the number of adjustable variable...or you will drop to your knees in a puddle of tears when your heartfelt journey for the coffee chalis turns to total frustration. 11. Buy a stainless steel tamper. Again,to reduce variables, you must find ways to have seamless, easy consistency. Tricks like this are what it takes. 12. Buy a big bag of coffee beans...er, buy two bags. You will need them. A quick trick is to survey all of the dozen different types of beans in the grocery store hopper. Yes, do not buy prepackaged... You will see one or two that look glossy. That's oil. That's good. That's flavor. That's usually French or Italian roast. Buy it. 13. Another big, Big, BIG TIP! You need to reduce variables, so hunt for expresso machines that have a PRESSURE GAUGE. The Brim has two ranges on the gauge, one for beginners and one for you. :-) The beginner's range is a low range to be used for beginners who use the portafilter that only has a single needle sized hole at the exit where the extracted coffee flows out of the portafilter into your cup. The tiny single hole allows a neophyte to "automatically" pressurized the portafilter. This required BIGGER grind sizes and thus it is more forgiving for the beginner. What is the beginner looking for? The beginner is looking for a grain size: too big a grain and the expresso is watery without flavor and complexity; too small a grain size and the expresso is underextracted with the portafilter behaving as if it was a solid block of coffee with no interstitial spaces for the water to flow. 14. Bitter expresso. Bad. You know that you've done it. We ALL have. You want to be able to recognize bitterness. Bitterness is NOT a lack of sweetness or sugar. Train your taste buds to clearly recognize bitterness. 15. Perfect Expresso. Until you actually pull your FIRST PERFECT SHOT, you will think that all expresso is bitter. No, a perfect shot is actually sweet tasting...no really. Wax on...wax off! 16. Just to review, tamp at the same force, look at the pressure gauge, have an automatic timer built into your machine. Ok, now...let's go! Time to pull shots. This is when you are going to get grinds on the floor, grinds on your table, and grinds on your shoes. (Remember the complaints about a dusting of grinds on a new machine...ha, ha) 17. Goldilocks & the 3 Bears. One bed too hard and one bed too soft. Remember, you cannot change the grind number setting u less the beans have been emptied from not only the hopper(visible), but also the grinding plates(not visible). So, after emptying, you must run the machine (the left-handed machine if you've forgotten). 18. At first, I would save the "bad samples" because that was real money that bought those beans. Now, I throw it down the drain. So, will you...eventually. 19. If you haven't figured it out yet, that wonderful talcum powder feel of the coffee grounds will be too fine for "a perfect extraction". Sad but true. 20. I hope that you found this helpful as I learned it the hard way...perhaps, that's how learning is supposed to be? But it has been a 3 year random-walk journey through a game of thrones. Certainly, Rocky is an amazingly accurate tool with the power of a Samurai sword honed by a master swordssmith, refined through decades of use. Rocky is AMAZINGLY QUIET...stunningly so. I put this last so that you'd leave feeling the peaceful Zen of "the perfect expresso shot". Rocky is the best. Buy it! Buy it now! UPDATE: June 10, 2019 I never knew that the simple pleasure of extracting "The Perfect Expresso" would be as satisfying as discovering "The Holy Grail". I adjusted the grind size as follows: 8, 10, 20, 15, 12, 13. For my beans, 13 created a gorgeous crema...unlike any that I had previously ever seen in my kitchen. A truly momentous experience akin to reaching out and touching the face of God. Unbelievable...I am truly stunned! UPDATE: June 14, 2019 1. It just gets better and better. I believe that this is "The Best Italian Import" brought to the US. 2. Just when you think that you have mastered the perfect pull, you will find that you will want to make finely tuned adjustments to "the rate at which the pressure increases to optimal peak pressures". So, this is what I did and what you:re likely to do. Read on. You will change the grind setting by 1. Great so you do the expresso pull. It's good. So, you make another and it's "Too Fine" which makes the pressure rise too quickly and ultimately go much higher in peak pressure. You will also note that your expresso shot glass isn't as full because there was less total flow because the pressure was too high because the grind was too small. Why? Because you did not empty the grinder and there was a shots worth of grinds in the 90 degree plastic necked hopper and in between the 2 grinding surfaces. Correction: empty, then run the "left-handed" machine until completely empty. 2. As you may have gleaned from my sneaking it into my above comments, I highly recommend buying a glass expresso shot glass. It will be a visible alarm system for when things are subtlety changing but would have otherwise gone unnoticed. 2b. There are a number of glass expresso shot glasses on the market. All of mine just happen to be the insulating double walled type. In my humble opinion, your experience may differ, is that double walled insulating glasses DO NOT WORK. That is to say that the shot does not stay warmer any longer than without a double wall. 2c. These double walled insulating expresso shot glasses actually vary in capacity even if to my eye, they all more or less look the same. This morning, I poured water from one full shot into another and it was only 2/3rds full. 2d. So, if you are going for a pull based on X number of seconds, then your shot glass could mislead you into thinking you were either there or not there depending... Furthermore, if you have a self timed expresso machine that you (like me) haven't made any adjustments to the time because you were "wisely reducing variables", as on my wonderful Brim machine, then you would be "carefully calibrating your eyes" to how full the glass is when the pull is over. But if one glass varies from another by 2/3rds, then you have self created a misleading step in your repertoire. Consistency requires minimizing your variables. 2e. First, I cannot believe I got to 2e when referring to just a simple shot glass. But here is more for you to assimilate into your "wax on, wax off" practice. "Crema"! Crema will look different for each of the Goldilocks Cases. But if you use a non-transparent cup, then you'll be clueless. So, start using a glass expresso shot glass and watch how your skill improves. Really! 2f. If you are making expresso for yourself, then you can do this. Otherwise, you can figure a way. If you are making Americanos or Cappucinos or whatever...take a sip from your shot glass. Teach yourself to recognize the bitterness from an overkill. Again, your skills will improve greatly. 2g. Occasionally, just appreciate a perfect expresso...straight. You deserve it. You earned it. You are worth it. Enjoy.

