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Out of the BoxOpus Conical Burr Grinder
Right out of the gate, I have to hand it to Fellow: they are one of the most environmentally responsible coffee and espresso appliance vendors around today. All the packaging used for the Fellow Opus is recyclable and even compostable. The outer box has minimal inks for the most part (the back of the box has a heavy print of black ink), and the machine inside is wrapped in biodegradable “plastics” (it’s not plastic). Our entire industry should look at what Fellow (and to be fair, Baratza too) does with their packaging to be environmentally friendly.
Unboxing the Opus is pretty straight forward. Open the lid, and there’s the manual, in a biodegradable sack, and an inner cardboard form holding the grinder in place. Remove that, and the grinder, wrapped in a biodegradable wrap, is visible. Remove that and you see the secondary lid for the grinds hopper.
Removing the wrap reveals the grinder, already fully assembled. The grinds bin is also wrapped in a biodegradable bag to help keep it sturdy and safe during shipping. Once that bag is removed, the grinder is pretty much ready to plug in and use.
Very first impressions are that a) the grinder is very angular and geometric (circles, squares and rectangles), and b) it is very plastic. Everything is plastic that you can see. The plastic is a very high grade however, and there are aesthetic details worked into all of it. The back and sides of the grinder have a vertical rib system that gives it character and texture. The front grinding area is a circular tube that mates nicely to the back straight column.
The Fellow Opus is also very compact, compared to a lot of other consumer grinders in its competitive circle. Weighing in at 2.4kg (about 5 pounds), the compact nature makes it seem a bit more dense than all the plastic would lead you to perceive. The grinder sits on four low-profile rubberized feet, and just in the initial phase when I was photographing it, it seemed to stay pretty secure on the tabletop.
Moving from the top down on the Fellow Opus, up top is the single dose bean chamber, lid and grind adjustment dial.
The lid serves many purposes on this grinder, some intended by Fellow, some discovered by end users. Fellow designed the lid so it fits very well into the single dose bean hopper; inserting it you get that “air flow action” slow drop down, because of the tight tolerances they’ve achieved in its design. This has led many to use the lid as a sort of bellows, forcing out some of the retained grinds the Opus can build up.
The lid also has a few features. The lid can be used as a coffee measuring device for whole beans. There is a dividing wall inside the lid, with one area holding 20g of coffee (give or take 2g), and the larger area holding 40g of coffee beans (again, give or take 2-3g). If you fill the entire lid with whole bean coffee, it holds roughly 100g of beans, give or take 5-8g. This is a great feature for those who don’t want to bother with a coffee scale.
The lid also has grind selection settings for various brew methods, printed right onto its underside. No need to reach for the manual to figure out what grind setting you need on the Opus for pour over or AeroPress.
The single dose hopper on the Fellow Opus can hold up to 100g of coffee. This is well suited for larger batch brewers, like 10 and 12 cup auto drip machines. The Wilfa Uniform does something similar. Inside the hopper is an anti-popcorn lid over the actual grind chamber path.
Externally, the hopper has markings on it, from 1 to 11, with 3 tick marks between each number. These are the stepped grind settings you can set via the collar lever just below the smoked plastic hopper. This doesn’t give the Opus 44 settings, it has 41 stepped settings because there’s no ticks below the 1 setting, or above the 11 setting.
Each “click” moves the burr carrier about 50 microns vertically (though the gap between the burrs changes less per click – about 30 microns). This is the same throughout the click range. In addition, the Opus has a refining adjustment inside the grind chamber area if you remove the hopper (I’ll get to that more below).
The hopper can be easily removed by simply grabbing it and giving a 10-15 degree turn counter-clockwise. Then it can be lifted out, to access the burrs directly or modify the previously mentioned micro burr adjustment. You can also pull up the top static burr carrier to do a pretty good cleaning of the grinder burr area. It’s quite similar to the burr system Breville has in the Smart Grinder Pro and all their grinder-equipped espresso machines.
The burrs are interesting. They are an exclusive design for Fellow, and the company has just recently “named” them, calling them Burly Burrs, complete with trademark. They are a six bladed design and very aggressive in their initial grab and cut design. My experience with more aggressive burrs like these is that they typically need a pretty long break in or seasoning period to really get down to prime cutting ability while minimizing fines.
Moving down the grinder, the large front tube houses the burr assembly, gearing and something special on this grinder: an ion generator (some call it a plasma coil). This fires consistently while the grinder is running, and on paper at least, greatly reduces the static buildup in the grinds as they exit the grind chute to the grinds bin below. All of this, of course, is hidden by the outer body and cowling of the grinder.
