I’ve been pretty happy with my home setup for a while. I have progressed from the Sage Barista Express to the Sage Oracle and never had any issues at all. I recently bought a hand grinder for when I have a speciality blend or am on the road and so purchased a KinGrinder K6. I have found that it is actually a lot better than the grinder built into the Sage.
I am now looking at upgrading to a separate grinder and maybe swapping to a more manual Espresso machine also.
I have looked at Niche and Eureka as well as the Df83 grinders but honestly am a little lost. I only drink Espresso based drinks and am UK based.
I have also looked at the La Pavoni and Eureka machines for Espresso.
Just really looking for some guidance. I have an independent coffee roaster that I get my beans from and like a darker roast and am happy with what I get. I very rarely change blends or if I do I switch between one or two blends.
Unless you are buying your beans from somewhere like Starbucks they should not be that oily that the grinder needs its burrs cleaning. If you are buying Starbucks (or similar) beans then the single biggest upgrade you can do is to start buying quality beans from a specialty roaster. Its not as hard as it was a few years ago to get dark roast from a proper specialty roaster when the fad was for almost under roasted beans, thankfully that trend is drawing to a close.
Dark roast only I would only consider conical personally. The best flat burrs for dark roast just emulate the output you getting by default from most conical burrs, so why not just get the ones made for the job in the first place?
I am not sure what your budget is but something like a Helor Flux would be similar pricing to the DF83 and the Flux comes with immense 73mm Mazzer burrs that are hard to beat for dark roast. Only downside is that its a hand grinder, and take about 45 seconds to grind an espresso sized set of beans. I hand grind both espresso and pour over when I am not at home and its manageable if you are not doing too many shots back to back.
Otherwise the bigger conicals with a motor tend to be a lot more than the DF83. I would really stay away from the Niche Zero (and its bigger brother), they are overpriced and just not good value in today’s market. I used to own a Zero and its frankly disappointing for its price point, I sold mine and made nearly enough money to buy my (secondhand) DF83 with the upgraded burrs.
Something like a Femobook A68 would be around the same price as the DF83 and is motorized. I have not personally tried it, but it has decent reviews. I quite fancy getting one as another grinder (I have a Timemore 078 as well for pour over) for home for when I want dark roast as my setup is very much tailored to light/medium-light.
My beans are bought from an independent local roaster (its actually only a few miles from my house and I go to pick them up so they dont have to ship them) Yes I agree they are just more oily than a light or medium roast and someone told me that the oils can cause issues sometimes, but that may not be the case I suppose.
I am really happy with my KinGrinder k6 for hand grinding and isnt a chore for one or two coffees, but anymore and it may well be.
I think I will look more at the conical than the flat but good to know that the flat wont be affected by the darker beans if the other features are better on a flat burr.
The Femobook might be a bit too much for me to spend, but will see.