I love coffee. Its a several times a day thing for me. I appreciate good beans and have learned that next to that the grinder is the item that brings out all that a bean can be. Most under $150 grinders cannot produce espresso grinds, and certainly cannot cover Turkish. Well welcome to the Rocky, a solid built tank of a grinder that delivers a knock out punch to any kind of coffee you want to make. From french press to Turkish, this grinder has you covered. Its solid built and will seeming last a lifetime. The pros: * Its built like a brick house, solid sturdy, and with high quality. You wont be buying another one again so consider it a good investment. * Low rpm motor wont heat the beans when grinding * Easy to access grind chamber for cleaning * its adjustable for any kind of grind you can think of (I don't agree with others that say no french press, its very capable of a course grind) * Fits under the counter, big but not unruly Cons: * You shell out $350 bucks to get this beast. * Some coffee remains in the grind chamber, so waste a little at the beginning of each grind to clean (discard) or tap the back of the unit at the end of the grind cycle to clear out old grinds. * Takes some experimentation to figure out the right setting for your machine, and that setting will change when you change beans to some degree. * Beans can get stuck in the screw holes inside the bean hopper. Silly but can be annoying. Remedied by flipping upside down or stuffing the holes with something. Id like to see Rancillo provide caps for this instead. If you are sick of replacing grinders every few years due to short lifespan, and want a machine that can make any type of grind, this is the one for you. And for the money, its best in class, some other Italian makers put you into the 500 price range and up.

I'vr had the Ranchilio Rocky grinder for a few months now; I researched all grinders within the same category/ price range and I believe this was the best choice overall. This model has been around a very long time and has been found to be reliable and sturdy. It does have its down falls but every product in this range does and the good outweighs the bad: It takes a little work to shift the grind to finer grade as there are two levers to be pressed simultaneously while also turning the hopper to adjust grind, one lever keeps the machine grinding at the bottom, front left side and the other is on the font top right side of hopper that releases the hopper for movement to adjust the grind so it's a little tricky; but it's doable, you don't need a another person's help as some state. You just hold down the top lever with the right lower palm of hand/ wrist area while grasping the hopper firmly with your fingers and move to desired location while having your left hand pressing the grind button below. I have small hands, petite and I can do it fine. Secondly, there are three hole with screws in the hopper burr cover that get filled with beans,making it a little more difficult to unscrew during maintenance; however I took care of this problem by simply covering the the holes with tape, just change tape when cleaning. It's a little loud as well but not annoying and it has not clogged on me yet which is of most importance; I use it daily, with different beans from oily to dry ones and it has been handling everything perfect. I do clean it all out about every 2-3 weeks.

