Option-O Lagom P64 Flat Burr Grinder Review
With interchangeable flat burrs, a variable RPM motor, and a design that oozes style, the Lagom P64 by Option-O is one hot coffee grinder. It offers things that most home grinders could only dream of, dishing up ultimate control, precision, and excellent grind quality.
But is it worth ditching your existing grinder? Will it provide a night and day difference to your coffees when compared to your current machine?
I’ve been on the hunt checking out this fairly new coffee grinder to get answers to both of these questions. Let’s see what I discovered below in this Lagom P64 flat burr grinder review!
Option-O Lagom P64 Grinder Review 2024
The Lagom P64 is an all-metal, flat burr coffee grinder made by Option-O.
It features a 64mm set of flat burrs that are easily interchangeable, and a variable RPM motor for extra grind control. With step-less grind adjustment and a clean, sleek form factor, the Lagom P64 is one of the best contenders in its price range.
The ultimate home coffee grinder, fitting into the top 1% of home burr grinder available today. Well worth it if you love your coffee!
PROS (+)
- Very well made
- Easy to clean the burrs without tools
- Variable RPM motor
CONS (-)
- The RPM dial is arbitrarily labeled
- Has a small dosage capacity
What’s Great About It?
The build quality of Option-O products (for example the Option-O Remi) is spectacular, and the Lagom P64 is no exception.
I love that you can choose from 3 different sets of burrs, depending on how you like to brew your coffee. I also really dig that you can get to the burrs easily, and without tools. Being able to go toolless makes cleaning the grinder that much easier.
What’s Not So Great?
It has a variable speed motor, which is fantastic. But the dial that controls the RPM of the motor is numbered arbitrarily.
Rather than labeling the dial from 1 to 9, it would have been nice to label it with the RPM. At least then, you’d know where you’re sitting in terms of speed for your own reference and curiosity.
I’m also not the biggest fan of the small, 40-gram dosage capacity.
Build Quality & Design
The Lagom P64 is a well-built machine. It’s constructed of machined and anodized aluminum, and as standard, comes in silver. For an extra $50, you can opt for the black colorway, which looks pretty damn beautiful too.
Coffee grinders in the past that cut coffee, as well as this one, the EK-43, for example, are huge machines. Totally impractical for many household coffee corners. But the Lagom P64 has a relatively small and unobtrusive footprint.
As a single dose grinder, the P64 has no hopper to speak of. The grinding chamber fits about 40 grams of coffee at a time.
That’s a little small for my liking and could become frustrating if you brew larger batches of drip coffee. Option-O mentions that you can continuously feed coffee beans into the chamber, but that would mean standing there, pouring beans in as the P64 grinds.
The ultimate home coffee grinder, fitting into the top 1% of home burr grinder available today. Well worth it if you love your coffee!
If you are using this as your espresso grinder, coffee can be dosed directly into a portafilter, sitting neatly on the provided portafilter cradle.
Some users have found that smaller portafilters can vibrate themselves free when not seated in the cradle fully. This makes a huge mess. So if you are using a smaller portafilter, best hold onto the handle while grinding.
On top of the grinder itself, Option-O provides a few other cool bits and pieces to improve the experience of using this grinder.
In the box is a well-crafted grounds collection cup, an RDT spray bottle, a small dosing cup, a portafilter funnel, and a grinds distribution tool.
One more cool thing to mention about the design of this grinder— it is extremely quiet. Like, it could be running, and you wouldn’t know…
The Burrs
The heart of any grinder is its burrs. You can have a great motor and a well-constructed machine, but the thing is little more than an expensive paperweight if the burrs aren’t great.
Option-O has gone one step above great burrs, also asking the question: Great burrs for what? Great burrs for espresso or for filter brewing? Because what is ideal for one isn’t necessarily the best for the other.
They give you the option of 3 different burr sets— all of which are 64mm flat burrs. Let’s take a quick look at each.
First up, we have the standard burrs. These are high-quality stainless steel burrs. Decent for filter coffee brewing but more focused on espresso. They are rated to grind 250kg of coffee and are recommended for medium to dark roasts.
The other two burr options are made by SSP, a Korean burr manufacturer. Each of these burr sets is aimed at a particular use.
For filter coffee brewing, the best option is the Unimodal burrs. These Unimodal burrs reduce the number of fines produced by the grinder, giving loads of clarity and well-defined flavors in the cup. For espresso, the High-Uniformity burrs are the way to go.
These can still brew delicious filter coffee but offer a grind profile more designed for espresso. Both sets of SSP burrs are rated to deliver 5000kg of coffee. That’s basically a lifetime’s use.
Grind Range & Rating
Grind quality on the P64 is fantastic. It holds its own against grinders twice the price, producing delicious, clean coffee.
As a grinder that is designed for both espresso and filter applications, the Lagom P64 can grind the spectrum of sizes. It’ll do anything from French press to espresso with ease. Thanks to its interchangeable burrs, it can perform excellently for any kind of coffee.