Then we come to the grinds bin area, and the grinds bin itself. The grinds bin on the Opus may visually look similar at first glance to that found on the Fellow Ode and Gen 2 Ode, but it is different in several ways. First, it is all plastic, and inside has a moulded plastic design to include a sort of chute to facilitate the pouring of ground coffee into your brewing device.
Second, it comes with an insert which effectively turns the grinds bin into an espresso portafilter dosing cup, one that works both with 58mm standard portafilters, and 54mm portafilters like those found on a lot of Breville espresso machines.
The bin comes with a lid to be used only when you’re grinding for brew coffee; the lid is removed, and the dosing cup insert is put inside the grinds bin, when grinding for espresso. The bottom of the bin has an internal metal disk (or it could be a magnet) to work with the magnetized base of the Opus. This means the bin slides right into place, directly under the grinds chute, each time you slide it onto the working tray on the Opus.
The base is, as mentioned, magnetized directly under the exit chute. It is flat, and on our unit, matt black plastic. In about a months’ use, it is already exhibiting scratches and scuffs.
The activation button for the grinder is located on the front right side of the base. It is a multi-press timer button that can also be set as a pure on or off button. Press it once, and the grinder will run for 30 seconds, then shut off. Double tap it, and you get 60 seconds. Triple tap, 90 seconds. Quad tap it, and you get 2 minutes of run time.
If you want the Opus’ button to be just an on or off button, press and hold the button while the grinder is unplugged, then plug the grinder in. You’ll hear a few beeps, which indicates the timer modes are shut off, and the button serves to just turn the grinder on or off. If you want the timer function back, just unplug the grinder for 5 seconds, and plug it back in.
The single control button and base on the Fellow Opus. Note the super low profile feet.
Lastly in this section, here’s some specifications for the Fellow Opus Conical Burr Grinder.
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Dimensions: 21cm deep, 13cm wide, and 27cm tall (8.25” x 5.1” by 10.5”)
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Weight, empty with grinds bin: 2.35kg (5.18lb)
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Power Draw: 140W
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Cord Length: 1m (3ft)
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Burr Speed: 350RPM
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Burr Type: Conical burr, 3 bladed, called “C6-40 Burly Burrs”
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Grinder Noise, under load: 74.2db (very low)
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Max Grinds Bin Capacity: 110g (standard grinds bin)
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Grind Selection: 41 settings (50 micron vertical adjustment 28-30micron burr gap adjustment per click)
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Materials: ABS/PC/PC Plastics, metal frame in parts.
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Features: Timer mode (3 settings), magnetic catch cup, high torque gearing, additional internal grind settings available, ion generator to reduce static, convertible grinds bin / expresso dosing cup
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First UseOpus Conical Burr Grinder
After running about 4kg through this grinder to fully season the burr set (but also to do some initial timing tests), my first task with the Fellow Opus was to see how it did for espresso. Fellow recommends a setting between 1 and 2 with the grinder for this brewing method, so I set our test unit to 2, and added 18.5g to the hopper.
The grinder works at about a gram a second grinding speed for espresso, so about 19 seconds later, I had the dose in the Opus’ dosing cup. Problem was, I put 18.5g in, and only got 16.9g out. Hrm. I put the catch cup back in place, ran the grinder again, and flopped the lid up and down to create air pressure to push stray grinds out. This resulted in 17.6 of my 18.5g making it to the catch cup. Remembering that I saw a lot of packed coffee inside when I cleaned it just before starting our tests, I opted to throw that grind sample out, and try again.
18.5g in. 19-20 seconds grind time at a “2” setting. Output in the catch cup? 17.2g this second time around. 1.3g was stuck inside the grinder (along with the roughly .9g from my previous session. Run the grinder again, flopping the lid. This time I got up to 17.8g. I still wanted the .7g I was missing, so I put the grinds cup back in place, and banged the top of the grinder.
19.1g in the catch cup. From the 18.5g I put in. So some of the previous grinding session also came out with the physical abuse I inflicted on the Opus.
This is not a zero retention grinder. It’s not even a low retention grinder. Out of the gate, it’s no better, and possibly worse than the Baratza Encore ESP. At least for espresso.
In our Full Review, I will go a lot more into the detail on this grinder, what it retains, and how to deal with it. Most grinders in this price range – even the single dose models – retain a fair amount of grinds, so this isn’t a deal breaker with the Opus.
Dialing into espresso on the Fellow Opus is an okay procedure: not great, but not bad either. I found there were only maybe 2 or 3 ticks (those marks between the numbers) I could play with, giving about a 10-14 second spread in shot times. That’s not a lot, but since the Opus offers further fine tuning via the burr housing micro adjustments, there’s potential there.