Full disclosure: I consider myself an amateur home barista with enough knowledge to get myself into trouble. I use a variety of methods, from French Press, to AeroPress, to espresso and Turkish. I use a manual lever La Pavoni EPC-8 for espresso. I am acutely aware of bean quality, and bought my gear specifically for having direct control over my coffee experience. My goal in purchasing this grinder was in order to get some consistency in my espresso pulls, as the La Pavoni EPC-8 is notoriously sensitive to consistency.Too many fines, you have a hard, bitter pull. Too little or too much oil can quickly change the grind needed, and it was often outside the range of my Capresso Infinity. Second pulls can be a nightmare on the EPC-8 due to temperature changes in the group head. Pros: * Consistent Grind - I no longer have the hard second pulls that the EPC-8 is notorious for. I can dial in a bean, and make consistent pulls from shot to shot, grind to grind. * UV container - Since this machine isn't a rapid-change for different beans, having the UV container is a welcome addition. * Small-ish footprint - My Capresso is a very small conical burr grinder, and while the Rocky is not small, it doesn't take up a large footprint on my counter, as it is narrow and tall. * Fast, quiet-ish operation - I can hold a conversation on the phone while grinding with only minimal annoyance of the other party. * Flat burr for nice price point - Flat burrs have a better grind control than conicals, but often are a bit more expensive. As some have noted, the $350-ish price point of the Rocky is hard to beat unless you go used on other commercial grinders. * Good for AeroPress - Since one of my daily methods is Aeropress, I do need to call out this machine for a good Aeropress grind. (about @ notch 40, in my experience.) * Lots of grind settings - The name of the game with my EPC-8 is fine adjustments. With 50 settings in total, you'll be hard pressed (hah!) to find a setting that does not work. Cons: * Grind Beak hard to clear - And I mean CLEAR, not clean. When you are done grinding, there are invariably grinds left in the beak, and you need a special brush or tool to get them out if you need to. With my Capresso, I can lift and smack it...while I can do that with this, the weight and height make it very cumbersome. * Lots of grinds left over in burrs - As above, the burrs themselves also seem to hold a large amount (1.5g or more, depending on grind) or grinds in them. This can be an issue if you want to change grinds or beans. (I've taken to knowing how much is typically left in there, knowing what grind I want to go to, and then switching ahead of time to push the last of the grinds out.) * Espresso grinds clump due to chute design - As many on the greater Internet have noted, the really fine grinds tend to clump up into peanut-sized clumps due to the chute design. While this isn't a huge deal for me, it might be a deal breaker if you are sensitive to it. Some mods are out there, I personally have not had issues with the clumps causing problems with quality. I've heard the doser model fixes this, but, IMO, it introduces other issues. Mehs: * Rocker switch *could* have better placement - It's all the way on the lower left hand side, and sometimes your containers get in the way. * Not good for French Press grinds - This grinder does not go coarse enough for French Press. The resulting coffee is a bit grainy on the tongue. It's too fine. I don't do drip, so I have not tried it. * Not stepless - I put this down as a "meh" because I often find that if you have a burning desire to go stepless, then you probably are to the point where the other cons listed here would be a non-started for you anyways. Keep in mind I use this on a manual lever espresso machine, which is widely considered to be a nightmare for grind sensitivity, and I haven't had issues with steps. Overall, this is a welcome upgrade to my Capresso. It's resulted in a much more predictable espresso experience. I will, however, be keeping my Capresso for French Press. If you're serious about your espresso, but not SERIOUS, this may be the right machine for you. If your coffee scale reports tenths of grams, you have dumped out your grinds onto typing paper to grade for fines, or you have modded yourself your own bottomless portafilter, you may want to spend a bit more. If you are looking for an all-in-one grinder that can go all the way from French Press to Turkish, this is not it.

The grind quality is excellent. The delivery system to the grinder is seriously flawed. Early on I rocked this and slapped it to try to get the beans to actually move through the shoot and to, you know, grind the coffee beans. Later I took off the guard and use a fork to manually move the beans around until something grabs and they grind. I paid a fortune for this and thought it would be the last one I ever had to buy, but here I am now, just over a year later, saying enough is enough. I need to get this (and the aggravation it causes me) out of my life. The beans delivery design is seriously flawed, but once the beans get to the burrs (with your help and a fork) it's excellent. I've just had enough of this fighting it daily. Landfill time. I just can't understand how this had such good reviews. It's pathetic, and you have to be a contortionist to adjust the grind while also holding in the button that needs to be held in so the machine's on (the machine should be on when you twist the hopper to change the bean grind). There are YouTube videos on this because it's so poorly thought out and requires a second person or a very contrived maneuver with your other hand. Avoid at all costs.

