With the Mahlkönig E65S Grind by Weight (GbW), we've arrived at the top price tier of our espresso grinder test series. This grinder is considered a benchmark in our lineup because it combines state-of-the-art technology with professional performance. In the test video, we already raised the question of whether the E65S GbW is truly the best grinder in the test – and whether it might be completely oversized for home use.
In this blog article, we address these questions. We introduce the grinder and its special features, discuss design and build quality, examine operation and technical features such as the Grind-by-Weight system, assess grinding speed, particle distribution and precision, discuss single dosing and retention, and share practical experiences from both commercial and home use. Finally, we draw a conclusion: For whom is this high-end grinder really worthwhile, and does it make sense for home use?
Buy Mahlkönig E65s Grind by Weight
The following specialty retailers sell the Mahlkönig E65s GbW and we can recommend purchasing from these shops. All offer the option to adjust the machine's offset.
Germany:
Austria:
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Design & Build Quality
The Mahlkönig E65S GbW impresses at first glance with its massive yet elegant design. Despite its size, it appears slimmer and more modern compared to older Mahlkönig models. Where earlier commercial grinders were often very wide and bulky, the E65S GbW presents itself with a narrower silhouette: approximately 20 cm wide with an impressive height of 62 cm. The body is made of high-quality materials (metal casing in matte black, robust build quality), which also contributes to its substantial weight of around 13 kg. The depth ranges from 23 cm (without collection tray) to 29 cm at the base. With these dimensions, the grinder takes up significantly more space than typical home barista grinders – an early indication that it's primarily designed for professional use.
The included bean hopper also underscores its professional character: a 1.2 kg capacity allows you to fill an entire kilogram bag of coffee beans. This is ideal for continuous operation in cafés, but rarely necessary for home use. Overall, the design is well thought out: despite its size, the E65S radiates a certain elegance – clean lines, high-quality finish, and a form that extends upward rather than outward. The material quality is impressive; everything feels stable and durable. This grinder is designed to withstand daily intensive use as common in the food service industry. In short: the build quality is top-notch, as you'd expect in this price range (around €2,000 or approximately CHF 2,700).
Operation & Features
Despite – or precisely because of – its professional aspirations, the E65S Grind by Weight focuses on modern, user-friendly features. Central to this is the display on the front, which not only serves operation but also displays important information. Through an icon-based menu, the grinder can be operated intuitively (e.g., access dosing settings, switch profiles). A special highlight: the display shows the burr spacing in real time. This Disc Distance Detection (a patented Mahlkönig technology) measures the distance between the burrs in micrometers, enabling extremely precise and reproducible adjustment of the grind size. In practice, this means: once you've found the perfect grind size for an espresso, you can save this value exactly or reset it at any time. Even locking the grind setting is possible to prevent accidental adjustments – a useful feature especially in the hectic café environment when multiple people are working with the grinder.
Operation is mostly via the rotary/push button in combination with the display. For more advanced settings – such as calibrating the scale or changing the language – you access the Administrator menu, which is protected by a PIN code. This code (mentioned in the video) allows you to calibrate the grinder and set parameters such as scale sensitivity. The E65S GbW offers a range of individual customization options: for example, you can adjust the sensitivity of the integrated load cell. Higher sensitivity ensures maximum precise weighing but can cause the grinder to "think" a bit longer (more on this shortly in practical experience). Lower sensitivity speeds up the workflow by accepting small weight fluctuations more quickly.
Another major strength of the grinder is automatic portafilter detection. As soon as you hook the portafilter into the holder, the scale briefly tares (the display initially lights red) and automatically begins grinding until the target dose is reached. Once the target amount is in the portafilter, the display turns green – the signal that the portion is finished grinding. This traffic light principle makes operation foolproof: red means "please wait, grinding is running/about to run" and green means "dose reached, you can remove the portafilter". The grinder learns from shot to shot: typically, after a few pulls it settles on the exact dose and then grinds the desired weight with high precision for each pull. It's important to calibrate the scale when starting up (or after a longer pause) – ideally with an appropriate calibration weight. Regular calibration ensures maximum accuracy (Mahlkönig recommends ±0.1 g tolerance; in testing, the deviation was practically 0.00 g after calibration!).
