Description
The Cuisinart DBM-8P1 Supreme Grind is an electric burr coffee grinder with an eighteen position grind selector, an eight ounce bean hopper and a timer that stops the motor when the set dose is done. It has been on sale since July 2008 and carries roughly 45,572 published ratings at a 4.2 average, which makes it one of the most reviewed coffee products anywhere on this site.
It is also the only entry in our electric burr grinders category, and it is the machine that most people buy as their first step away from pre ground coffee. There is one thing on the listing that a buyer needs to see before anything else.
It Is Listed as Discontinued
The specification table states “Is Discontinued By Manufacturer = Yes”. That single field changes how you should approach this purchase.
Discontinued does not mean unavailable, and grinders of this vintage often remain in the retail channel for years. It does mean that spare parts, replacement hoppers and replacement grind chambers become progressively harder to find, and that a warranty claim may be more difficult. On a machine with moving parts and a removable chamber that gets handled every day, parts availability is a real consideration rather than a theoretical one. Check what is actually being shipped before ordering.
Why Burr Grinding Matters
A blade grinder chops beans into fragments of wildly different sizes. A burr grinder crushes them between two surfaces set a fixed distance apart, so the particles come out at a consistent size. That consistency is the entire point, because extraction depends on particle size: fine particles give up their flavour quickly and coarse ones slowly, so a mixed grind produces coffee that is simultaneously over extracted and under extracted.
The eighteen positions run from what Cuisinart calls ultra fine to extra coarse on a slide dial. Be clear about what that number means: it is a count of stops on the dial, not a measure of the range. The listing does not state the actual particle size at either end, does not say whether the burrs are flat or conical, and does not specify the burr material. Those are the three figures an enthusiast would want and none of them is published.
Dosing by Time
The one touch power bar starts the grinder and an electric timer stops it when the cycle completes. That is time based dosing rather than weight based: you tell the machine roughly how many cups you want and it runs the motor for a corresponding period.
Time based dosing is approximate by nature, because the grams per second changes with the grind setting, the bean density and how full the hopper is. In practice it is close enough for drip brewing and it is not close enough for espresso, where a gram either way changes the shot. If you are pairing this with a machine like the Technivorm Moccamaster 79112 or any of the drip brewers we cover, that is a non issue. If you are buying it to feed a portafilter machine from our espresso machines section, expect to weigh the dose yourself.
Capacity and Cleaning
The hopper holds eight ounces of whole beans and the grind chamber holds enough ground coffee for what Cuisinart states as 32 cups. Both are fully removable, which is the feature that makes this grinder livable. Coffee is oily, oils go rancid, and a grinder that cannot be taken apart will eventually make every batch taste of the last month.
A scoop and a cleaning brush are included, and cord storage is built into the body. Emptying the hopper between different coffees and brushing the chamber out weekly is the maintenance that keeps a burr grinder honest.
Static is the other thing nobody warns you about. Ground coffee picks up a charge on its way out of the burrs and clings to the inside of the chamber, so a small amount of every batch stays behind and a fine dust escapes when you lift the chamber out. Tapping the chamber before opening it and grinding over a surface you can wipe are the practical answers.
Longevity, and What Owners Report
One published owner review is unusually useful because it does the arithmetic. Writing after more than two years of daily use, they report the Cuisinart outlasting both a Krups and a Capresso grinder by a wide margin, and calculate its cost at roughly ten dollars a year against roughly one hundred a year for the two machines it replaced, given their shorter lifetimes. They state they would buy the same one again.
Against that, another owner reports a unit that never worked at all: power reaching the plug and the body but not the controls, returned for a refund. With 45,572 ratings both experiences will occur many times over. The useful conclusion is not a failure rate, which cannot be derived from reviews, but that this grinder has been in daily service long enough for multi year ownership reports to exist.
Voltage, and a Warning for Buyers Outside North America
The specification table gives 110 volts. Two published reviews are from buyers outside North America, one describing ordering a transformer and the appliance still not working. A motorised appliance on the wrong supply frequency and voltage will not perform correctly even through a converter, and a step down transformer does not change the mains frequency. This is a North American product; buying it elsewhere is a mistake regardless of how good the reviews are.
What the Specifications Do Not Settle
The burr type, material and geometry are not stated. The particle size range is not stated. No wattage is published. No grind time per dose is published. There is no warranty term in the table. The brand field reads “CUIJ9” while the manufacturer field reads Cuisinart, which is a data corruption that has propagated into the product address on this site; the machine is a Cuisinart DBM-8P1 regardless of what the brand field says.
The first feature bullet also ends with the text “BPA Free..UC Cubic Feet: 0.465, MC Cubic Feet: 0.558”. Those are shipping carton volumes that have been pasted into a marketing sentence, and they tell you how carefully this listing was assembled.
Who It Suits
This suits anyone moving from pre ground coffee to whole beans for drip, French press or pour over brewing, who wants consistent particle size without spending enthusiast money, and who will take the chamber out and brush it clean. At 7.13 by 6 inches and 4.5 pounds it is compact enough to live on a counter beside a brewer.
Look elsewhere if you need espresso grind consistency or weight based dosing, and think carefully about the discontinued status if long term parts availability matters to you. Anyone buying a grinder to pair with a grind and brew machine should note that a combined unit such as the Cuisinart DGB-550BKP1 puts both jobs in one appliance, at the cost of cleaning a grinder chute every day. Grinding fresh also matters most on machines that already control the rest of the brew well, which is why it pairs naturally with something like the Bonavita BV1500TS.