Modifying the (Aldi) Lumina coffee grinder to produce a finer grind

I purchased one of the Lumina coffee grinders from Aldi a few years ago, but only just tried to use it for the first time recently. Even on the finest setting it was producing grinds that were very coarse. The product really should be marketed as a herb grinder in standard form.

As this machine uses burrs to do the grinding I thought I'd try shimming one of the burrs to bring the two closer together, hopefully resulting in a finer grind. This actually ended up working really well, and I've been using it at least three times a week for a few months now for all my coffee grinding duties!

Here's what you will need to do the modification:

• Useless Lumina coffee grinder.
• Suitably sized Phillips head driver (you'll want to make sure it is clean).
• Three 8x1mm washers (again, make sure they are clean).

First of all you'll want to remove the top burr assembly, which you can do by turning it clockwise:

You can see the tabs that lock it into place here:

Once you've removed it, flip it upside down and you should be able to see three Phillips head screws, you'll want to remove these:

Lift the metal burr away from the rest of the plastic assembly and you will then be able to fit the three 8x1mm washers as per the picture:

As you can see this has shimmed the burr by 1mm:

Fit the burr back onto the assembly and fasten the screws, don't go overboard with force though as they are just screwing into plastic.

Adjust the machine to the coarse setting and insert the top burr assembly, lock it into place by turning anti-clockwise.

Test out some grinding!