This $1,495 Coffee Grinder Makes You Work for a Great Brew
Weber Workshops HG-2 hand-cranked coffee grinder.
Photographer: Frank Frances for Bloomberg Businessweek
When it comes to coffee-making tools, a high-quality grinder is at least as important as the brewing apparatus itself. The HG-2, which Weber Workshops released this month, mills beans to a perfectly uniform grind, but you have to work for it: The $1,495 machine (as shown) is powered only by hand. It’s 23 pounds and 18 inches tall, and fabricated from 20-millimeter-thick plates of aluminum that have been heat-treated for maximum strength. HG-2’s size and weight are necessary to support the massive 83mm grinding burr. (A two-speed transmission gearbox between the 8.5-inch flywheel crank and the stainless steel drive shaft lets you downshift for tough beans.) All this heavy metal avoids friction heat, which, as coffee devotees will tell you, is important because high-speed electric grinders can diminish the taste of the final product.
THE COMPETITION