I traded up from a Baratza, which served me well for 4 years. I love this grinder. I only use it for pour-over, have dialed it in to setting number 29, but it's a powerhouse. Relatively quiet, but I don't really care about that. This is a disk burr, not a conical burr, grinder, and it produces consistent grinds at whatever consistency you're searching for. Yes, it's primarily designed for espresso - and, boy, can you dial it down to talcum powder, if that's your coffee ambition -- but it's so solid, all metal, and it's not as big a footprint on the counter as some say. If you're looking to upgrade from a conical burr grinder -- and, God forbid you use a spice grinder! -- this machine will last you. I tweaked a couple things. There are three screws that hold the hopper down. They're inset. Beans get lodged in there. You can turn the grinder upside down and they'll come out, but I just put tiny squares of duct tape over the holes. I only grind what I'm needing. I don't leave beans in the hopper. After a day's grinding -- two coffees, nada mas -- I turn the machine upside down and empty it of any stray beans. When I do this, some grinds will come out of the chute. Which is good b/c it means the next morning my Rancilio is cleared out and ready to go. Some people might find that excessive, or a hassle, but I don't. I love this grinder. Would never go back to a conical burr, esp. one with a lot of hard plastic parts. Which most of them are built with.

I've been roasting my own coffee for several years now and have been reluctant to spend a few hundred dollars to upgrade my cheap burr grinder to a better version. After all, I'm not making much espresso, so I thought it wasn't a big deal. I am brewing with a vacuum pot, which works better with a finer grind. I was never able to get to a really fine grind because the filter would clog, so I had backed off until it was no longer clogging (as defined by sucking the coffee back into the lower pot in less than 1 minute.) It turns out that the burr grinder I was using was putting out such an inconsistent grind along with a sizable amount of fines that it was really the fines and other small particles that were clogging my filter. The grind I'm using with Rocky is significantly finer than the average grind size that my cheap grinder was producing. The finer and more consistent grind has resulted in a dramatically better cup. I brew less bitter and stronger cups in a significantly shorter amount of time. I now wish I had upgraded years ago. There was a huge step in my coffee quality when I started roasting my own beans and this grinder has made my next huge leap. I can't compare to other higher end grinders, but I must say that I'm very happy with Rocky. As for noise, Rocky is quiet for a grinder. Rancilio lists the noise level as under 70db. Every 10 points on the decibel scale indicates a doubling of the volume. For comparison, normal conversation at 3-5 feet is typically 60-70db. That's a wide range and talking at 70db is quite loud. You couldn't converse over my last grinder. Rocky is quiet enough to comfortably talk over, but make no mistake, if you run Rocky in the morning before everyone else wakes up, you're still likely to wake them. Think of it as comparable to a quiet garbage disposal.

I cannot say much about the Rocky that has not already been said. I did extensive and exhaustive research online before purchasing this grinder, and I am very happy with it so far. A few key things I have learned along the way: 1) I strongly recommend the doserless model of the Rocky. The doser version of this product in some ways is more attractive as it has a clean looking plastic container on the front that doses out the coffee at the flip of a switch. As others have noted however, for the doser to function properly it has to be full of beans, so if you are only making 1-2 shots of espresso this is not very efficient and could be wasteful and leave you with stale grounds after. Next, the doser model has such low clearance underneath that you can only place a portafilter under its spout. If you plan on using the rocky to grind ANY OTHER TYPE OF COFFEE (i.e. french press, drip, pour over etc) you will want the doserless model as you can place any container under the spout. 2) The quality of this grinder is in the finer settings. Of course it grinds great coarse coffee at the high end settings for french press and drip, but the true quality and money in the product is for espresso. Other cheaper grinders cannot grind coffee fine enough to create high pressure through espresso machines, even with a double walled pressure basket. The Rocky can grind so fine that you could clog the most powerful machine at the finest settings. 3) To prevent damaging your burr, DO NOT MOVE THE GRINDER TO A FINER SETTING UNLESS IT IS EMPTY OF BEANS OR IS RUNNING. Essentially, you do not want to have grounds stuck between the burrs, then move the setting from 50 down to 10 and compress these grounds between the burrs. Moving them apart, i.e. from a lower to high setting is no problem as you are moving the burrs further apart and there is no risk in damaging them. Moving them together, however, requires you either empty the machine or be running the grinder while adjusting the setting (something that is difficult to do with only one person on the doserless model).