“Amazing home grinder, I come from the industry and couldn’t believe how well built/solid this unit is while being compact.
Grind by weight feature works flawlessly and a lot better than I expected. Grinders can be slightly clumpy but overall excellent grinder pairs with my LM Linea Mini - thank you Coffeeteca!”
“Iam still getting used to the grinder but so far iam happy with the build quality and performance. It certainly needs a dose ring for my portafilter to reduce overflow of very consistent fluffy grinds. I guess a weighted 64mm burr upgrade might be on the cards in 10 years.”
“The Eureka Mignon Libra is a great grinder with a couple of design flaws.
First of all, the grind-by-weight technology works really well. It makes workflow so much easier and it’s fantastic to have this tech available on a prosumer machine.
Also, I haven’t had the problem that some people have reported of the machine not recognising the portafilter. I think those that complain about this may simply not be giving the machine time to tare its system. On the odd occasion that I do get the FH error message I just remove the PF, wait a second or two and reinsert it. It’s never really a problem.
To me the key design flaw in this machine is that you have to use a portafilter funnel with it or else it sprays coffee grounds all over your counter. The angle of the spout is such that the grounds all pour into the back side of the PF basket (the side near the handle) and of course you can’t give the PF a shake to distribute the grounds because the machine is weighing the PF as it grinds. It seems to me this could have been avoided if Eureka had created a slightly more vertical funnel which deposited grounds in the middle of the PF basket. As it is Eureka actually supply a funnel with the machine, or at least they do in some countries (like the US). In Australia you have to buy a funnel separately, which you can do for $20 on Amazon or you can buy the slightly deeper Eureka one for around AUD100.
The other thing I think is a design flaw is the knob to adjust the grind. This screws onto the rod that adjusts the burrs and there’s no way to calibrate the knob position so zero is just where the burrs are touching (for example). If Eureka had put splines instead of a thread on the end of the burr adjustment rod you could have pulled the knob off and then replaced it at the right angle/position to calibrate the grind setting.
Alternatively Eureka could have added the sort of dial system which many people are offering as a 3D printed option for the Mignon series (see the Etsy website, for example). It would be easy for them to do and nicer to have it built into the grinder rather than having to buy an aftermarket accessory which will never really improve the machines looks. This goes for the other grinders in the Mignon series too of course.
One more issue is the poor quality hopper. On a machine with an RRP of over AUD1200 I really would expect something better than the nasty plastic hopper and lid that ships with the machine. It’s such a fine looking machine otherwise that it really deserves better.
The only other thing I’ll note here is that my grinder came with a scratch on the stainless steel PF holding bracket, as well as a loose connection on the motherboard which meant that the grind-by-weight tech didn’t work. The latter was fixed quickly by my local Eureka wholesaler and my retailer offered me compensation for the scratch which I was happy with. However, these two problems make a nonsense of the “100% tested” sticker which Eureka put on the machine.
Despite these issues I’m very happy with the grinder. It makes my morning ritual easier and the weighing system is accurate enough to remove one variable from my workflow. It looks great on my countertop at home, the digital interface is simple and nice to use, and for the job it does I think it’s good value. If I was choosing from the Eureka lineup I’d definitely buy the Libra again.”
