The first pic shows the grinder in the Aeropress. Only the end of the grinder fits in the Ap and you don't get any of the ridges inside the press. If you look at the next one the grinder inside a 20oz coffee mug you notice that it drops in 2 levels and this makes it a lot more stable.
That being said I was able to grid directly in the AP and the mug without a ton of difficulty. It will grind 18g in 60-90 seconds or so depending on how fast you feel like cranking.
The grind quality is pretty good. Espresso I think would be well out of it's capabilities but the grind looks better than whirly blade. It has easily adjustable ceramic burrs and for the uses of single cups of AP, pourover cone, FP, or Moka Pot I think it's going to be able to do the job without much problem.
The worst part of this thing is trying to hold onto it. It is a goofy idea to make it circular without any sort of hand hold.
The last pic shows what I've done so far and there is clearance over my big hand so most people should be able to have clearance this way. I also did a sort of bear hug against my stomach and that worked but the pic shows the way I found to be the fastest.
Fastest is important because I found out after hand grinding some batches that grinding for 60-90 seconds sucks.
It sucks but not as bad as not having coffee so it
aint that bad.
I got this thing for emergency use like a power outage and brewing by the cup #2 Melitta cones and although it's really a bizarre shape making it harder to hold onto than it should be I think it was easily worth the approx $20 I paid shipped.
The day that I have no power and am able to just grab this thing and grind away the PITA shape and wobbly nature of how they put those steps into the base will not matter so much. I'd like to get the other $20 grinder (the traveler II) and test them side by side to report the best model but unless this thing breaks I doubt I'll ever have occasion to do it.
My initial impression is that this is certainly worth the $20, offers a respectable grind quality for that price, but it is unnecessarily awkward to hold onto making it a little difficult but doable in small doses for sure. They really need to mold a handle or some grips into this thing if they wanted a nice improvement.
I think if I had to use this thing for more than 3 days in a row I'd build a base for it to hold it down...or a box with a drawer and turn it into a knock off nalgene Zazz.
John F
