[thebigspendur]

I have a solis maestro and as far as I'm concerned it does everything I need. To me as long as it has sufficient control for the fineness of the grounds you need, it has a conical burr grinder of heavy duty metal, has a gear reduction motor and the grinder ring easily comes out for cleaning that's all you need. You can spends hundreds for a machine that looks like it belongs on the starship enterprise or in a commercial coffee house and I guess if your really into this its worth it to you but its not to me.

As far as freezing the beans I get green beans and roast my own and only roast about 8oz at a time and grind as I use them so freshness is not a problem for me. if you buy already roasted beans unless you know the exact date the beans were roasted they are probably half stale when you get them since you only have a 30 day window at max and many feel two weeks is all you should keep them. So if they are marginal when you get them or you buy alot (which you shouldn't do) freezing will help extend them to a point. I know many say once they go into those valved bags after roasting they stay fresh for months but not in my book.