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Bean & Burr

HUB 03 · Grinders

Best Single-Dose Grinders

Weigh the beans, grind them all, keep nothing in the machine. Why the workflow took over enthusiast coffee — and the grinders built for it.

By Stephen V.Updated How we research
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Traditional grinders hold a hopper of beans and keep yesterday's grounds in their chamber; single-dosing inverts that: weigh exactly one dose, grind it all through, tap the machine empty. What you get is freshness(no beans staling in a hopper, no yesterday's grounds in today's shot) and freedom to switch— a decaf evening, a guest's bag, a different roast per drink, with no hopper to purge between.

The DF64is the workflow's value flagship: 64mm flat burrs — the same class as café equipment — with bellows to blow the chamber clear, at a price that made single-dosing mainstream. It covers espresso through filter, which the Ode Gen 2 (the filter-only single-doser with the nicer workflow) deliberately does not. The Encore ESP plays the budget understudy: not a true zero-retention design, but small-hopper habits get it close.

The short answer

Quick picks

#ProductBest forScorePrice
01
MiiCoffee MiiCoffee DF64 II Single-Dose Grinder
MiiCoffee DF64 II Single-Dose Grinder

The enthusiast espresso grinder that punches way above its price. 64mm flat burrs, single-dose.

Serious home espresso on a real burr set
8.0
$399.00Amazon
02
Fellow Fellow Ode Gen 2
Fellow Ode Gen 2

The gorgeous single-dose filter grinder. Flat burrs, near-zero retention, filter-only.

Filter-coffee obsessives with counter pride
7.4
$399.95Amazon
03
Baratza Baratza Encore ESP
Baratza Encore ESP

The grinder to buy first. It does espresso AND filter, and Baratza will sell you every part.

The best all-round first grinder
8.4
$199.95Amazon

#ad · Live prices from the Amazon Product API, as of Jul 26, 2026. Where we have no verified live price, we show none — we would rather leave a gap than print a number that has rotted.

In detail

The picks, in full

01
MiiCoffee MiiCoffee DF64 II Single-Dose Grinder

Serious home espresso on a real burr set

MiiCoffee DF64 II Single-Dose Grinder

64mm flat burrsSingle-doseStepless adjustmentLow retention
8.0/10

The enthusiast espresso grinder that punches way above its price. 64mm flat burrs, single-dose.

Grind consistency
9
Grind range
8
Ease of use
6
Build quality
8
Value
9

Pros

  • 64mm flat burrs and stepless adjustment deliver espresso grind quality that used to cost twice as much
  • Single-dose and low-retention, so each shot is ground from exactly the beans you want
  • A hugely popular platform with an active community and easy burr upgrades

Cons

  • Single-dosing plus a bit of grind-retention chaff means more hands-on fuss than a hopper grinder
  • Overkill for anyone brewing only filter coffee

Don't buy this if…

…you're a beginner who wants plug-and-play. This rewards fiddling — if you don't want to enjoy that, the Baratza Encore ESP gets you 90% of the way with none of the fuss.

$399.00View on Amazon

Price as of Jul 26, 2026. Prices change — Amazon's is the one that counts.

#ad · we may earn a commission from this link to MiiCoffee DF64 II Single-Dose Grinder

02
Fellow Fellow Ode Gen 2

Filter-coffee obsessives with counter pride

Fellow Ode Gen 2

64mm flat burrsSingle-doseVery low retentionFilter-focused
7.4/10

The gorgeous single-dose filter grinder. Flat burrs, near-zero retention, filter-only.

