Turkish Coffee Grinder (ACAR)

Actually I almost love this grinder - it works beautifully for my morning dose of strong, Turkish coffee.I hated the thought of an electric unit; those are over-sized for my small kitchen and designed to hold an entire bag of coffee beans in the hopper (where the beans are more likely to lose freshness. Plus, most of the comments for the electric units mention the mess from static - with the super fine coffee powder spreading beyond the machine. No thanks!So here I am grinding enough beans for a few days, and it works great.Why the 5 stars (and not six?)1. No instructions.2. The unit I received does not appear to a type that can come apart. Other comments mention taking the unit apart and cleaning the parts with oil - but that is not an option for me. My unit might be a little different and I cannot take it apart to clean, which is a concern when I think about long term care.After I recieved the unit, I ran some white rice through it, then cleaned the interior with olive oil on a Qtip. Then I ground more white rice until it came out white. (The really good news is that rice is much harder to grind than coffee, so don't let the initial process scare you.)3. Beans don't move into the grinding base - so as I am grinding there is a point where there is no resistance and I am just turning the handle - turning, turning, TURNING - and the beans seem to be just above the burrs and not moving in. This means I have to stop, smack the little thing (hard) and resume.I decided to run the beans in a blade grinder for one or two quick (very quick) pulses, and then pour the broken beans into this grinder - voila! non-stop grinding. And, the short burst of blade grinding (described by one reviewer as "barbaric") does not appear to compromise the taste or quality.

FIRST IMPRESSION - This is the first manual coffee grinder I've ever owned so I don't have much to compare it to, however my first impression was that the craftsmanship isn't all that good. There were several scratches and other cosmetic blemishes on the outside surface. I had to completely disassemble it in order to file off a bunch of ruff edges and sharp metal shavings left over from manufacturing (some of them dangerously sharp). The materials are average and it was filthy from cutting oil and polishing creme (I suspect), not something I want to eat from really.FIRST GRIND - Once cleaned up I had a few goes at grinding some stuff... corn, rice, sugar and coffee just as an experiment to see what it cold do. It ground rice into rice flour, sugar into powdered sugar and coffee into a very nice even fine grind. Actually impressed with its functionality.TRIAL & ERROR - After making a few coffees in my "Presso" manual press espresso machine I decided the grind was much to fine as is what way to hard to press the coffee through, so I backed off the adjuster wheel a bit (which happens to be stripped out from the factory as well). Even on the course setting the grind is still very fine but works excellent with my machine.OVERALL - Craftsmanship not impressive, however it does do the job pretty damn well which is whats most important I guess. I wouldn't consider it to be a fine piece of kitchen equipment that will be passed down through the generations but its effective and will be great for camping.

I started drinking turkish coffee several months ago, but found that local coffee places could not grind beans fine enough to make really good turkish coffee. Our electric coffee mill at home also wasn't up to the task.After doing a lot of research, I learned that turkish coffee aficionados consider the best turkish coffee mills to be the ones made by Sozen, a small artisan company in Turkey. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that they are also one of the least expensive burr coffee mills.My new Sozen mill arrived today, and I wasted no time in trying it out. It is indeed everything it is touted to be; solidly constructed, and grinds coffee to a powder beautifully.It is also almost a work of art. When I ordered this from Amazon, there was a picture available, but now I notice that for some reason it is gone. For those wondering what it looks like, it is made of brass, about 6" high, with a bulbous base with engravings. It looks absolutely b*tchin' on my counter, and I don't think I will be hiding it away in the cupboard!As noted by one reviewer, the mill is not clean when it arrives. I washed out the brass base, and wiped out the inside surface of the hopper with a Q-tip. I didn't want to wash the burr mill mechanism for fear of rusting it, so to clean most of the machine oil off of it I ground up a piece of bread. Then I ground up a handful of rice grains until the rice flour came out white. The rice grains were hard to grind, leading me to wonder if I would be up to the task of grinding enough beans for a cuppa each day. Luckily, it turns out that coffee beans are much easier to grind than rice.Please note that this mill is for turkish coffee (ie; powdery grind). Look elsewhere if you need a coffee mill for espresso or press coffee.

I bought this coffee grinder as a great alternaive to spending more than $200 on an electric one that was recommended by the coffee experts on Coffeegeek.com and HomeBarista.com. When it first came it ground the coffee so that it was like flour. But, on Coffeegeek someone said to tahe of the top where you put the beans in and also remove the cranking handle and then tap a couple of times on the shaft to make the space between the grinders slightly bigger. After 2 or 3 hits I ground a hand full of beans and saw it was still too small. Then I gave it about 4 good wacks with the bottom end supporting on an old table. That was enough to set it perfectly for making espresso, and its worked fine ever since, 2-3 months so far. Its a good looking piece and I pack it back and forth to work so I can have perfectly ground fresh coffee everyday at work.