ECM C-Manuale 54 Espresso Grinder

Wish it was better

I had to get a new grinder and wanted to match my ECM machine. This kind of fell short of my expectations. The click adjustment is too big of an increment and needs an about 1-2 clicks between the current clicks. It also grinds very clumpy so you have to use a wdt tool to break it up. For reference, the last grinder I was using was a Eureka silenzio 55 and it had none of these quirks. If I could go back, I would get a stainless steel Silenzio 55 instead of this. It works ok, but still fell short for me

We replaced our aging ECM 64 with the more compact 54. It grinds wonderfully. We like the fully manual functionality and it doesn’t take long to instinctively grind the exact amount of coffee needed in your portafilter. There are bigger fancier grinders than the ECM Manual 54, but if you just want a nice grinder in your kitchen without bells, whistles, scales, etc this gets our recommendation.

Much better than anticipated

I own the “big” ECM grinder and have loved its reliability and good looks for years. My wife has gotten into espresso lately but usually opts for a decaf. After bad experiences with changing beans back and forth, we decided to get a dedicated decaf grinder. We got the version with the cool black surface, which has a sort of steampunk, 50s vibe about it. I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the grind this little fella produced out of the box. It's quieter and works slower than the big one. Other than that, I can’t notice a difference in quality. Our machine (also from ECM) has no problem alternating between grinds coming out of “the big one” and this one.