Eureka Atom 75 Coffee Grinder Review

Eureka Atom Specialty 75 is one of the most coveted home coffee grinders, and for good reasons. It’s expensive, but it delivers on its promises. This grinder produces consistent fluffy grounds, it’s easy to use, and it’s built to last.

In this review, Home Grounds digs into what you’re getting for your money and why we think the Eureka Atom 75 is of excellent value – for the right user.

Summary: The Eureka Atom 75 Coffee Grinder

• Espresso focused prosumer coffee grinder with 75 mm flat steel burrs.
  
• Easy-to-use programmable timed dosing precise to 0.05 seconds.
  
• Beautiful and durable all-metal design available in six colours.

This very quiet machine will grind a double shot in 3 seconds with amazing consistency and very low retention. The results are phenomenal!

– Customer

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The Full Eureka Atom 75 Review

Eureka markets the Atom Specialty 75 primarily as a home grinder, but in all honesty, it walks the line between home and coffee shop use. The Atom grinder is an excellent choice for home espresso enthusiasts with a refined palate and a budget. Still, its large burr set and powerful motor make it an excellent choice for light-duty commercial work. You’ll also appreciate its grind quality, beautiful design, and precise programmable dosing.

The Eureka Atom 75

• Design
• Durability
• Ease of Use
• Grinding Capability
• Value for Money

4.3

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Design – 4.5/5

The Eureka Atom Specialty 75 is a beautiful grinder, in keeping with the tradition of Eureka’s top coffee grinders. While the famous line of Eureka Mignon home coffee grinders is known for its unique square aesthetic, the Atom 75 goes the opposite direction, featuring smooth curves. There isn’t a hard edge on the entire grinder, which gives it a friendly feel. Even though it is entirely capable of grinding in a commercial setting, it’s clearly designed for a home kitchen.

The aluminium casing is available in matte black, white, grey, and Ferrari red. You can also get it in chrome and a metallic grey for a small upcharge. This allows you to match your grinder to your kitchen decor or your espresso machine. Or you can use the red model to add a pop of colour to your coffee bar. The Eureka Atom Specialty 75 also features a tiny light that points down at the portafilter fork. On a dark morning, you’ll appreciate this little touch more than you expect.

The Eureka Atom 75 espresso grinder has a relatively small footprint, 18 cm wide by 22.7 cm deep, but it is very tall at over 43 cm. This makes for an attractive towering look, but it can be impractical in some kitchen designs. Keep in mind that if you plan on keeping it under an upper cupboard, you’ll need to slide it out each time you refill the bean hopper.

Speaking of the hopper, it’s relatively small with just 300 g capacity. If you want to upgrade, there is a 1200 g version, which will increase the grinder height to 54 cm. I’m impressed that Eureka offers a dark grey version of the 300 g hopper. This version is transparent enough to see the beans within but still blocks enough UV rays to keep the coffee fresher for longer. It always surprises me that most bean hoppers are clear plastic, given what we know about the downsides of exposing coffee beans to light over time.

Durability – 4.5/5

The durability of the Eureka Atom Specialty 75 is excellent. Eureka is a well-established Italian brand that has been around for over a century (1). It’s clear when using their products that these years of experience are being put to good use. This is a nice grinder in which everything feels very refined.

Though marketed as a home grinder, it’s rated for commercial use, which indicates quality. Commercial grinders get much heavier use than home grinders, so they need to be built to higher standards. The commercial rating signifies that you can grind shot after shot on the Atom 75, day after day – and trust that it is up to the task.

Ease of Use – 4/5

The Eureka Atom Specialty 75 is very straightforward, from grinding to dosing to cleaning and maintenance. Let’s walk through what you can expect from each step.

You are dialling in the grind size

The Atom 75 grinder has a micrometric stepless adjustment, meaning you have infinite grind settings to play with on your quest for the perfect extraction. The adjustment knob is a slight upgrade over what you’ll find on the less expensive Eureka models. It feels great – ultra smooth and ergonomic, as easy to make super tiny grind size adjustments as it is to make sweeping changes.