With a step-less grind adjustment, coffees can be dialed in with precision. There are 9 different reference points on the grind adjustment collar, as well as 10 smaller points in-between. Because the grinder is step-less, these numbers are just for reference.
Option-O has minimized the dead space and spots that coffee can get trapped in this grinder. Meaning that when using light roasts, this grinder retains very little to no coffee. Zero retention makes it much easier to dial in coffees for espresso.
When grinding coffee with the Lagom P64, many users have encountered static issues. Those fortunate enough to be unfamiliar, static in grinding usually involve coffee grounds going everywhere, clinging to everything, as they dispense from the grinder.
This is likely due to the material the grinder is made of. The issue is fixed with the use of the RDT spray that Option-O provides. A couple of sprays of water minimizes static, dispensing coffee much neater and with far less mess.
Variable RPM
One of the really unique parts of the Lagom P64 is the variable RPM motor.
The motor can be adjusted and set to run at anywhere between 200 and 1400 RPM. The reference points on the RPM dial are a little odd.
Rather than simply labeling the dial with the RPM, it is labeled 1 – 9. It’s not the end of the world, but having more concise reference points would be nice.
Durability
Thanks to its metal construction, the P64 is a beast. According to Option-O, it will give you decades of loyal service without issue. If you choose the standard burrs, those might need to be replaced sooner. But with either of the SSP burrs, you’ve got a grinder that’ll last for a long time.
Because many parts of this grinder, including the grinding mechanism, are machined from a single piece of metal, everything fits together with no movement. Nothing wobbles about, and nothing can really break off.
The motor is connected to the grinding mechanism using a flexible coupler, helping minimize vibration in the grinder. Less vibration means not only a more accurate grind but also a longer-lasting machine.
Being relatively new on the market, we don’t yet have the data to know how well the Lagom goes over time. Whether the motor works consistently, or if issues pop up with multiple years of use, only time will tell.
Ease Of Use & Customer Care
Ease of Use
While the Lagom P64 grinds coffee as easily as any other machine, there is one thing about it that might make it a little confusing. The variable motor speed.
The dial is easy enough to use. The issue is, where would you set the dial? 200 RPM, which is a 1 on the dial, or 1400 RPM which is the number 9? Which number is ‘standard’?
The truth is there really is no ‘standard’, meaning that you’ll need to experiment and find what you like best. To take full advantage of this feature, you need to learn what a low RPM does to your beans and how setting the RPM high will change your extraction.
This makes the Lagom a more in-depth piece of equipment than Baratza or Rancilio grinders.
Cleaning
Cleaning the P64 is made easy by offering toolless disassembly. Easily access the burrs by unscrewing the main chamber of the grinder.
Give everything a good clean with a brush, maybe use an air blower to clean away any grinds inside the chute. Easy cleaning like this means that the grinder will probably be cleaned more often. And a clean grinder is a happy grinder!
Customer Care
In the past, Option-O has been known for having poor customer service. And as a past customer of Option-O, I have personally experienced this.
In researching for this article, sorting through dozens of pages worth of forum reviews, it seems that Option-O may have stepped up their customer service. According to a few users, the owner of the company, Hayden, is very fast to reply to customer queries these days.
If this is true, and they have indeed boosted their customer service game, excellent! Because the gear Option-O sells isn’t cheap. The last thing you want when you spend premium dollars on a grinder is to receive zero customer care.
Pricing
For the features, built and grind quality, the Lagom P64 is good value for money. At around $1500, plus or minus, depending on the burrs you choose, you can see where your money is going. As I mentioned earlier, it is comparable to grinders that are in the range of double the price.
Does that mean you should throw your Wilfa Uniform, Baratza Vario, or Fellow Ode out the window and upgrade to this immediately? It really depends…
If you are already using a good flat burr grinder like the ones I’ve just mentioned, the difference you’ll taste in your coffee won’t be night and day.
There will be differences, but they won’t be as huge as you might think. There might be more clarity in the cup, but that largely comes down to the burrs your choose.
The biggest difference that your extra dollars buy you is a longer-lasting machine with a more pleasurable workflow.
Don’t Buy The Lagom P64 If…
You want a simple grinder
With a variable RPM motor, there is an added element of control to the P64. But this extra control might stress some people out a little bit. Am I using it right? What should the RPM be set to? There are certainly simpler grinders out there. Ones without variable RPM motors…
You make batch brews daily
To make a liter of coffee on something like the Moccamaster, you’ll need to grind around 60 grams of coffee. To do this with the Lagom P64, you’d need to either grind two doses or slowly and continuously pour the coffee into the grinder. For me, that would get old real quick.
The Final Verdict: Option-O Lagom P64 Review
If you have the budget and want to get every last bit of goodness from your coffee, the Lagom P64 should have your attention.
The ultimate home coffee grinder, fitting into the top 1% of home burr grinder available today. Well worth it if you love your coffee!
It’s an extremely nice machine that is well built and grinds coffee right up there with the best 1% of grinders. Not only that, but its durability makes it look like it’ll last a lifetime!