The heart of the E65S GbW is of course the Grind-by-Weight system – the integrated load cell under the portafilter fork. Unlike timer-based grinders, the E65S GbW doesn't grind by time but stops exactly when the target weight is reached. This system works impressively precisely: in testing, we repeatedly ground exactly 18.0 g of espresso across many pulls without noticeable deviation. This provides enormous confidence when dialing in the espresso – you know that dose X actually lands as dose X in the basket, pull after pull. Also unusual: the built-in weighing system is so precise that conventional barista scales pale in comparison. In testing, we found that it hardly makes sense to double-check with an additional (often less accurate) scale. Of course, this requires that the internal scale is calibrated and used correctly. Our tip: Get a calibration weight and regularly adjust the scale – then the grinder works at laboratory scale levels.
Beyond the weighing mechanism, the E65S GbW also offers the usual features of a professional grinder: memory slots for different doses (such as single and double shots, possibly even multiple recipes), easy-to-adjust grind setting (stepless via a comfortable ring) and an easily removable output/portafilter holder for cleaning or adaptation to different portafilter sizes. Overall, operation – despite many high-tech elements – is logical and smooth. After a brief familiarization, you navigate the menu confidently, adjust grind sizes and doses, and can focus in daily use on what matters: consistently good espresso.
Grinding Speed & Performance
In terms of performance, the Mahlkönig E65S GbW sets new standards. The grinding speed is nothing short of brutal – and that's while maintaining high precision. In testing, we ground approximately 18 g of espresso in just under 3 seconds. Extrapolated, the grinder achieves around 6 g per second, meaning that 40 g of coffee grounds land in the portafilter in roughly 6–7 seconds. This makes the E65S GbW one of the fastest espresso grinders we've ever had in our lab. "Speed is wild," as I summed it up in the video. This speed is worth its weight in gold, especially in commercial settings: during peak times in cafés when many espressos are prepared in succession, every second saved per pull is valuable in terms of time and sanity.
Important: despite the high speed, the grinding performance remains extremely consistent. Often, fast grinders suffer from overshooting the target amount or fluctuating when grinding so rapidly. Not the E65S GbW – thanks to real-time weighing, it hits the dose virtually spot-on. We observed that the grinder pulses subtly toward the end of the grinding process – grinding slows down minimally just before reaching the target weight, then stops exactly at e.g. 18.0 g. This clever fine-dosing allows it to be both fast and precise simultaneously.
The E65S also impresses in other performance aspects: the large burr unit (65 mm flat steel burrs) efficiently breaks down the beans without excessive heat generation. Our measurements showed an average ground coffee temperature of approximately 33–34 °C, which is only about +1.3 °C higher than the beans before grinding. Such values are in the green zone and speak to good thermal management despite high-speed grinding. Additionally, the grinder is surprisingly quiet for its size and power. At approximately ~70 dB (measured at 1 m distance), it stays within a pleasant noise range in testing. Some smaller grinders were similarly quiet or sometimes slightly quieter in our measurements, but for a commercial grinder in this performance class, ~70 dB is excellent and unobtrusive in daily operation.
A word also on sustained operation capability: the E65S GbW is designed as a workhorse. It can grind repeatedly without issues over hours, such as during a coffee shop shift, without results deteriorating. The robust motorization (approximately 450 W) and thoughtfully designed cooling system prove their worth here. Even after grinding several portions in succession, we noted no significant consistency loss – the dose was correct, the grind setting remained stable, temperature barely rose. All of this underscores: this grinder is a performance benchmark in our test field, and for this reason, the grinder has found its place in our cafés.
Particle Distribution of the E65S Grind by Weight
Conclusion and Summary Mahlkönig E65S GbW