Once I was able to find the sweet spot, I was hitting our CoffeeGeek Standard of 18.5g in, and 45g out in about 35 seconds with preinfusion. In the samples below, we were using a Profitec Go to brew, and making use of the machine’s unique ability to start at lower brewing pressures by opening the steam wand for the start of the shot.
I have to admit, I found Fellow’s execution of their grind adjustment system inside the grinder a bit confusing, so I watched a few videos to familiarize myself, including Fellow’s own demo video. I came away more confused, so I decided to put off fussing with that system for later on.
Micro Adjustments
While on the surface, Fellow’s implementation of the micro adjustment for the burr carrier is similar to how Breville’s been doing it for years, their execution of it is a bit different. Changing the micro settings also changes the positioning and indication ticks’ position on the outer main grind adjustment collar. It can be confusing. Basically, each micro adjust changes the position of the outer collar by 1/3 a tick mark.
Time to move on to AeroPress, siphon, and pour over brews.
The grinder works just fine in these brew methods. I’d call it very “middle of the road” output from this very early testing and tasting. The grinding speed is around 6.5 seconds per 10g, which, again, is okay. In my first use, I purposely don’t put the grinder up against the champs in our lab (like the Lagom Mini, Sette 270Wi, Wilfa Uniform, DF64 Gen 2, etc), but I do have a decent short term memory for the quality cups they deliver.
Tasting blind and solo, the AeroPress brews via the Opus grind were in the good range. Siphon seemed a bit muddy. Pour over with paper filter was good to really good. Pour over with metal filters was a bit slow and drawn out (which could speak to excessive fines).
One of the better things about the grinder is how quiet it is. The Opus is really quiet under load. In fact, it sounds almost the same volume with or without beans being ground. I measured around 74db under load. That’s pretty impressive.
The grinder never seems to stumble or hesitate either. Fellow claims massive torque, and I believe it even based on these early results. When you work with the Baratza Encore, for example, you can hear the grinder straining a bit, changing pitch in the motor. I did not notice this at all with the Fellow Opus.
I also noted a distinct lack of static and mess, except when I had to hammer the top of the grinder to dislodge retained grinds. So the ionizer really does work. Just to check, I ground into a glass cup, and the grinds mostly just fell into the bottom of the cup, with only stray chaff adhering to the sides. That’s really good.
This is our first “First Look” adhering to our new shortened format, so I will save further analysis of the grinder, its output, and how it compares directly to other grinders for our Full Review. Suffice to say, the grinder performed okay to really good, depending on the brewing method and grind fineness.
Nothing was bad about the output, except perhaps at the coarse press pot range. There is a distinct excessive amount of fines visible in the brewed cup afterwards. But this is a problem most conical burr grinders have. If your primary brewing method is Chemex or press pot, a flat burr grinder is the better choice.
One more note before we get to the products this grinder competes with. There’s some misinformation out there about the Opus and its anti-static / zero grinds retention functionality. For example, the Williams Sonoma sale page for the grinder claims the grinder has both an ionizer and a grinds knocker. There is no grinds knocker on this grinder.
To be honest, seeing how it retains grinds, a grinds knocker would have been a really nice addition.
CompetitionOpus Conical Burr Grinder
The direct competitors for the Fellow Opus are the Baratza Encore ESP, the Breville Smart Grinder Pro, and the Turin SK40 (and SD40). I would also include the Timemore Chestnut C3 ESP Pro manual grinder in the comparison. All of these grinders (save for the C3) are in the same price point, but the Turin SK40 is more of an espresso primary grinder (the SD40, offering less granular control over the grind settings is a true multipurpose, single dosing grinder).
For additional comparison’s sake for our Full Review, we’ll also see how the Opus fairs against the Lagom Mini, which is one of the best conical burr grinders I’ve ever used.
Turin SD40 Grinder
The closest competitor, on paper, is the Turin SD40. This is also a single dose grinder, with good torque, similar burrs size, and a wide range of grind adjustments from near Turkish to press pot. They are also the same price. What’s interesting between the two is how no-frills the SD40 is, but it has a lot of beef and metal. The Fellow Opus has more bells and whistles, including the micro adjust system and an ionizer (the SD40 does not have one), but it is all plastic.
Baratza Encore ESP
Many reviewers are comparing the Baratza Encore ESP to the Fellow Opus. I feel many are missing the mark in their comparisons though. Baratza has a long history making consumer grinders and they do very well at it. Fellow’s still new to the grinder game, and this should be a consideration for long term ownership.
The Baratza is also a convertible system, going from single dose (via an optional single dose hopper, but you can just measure in your beans to the standard hopper) to a full bag, on demand grinder. It comes with both a grinds bin and a dosing cup. It is lacking the Opus’ timer modes, but Baratza hit a home run with the grind selection system having two distinct adjustment areas: half for fine tuning espresso, and half for all other brew methods. It definitely offers more granularity in espresso fine tuning than the Opus.