Grind consistency
9
Grind range
5
Ease of use
8
Build quality
9
Value
6

Pros

  • The 64mm flat burrs and single-dose design deliver a cleaner, more even filter grind than the conical entry grinders
  • Near-zero retention means what you weigh in is what you brew — no stale carry-over
  • One of the best-looking grinders you can put on a counter, and quiet with it

Cons

  • It is a FILTER grinder — the Gen 2 extends toward the fine end but it's not built to be an espresso grinder
  • Expensive, and single-dosing is a little slower than a hopper-fed grinder

Don't buy this if…

…you make espresso. The Ode is tuned for filter — for espresso you want the Baratza Encore ESP, the Eureka, or the DF64. Buying the Ode for espresso is the classic expensive mistake.

$399.95View on Amazon

Price as of Jul 26, 2026. Prices change — Amazon's is the one that counts.

#ad · we may earn a commission from this link to Fellow Ode Gen 2

03
Baratza Baratza Encore ESP

The best all-round first grinder

Baratza Encore ESP

Conical burrEspresso + filter range40mm burrsFully rebuildable
8.4/10

The grinder to buy first. It does espresso AND filter, and Baratza will sell you every part.

Grind consistency
8
Grind range
9
Ease of use
8
Build quality
8
Value
9

Pros

  • Unlike the plain Encore, the ESP has the fine range to actually grind for espresso — one grinder covers both worlds
  • Baratza's whole model is repairability: every part is sold individually, so this grinder is a decade-long purchase
  • Consistent enough to make the machine, not the grinder, your limiting factor at this price

Cons

  • Not a single-dose grinder — a little retention means a few stale grams between beans
  • For espresso-only use, dedicated espresso grinders offer finer adjustment (at a higher price)

Don't buy this if…

…you will only ever make filter coffee. Then you don't need the espresso range — the cheaper plain Encore does the filter job just as well.

$199.95View on Amazon

Price as of Jul 26, 2026. Prices change — Amazon's is the one that counts.

#ad · we may earn a commission from this link to Baratza Encore ESP

Do you actually want to single-dose?

Yes, if you rotate coffees (multiple bags open, decaf in the evening), drink one or two carefully-made drinks a day, or chase consistency hard enough to weigh inputs anyway — at which point retention is the enemy and this workflow deletes it.

No, if mornings are volume production from one bag — a hoppered grinder with a timer (the Smart Grinder Pro pattern) is genuinely faster and the retention cost is one stale gram in an identical next dose. Single-dosing is a quality-and-flexibility trade against convenience; be honest about which side of it your 7am self lives on.

Whichever way you land, the 0.1g scale is the real prerequisite — single-dosing without weighing is just a hopper you keep refilling.

How we picked

We do not run a testing lab

We compiled published manufacturer specifications, computed what each option costs to run where relevant, and cross-referenced aggregated owner reviews, then scored each product against a published rubric. The scores are judgments from documented research — they are not measurements we took, because we do not have a lab and we are not going to pretend we do. Where a number came from a manufacturer or a standard, we name it in Sources.

Questions

Frequently asked

What is grinder retention and why does it matter?
Retention is the ground coffee that stays inside the grinder after a dose — stuck in the chute and chamber — and comes out in tomorrow's cup, stale. It also means the first grams of a new setting are actually the old setting. Single-dose designs minimize it structurally (straight paths, bellows); hopper grinders tolerate it.
Is the DF64 good for espresso and filter both?
Yes — that's its core case: 64mm flat burrs with a range that genuinely spans espresso to pour-over, single-dosed either way. The workflow is slightly fussier than an appliance grinder (weigh, bellows, brush), which is the honest price of the flexibility and the burr class at the money.
Can I single-dose a normal hoppered grinder?
Half-successfully. Dropping one weighed dose into an empty hopper works, but designs with angled paths and big chambers retain grams regardless, and some grinders behave differently without bean weight above the burrs. The Encore ESP takes the habit better than most; true zero-retention needs a purpose-built design.

Keep reading

Related

Receipts

Sources

We do not run a testing lab, and we do not pretend to. Where a measured number came from a manufacturer spec sheet or a published standard, we name it and link it. Where we could not verify something, we say so on the page rather than quietly leaving it out. Read our full method.