Setting the dose

The Atom 75 uses a timed dosing system, which is common to all grinders in this price range. It’s not entirely as accurate as gravimetric dosing because there can be slight variations based on the fullness of the hopper, but that variation is on the order of 0.1 g to 0.2 g. You can always weigh your ground coffee, to be specific.

Using the display screen

You can program two different doses to dispense at the touch of a button. Typically, these would be for a single shot and a double dose, but it’s up to you. There is also the option of manual grinding for other dose sizes. The Eureka Atom Specialty 75 allows you to program the timing to a precision of 0.05 seconds. Most grinders I’ve encountered are only precise to 0.1 s, and real espresso nerds will appreciate this extra degree of control.

Grinding the beans

With the timing and grind setting established, grinding is as easy as inserting the portafilter into the portafilter holder fork. It will push against a button that starts the grind, which is entirely hands-free. You can work on the rest of your drink prep while it grinds.

This grinder does an excellent job of firing the grounds directly into the portafilter basket with minimal mess. This is aided by the patented Eureka ACE System, which is designed to do away with clumping and static. The exception is when grinding into smaller portafilters that aren’t the commercial standard 58 mm. For example, many Breville espresso machines use 54 mm portafilters. It is difficult to grind directly into these without making a mess, so in this case, you’re better off using a dosing cup and transferring the grinds to the portafilter.

Cleaning and maintaining the burrs

For non-commercial users, cleaning the burr set is a rare task, but it is pretty simple with the Eureka Atom Specialty 75. After removing the hopper, you’ll need to unscrew three screws to access the grinding chamber, then another three screws to remove the top burr and get at the bottom burr for cleaning. There are examples of more accessible grinders, but six screws is hardly an ordeal.

The best part is that the Atom 75 retains your grind setting during cleaning. No need to waste more coffee dialling it in again; reassemble the burrs, and you’re good to go. This big perk is becoming increasingly common among high-end models, and it’s nice to see. It is easy to knock the adjustment knob with your hand when cleaning, so you’ll still need to be careful.

Grinding Capability – 4.5/5

The Eureka Atom Specialty 75 is officially an all-purpose grinder, but it is clear from its design that it was made for espresso and is marketed as “espresso-focused.” You can use it to grind for filter coffee, but it is way overkill. I’d have difficulty recommending this grinder to anyone without an espresso machine. Of course, you can switch it back and forth between espresso and filter grind size, but the stepless grind adjustment means you’ll need to spend time (and coffee) dialling in the espresso grind setting each time. So this is not a practical thing to do regularly.

That said, how well does it grind for espresso? Extremely well, and there is very little to criticize regarding grinding quality. The 75 mm flat steel burr set is huge for a home grinder, and this grinder produces consistent fluffy grinds with very little grind size distribution (2). There is a noticeable difference versus cheaper burr grinders.

Flat burrs, compared to conical burrs, are known for their consistency, which is one reason they’re more common for expensive coffee grinders (3). To optimize coffee extraction, every grind needs to be the same size because each one extracts at the same rate to give a clean and balanced cup. On the other hand, conical burrs are known to yield more fines. While some espresso experts enjoy the textured shots that result from more fines, consistency is king for many, including North Star Coffee Roasters’ Ollie Sears (4).

An advantage of conical burrs is that they have lower grind retention, just by the nature of their design. The shape of flat burrs makes them more likely to trap ground coffee. Fortunately, Eureka has solved that issue by equipping Atom Specialty 75 with the patented Blow Up System, which uses airflow to achieve near zero retention.

The Atom Specialty 75 is a super-fast grinder, thanks to its large burrs and the potent 900 Watt motor that spins them at 1400 rpm. You can expect about 4 g/s output from the grinding chamber, one of the fastest home coffee grinders I’ve encountered and capable of commercial use in a small coffee shop. Indeed, the only faster one that jumps to mind is the Ceado E37S, which outputs 5 g/s but is also more expensive.

