Plasma generator fails, clogs immediately after deep cleaning. Recurring issue.
Working great, looks beautiful, great support team. OPV is a bit finicky as in the pressure changes here and there but I'm pretty sure that is due to my puck prep/etc.
The target market for this grinder is espresso drinkers, so I wish the grind settings were more tuned for that. The dial goes from 0-90, but I find myself between 10-15 (granted, I haven't had this long and haven't used it on a wide range of coffee).
Very solid, and well built. Can grind for espresso or drip. Recommend to start at 16.5 setting for espresso, 80 for drip, and tweak it from there.
My reference point is a modified Mazzer Major grinder, which I have owned and used for many years. It has 83MM burrs, a huge motor, and is quite large and heavy. It does a terrific job and I’m certainly not going to replace it, is I have of room for it. I recently bought the CF64V due to its size and price. It will travel with us four times each year to Florida in a tote box along with a Turin Legato V2, so we can enjoy good espresso drinks in a small Florida town that doesn’t have a decent café. We are there for 7 to 10 days on a revisit and I can justify this purchase just on cost savings alone, not to mention convenience.
I’ve only used this a few times to test it and make sure that I haven’t dialed in correctly for our Florida trip a few weeks from now, but everything about it really impressed me. It has terrific build quality, for my personal aesthetic taste it has a much more interesting visual appearance than the previous cylindrical slanted Turin models, and it’s very quiet. The default settings for the RPMs and the grind coarseness were pretty much dead on out-of-the-box for the average user. I tend toward restrainer shots and I will probably find myself dialing the espresso coarseness setting down to 22 or 23 instead of 25. At roughly 1/3 the size of the Mazzer Major, and at a price that is two thirds less – this is a bargain!
Other than being a bit fiddly with purging the steam wand it has been as expected, fantastic! Espresso outlet has been helpful as well. Thanks
I recently upgraded my coffee setup from a basic Mr. Coffee and pre-ground beans to a Moccamaster and a Breville espresso machine. Initially, I used a budget hand grinder, which worked for pour-over but fell short for espresso. After extensive research on Facebook groups and YouTube reviews, I chose the DF54 grinder for its ability to handle both espresso and coarser grinds effectively.
Overall, I’m very pleased with the DF54. It delivers consistent grind sizes—comparable to high-quality pre-ground coffee—and is quieter, more compact, and better-looking than other grinders in its price range. Its solid, heavy build feels durable, and the lack of complex technology reduces the risk of breakdowns. At this price point, it’s an excellent value.
My only issue is static. Despite the built-in plasma generator (ionizer), static persists regardless of cleaning (using the included brush or a bulb blower), bean type (dark or medium roast, oily or not), or techniques like RDT. For example, this morning I ground 70 grams of medium-roast beans coarsely with RDT and had minimal static, but grinding 18 grams of dark-roast beans for espresso shortly after was messy due to static. I always hot-start and adjust the grind while running, but I didn’t season the grinder extensively, letting it season naturally.
Despite the static, I highly recommend the DF54 for anyone seeking a versatile grinder under $300 that excels for both espresso and other brew methods. I plan to try a metal dosing cup to address the static, though my all-metal hand grinder also has static issues, so I’m skeptical it will help much.
I love this grinder. It has a beautiful form factor but even more importantly it grinds beautifully. With my old grinder making espresso was a bit of a chore. Using the DF54 it’s a pleasure. I read a review that said it works as well as grinders costing four times as much and I believe it!
I have definitely been spoiled with Expresso Outlet’s Turin offerings and out of the four (4) different Turin grinder models that I have acquired through EO, this CF64v with the SSP Unimodal burr set installed by EO prior to their shipping it to me is a strong equal to that of my other favorite, the DF83v…. Of which I use primarily now for espresso with its SSP red sweet burr set that also performs well for my French Press… SO, getting back to this CF64v, I find that I even have less fines in this CF64v than that of my DF83v and the other two (2) Turin grinders as I have seen, at the most, 1/10th of a gram of grind variance from that of its original start bean weight out of this CF64v and most of the time the exact same total weight as that of its original bean weight… I highly recommend this particular CF64v model to anyone looking for a very well designed and an excellent build quality grinder…. and, at such an affordable price… AS a comparison to these two favorite Turin grinders of mine as to those of my former coffee life, back in the early 1990’s I had the smaller Mazzer and, more recently, as I got back into this coffee world again a few years ago, I had purchased the Mahlkonig X54 of which these two do not even hold a candle to the overall performance and resultant low maintenance requirements of this CF64v and the DF83v in their comparison to these former grinders… AND in my daily use, I do find that this CF64v leaves far fewer internal cavity grind leftovers for a clean-up than even found in my DF83v and it ;is so much lighter in weight as well as it does not take very much countertop space to that of my DF83v… SO, all in all, if I was to choose between these two well-built/superb grinders as well as to any other manufacturer’s offerings, I am finding that I like this CF64v the more that I use it…