# De'Longhi KG79 Burr Grinder - Perfect starter grinder after this hack?



## acm2000

I got this grinder for £30 mainly to be used for filter or French press but once I got myself an espresso machine I soon discovered that it simply doesn't do a fine enough grind to be worth while, however with this simple modification it now produces a really usable fine espresso grind.






No one else seemed to have made a video so I did it this morning, yes it voids your warranty but at £30 who cares?

Really simple to do and leaves the machine able to still do coarse enough for other preparation types, some of us simply don't have £150 to spend on a grinder.


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## Charliej

How fine this plastic monstrosity will grind has no bearing on it's suitability for espresso consistency of grind which is what you pay for with more expensive commercial grade grinders, I have a hand grinder with cermaic burrs I bought from a Chinese factory off Ebay that cost me £10 delivered and it will grind fine enough to choke my dual boiler espresso machine, but it's grind consistency is crap. Whilst it may be fine to use with any espresso machine that uses pressurised baskets or a pressurised portafilter it won't be much use for a "proper" machine.


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## Guest

Why dont you guys buy a Orphan Espresso hand grinder or a HG ONE


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## 4085

Ray, out of interest, have you owned either? Even between the two you mention, the first is out of production and the second 4 times the price of the first!


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## Guest

Dfk41,

I own the OE Lido 2 and it's a great grinder that outperforms the Hario Skerton and Mini Mill and even the Porlex.....

If you're a member of the Mile High Aeropress club that brings hand grinders, aeropresses and a thermos with aload of beans and brew in the airline seats.....

They say that the OE Lido is best...

Murdering the Hario Floating Burr design that has *burr wobble* that gets worser marginally at coarser settings (in which i used a Skerton for espresso and never for French Press before i went to a Mazzer) is a big flaw according to the hand grinder purists.....


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## tomcowlin

I'm going to attempt this hack tonight but I'm a little confused on how many times to rotate the white screw. Was the guy in the video saying that from an unaltered machine you should turn it two times anti clockwise?


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## tomcowlin

Just finished and the results can be seen already. Things to look out for:

1. After completion the cup selector still rotates but doesn't click as I remember it doing

2. When reassembling be as careful as possible not to disturb wires. You can test to see if the grinder with still work if you plug it in, put the cap and pot back in and don't see a faint blue light switch on inside the on/off metallicy bit. If the light does switch on, start again (just my findings).

3. When removing the outer casing you need to do exactly as the video instructs (press the screwdriver into the machine and lever up the body)

My first shot pulled after the mod using the grinder


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## Woody Reely

[I realise I'm about 5 years late to the party but hey!]

Hi acm2000, so grateful for your video. Worked a treat!

Tbh, *I was really quite nervous* about attempting this at all. I had considered returning it to Amazon and starting the search again. However it was a gift to me and so I really wanted it to work well. Once you open the machine you realise what a simple procedure it is and then you wonder what you were worrying about!

The video is great. Take it easy - step by step. When you remove the main housing, rest it on something that's about half the height of the machine so that you don't strain the wires (see tomcowlin's comment above).

Turning the white 'screw' clockwise x2 or anti-clockwise x2 has exactly the same result. There's a little notch/stopper on the 'screw'. When you rotate the 'screw' x2 the notch is at the top rather than the bottom, giving you 180 degrees of additional turn. An alternative for even finer grind is to make an initial turn of '1x anti-clockwise'. This will give you 270 degrees of additional turn. Or you could go completely crazy, as I did. Not satisfied with the anti-clockwise x2 the first time round, I repeated the whole procedure which gave me a very fine dust - lovely! If repeating acm2000's instructions, however, make sure that after rotating the white 'screw' you use the dial to rotate the screw anti-clockwise so that the adjustment is effective before repeating the procedure.

Actually I now have the dial up a little from the finest so the 270 degrees may have been sufficient.


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## Fairkid

Thanks for this, I am going to give it a go!


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## Yvvy

Hi there!

Newbie here! 😉 Thanks so much for the tips - I reconfigured my grinder per instructions and the difference was noticeable. However, with 2 turns, is it fine enough for espresso?

Thanks!


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## Samnaylor

Keen to try this method... but my grinder has another issue - after I press the switch it only grinds for about 0.5s then stops, sometimes briefly restarting a few seconds later. If I continue pressing it, in the end it will grind to the measured cup amount... But it's v laborious! I am planning on buying a new grinder but was wondering if anyone had any suggestions in the meantime?


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## Yvvy

Oooh, that's odd.....I have the opposite 'issue', the grinder doesn't stop on its own. I think the portion size somehow got disabled when the grind size was modified.


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## lake_m

Samnaylor said:


> Keen to try this method... but my grinder has another issue - after I press the switch it only grinds for about 0.5s then stops, sometimes briefly restarting a few seconds later. If I continue pressing it, in the end it will grind to the measured cup amount... But it's v laborious! I am planning on buying a new grinder but was wondering if anyone had any suggestions in the meantime?


 It's a known fault with these. Changing out the yellow X2 capacitor will probably fix it. There's a thread about it elsewhere on here if you search.


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