If you require speed, check out our complete Ceado E37S review. It’s worth mentioning that despite having one of the most powerful motors in its class (for comparison, the Ceado E37S has a 400 Watt motor), the Atom Specialty 75 is extremely quiet. This is no accident. Using Silent Technology, Eureka employs anti-vibration strategies to make the Atom, on average 20 dB quieter than conventional grinders.

Value for Money – 4/5

With most of these super high-end prosumer-level grinders, the Eureka Atom Specialty 75 included, the value for money is the real question. If you’re spending over a thousand dollars on a grinder from a reputable brand like Eureka, you’re getting a great grinder, and that’s not in doubt. The question is whether you’re getting your money’s worth. And in many cases, that comes down to you and your needs more than the grinder itself.

At around CAD$1799, the Eureka Atom Specialty 75 is more than double the price of home-focused grinders like the Mahlkonig 54X, the DF64, the Niche Zero, and the Eureka Mignon series. In comparison with these grinders, which are all excellent, the Atom has a larger burr set, more programmability, and produces more consistent grounds. It grinds faster and is more suitable for commercial use. Do those features matter to you? Do you have a palate that can taste the difference in shot quality? Is it important that the grind time for a double shot is 3 seconds rather than 8 seconds? The answers to these questions will help you decide if the Eureka Atom 75 espresso grinder is worth your money.

One group of users I don’t believe will get good value from the Eureka Atom Specialty 75 are those who don’t drink espresso or drink it very rarely. There are many fantastic grinders for filter coffee that are far more affordable. And if you’re only making an espresso on rare occasions, it will hardly feel worth the effort to dial in the grind size. For the infrequent espresso drinkers, I’d suggest buying a quality manual grinder to keep around for when the craving hits.

Don’t Buy the Eureka Atom Specialty 75 If…

• You prefer a conical burr grinder for espresso: Many espresso enthusiasts enjoy conical burr grinders for the full body they give coffee (5). There are excellent options at every price range if you’re in this camp.
  Check out the conical burr version of the Kafatek Monolith for a premium grinder. Read our Kafatek Monolith grinder review to know more about it. For a mid-range home grinder, we love the low-retention Niche Zero. And for the most affordable pick, the Baratza Sette 270 is an entry-level grinder with chops for espresso.
• You want something more affordable: For many home espresso lovers, the Atom Specialty 75 will be overkill. Not everyone needs an ultra-fast grinder with 75 mm burrs and a commercial rating. There are some excellent home grinders from reputable brands for about half the price.
  Sticking with Eureka, the Eureka Mignon Specialita is a wonderful mid-level espresso grinder, or you can opt for less expensive versions of the Atom with 60 mm or 65 mm burrs. Venturing to other brands, consider the Turin DF64 or read our Mahlkonig X54 review.
• You don’t drink espresso: As I said, the Atom Specialty 75 simply isn’t great value if you only drink coffee. If you’re looking for a great filter coffee grinder, we love the Fellow Ode or the Baratza Virtuoso.
• You want to single-dose: Single-dosing grinders without a hopper are becoming increasingly popular, and while some claim that the Atom 75 can be used for single dosing, we wouldn’t recommend it. It relies on the weight of beans in the small hopper to ensure consistency. If single-dosing interests you, Eureka’s recently released Mignon Oro single dose will serve you well without breaking the bank (6). Or if you want to break the bank, splurge on the flat burr version of the Kafatek Monolith.

The Verdict

Eureka Atom Specialty 75 is a premium coffee grinder that won’t be for everyone. This grinder can take your espresso from 98% to 100% perfect, and it’s up to you to decide if you want to spend upwards of $1500 for that.

While Home Grounds can’t make the financial decision for you, we can tell you that this is a beautiful grinder. If you can justify the expense, you won’t be disappointed by its grind quality, durability, or good looks!

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