On the other hand, the Encore ESP does not have an ionizer, and retains more coffee than the Opus. Lots of tradeoffs across the two products.
Breville Smart Grinder Pro
Definitely not a single dose grinder, and you know what? That’s okay. In fact, I’ll take on demand (ie, full bag) grinders over single dose in any multipurpose grinder I own.
The Breville Smart Grinder Pro is obviously a lot more “smart” than the Fellow Opus in terms of controls, interface, timers, grind selection indicators, the works. It also comes with both a grinds bin and dosing forks for grinding directly into portafilters. There’s also a gazillion colours available.
The burr set inside the Smart Grinder Pro is still the legacy Breville burrset (it hasn’t migrated to Baratza’s M2 Etzinger burrs yet) but that burrset is fine. The Opus “Burly Burr” has the potential to be better. Both have a very similar burr chamber design and mechanism for fine tuning the burr settings. The SGP is not a straight path grinder like the Opus is, so it can retain a lot of grinds. It laso does not have an ionizer.
Timemore C3 ESP Pro
Killer grinder for around $110. Problem is, it has no motor. You are the motor. But I firmly believe its output, from Turkish (yes it does a proper turkish grind) to pour over will be more uniform and better than the Opus. I will wait for the Full Review to find out if I am proven wrong or not.
The C3 ESP Pro is a single dose grinder (natch), with a folding handle design and a really solid feel to the entire package. Everything about the grinder feels premium. There is no ionizer of course, but it doesn’t need one: static is rarely an issue the all metal C3 series. The grinder can benefit though from the lightest of RDT, which you should never do on a ionizer or plasma coil equipped electric grinder.
Espresso Shots
The Opus can do a good grind for espresso, unlike the Fellow Ode grinder.
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ConclusionOpus Conical Burr Grinder
Fellow makes beautiful products for the specialty coffee world. Stunning, unique, in many ways in a league of their own.
Fellow also seems to stumble a bit when they introduce new electric products for the specialty coffee world. The original Ode is a prime example of this. The Fellow Opus Conical Burr Grinder has learned some lessons from the original Ode’s issues, but it also comes with its own problems on top of the benefits it may offer.
In my early time with the Fellow Opus, I felt it was bordering on ludicrous that you had to bang away on this plastic grinder’s lid to dislodge up to 2g of retained grinds. For a straight-path vertical fall grinder, this shouldn’t be happening. When we work on a single dose grinder, we expect whatever volume we put in to come out at the bottom.
That said, just about every electric grinder at this price point retains ground coffee. Some do remarkably well at pour over grinds, releasing almost all that is put in. But every electric grinder I’ve used for espresso in this price range and market can retain between 1 and 3 grams of coffee. When you’re dealing with 18g for your shot, that matters. It’s not just Fellow’s issue, but the problem with grinders in general.
Grind quality, from what I tested in this first month is what I’d rate “okay” (metal filter Chemex grinds) to good/very good (pour over) to okay/good for espresso. Early days yet, and I will do some serious blind taste testing for the Full Review.
Not many reviews mentioned Fellow’s warranty. 3 years, if you register the product. That is excellent. The other benefits of this grinder are plain when using: it is very quiet, it looks like a sculpted piece of art for your counter (albeit plastic), and it is very easy to operate and make use of. I also like and appreciate the extra touches, like the lid that doubles as a two-measurement device for beans, the dosing cup / grinds bin design, the magnet underneath, and the multi-timer function.
The Fellow Opus is a much better “launch” product in the grinder sphere for Fellow than the Ode was. I think if they added a grinds knocker, it would be even better.
As far as multipurpose grinders go, it does the job, in some cases very well, and it’s good enough for me that we’ll be adding the Fellow Opus Conical Burr Grinder to our Best Budget Coffee Grinders guide coming out in a few weeks. At least until we complete our Full Review on the grinder.
Also I want to end with a note: this is one of our many First Looks and Full Reviews where we generate no income via our primary “buy” link, which goes to Whole Latte Love; it is not a commission link. We are linking to them because they generously sent us this product for review. If you are in the market for a Fellow product, we encourage you to shop with Whole Latte Love.
Many reviews online and on Youtube for Fellow Products go to commissioned sales links directly with Fellow. Something to keep in mind when you’re reading or watching reviews of these products.
Mark has certified as a Canadian, USA, and World Barista Championship Judge in both sensory and technical fields, as well as working as an instructor in coffee and espresso training. He started CoffeeGeek in 2001.
