The La Pavoni Cilindro: Programmable Dosing for a Busy Kitchen

Most grinder upgrades are sold on grind quality. The Cilindro is a little different. It uses the same motor as La Pavoni's Kube Mill, with the same 50mm hardened steel flat burrs and the same stepless adjustment, and what you're actually paying more for is how it handles the routine around the grind.

That sounds underwhelming until you've made four coffees before work on a Monday. Then it's the whole point.

This guide covers what the Cilindro adds, how it compares with the Kube Mill, and which one is the better buy depending on how your mornings actually run.

What you're actually paying for

The Cilindro adds an LCD display with programmable dosing. You set a single dose and a double dose, and from then on the grinder delivers that amount on a button press. There's also a continuous mode and a time-based mode, plus a manual function for grinding on demand outside your saved doses.

The practical difference is that dosing stops being something you think about. Instead of running the grinder and watching the scale, you press once and it stops itself. If you're making one coffee a day that's a small convenience. If you're making several, or other people in the house are using it, it's the difference between a repeatable routine and a fiddly one.

The second addition is capacity. The hopper holds 500g, against 150g on the Kube Mill. That's most of a 1kg bag loaded at once rather than topping up every couple of days.

The grinding itself

Both La Pavoni grinders use 50mm hardened steel flat burrs with stepless micrometric adjustment, driven by a 310W motor at 1350 RPM. The Cilindro grinds at 1.2 to 1.6 grams per second for espresso.

Flat burrs produce a tighter, more uniform particle size than conical ones, which is what gives espresso its consistency shot to shot. Stepless adjustment means there are no fixed clicks: you can move the dial by the smallest amount that still changes anything, which is exactly what you want when a coffee is running a few seconds fast and you need a nudge rather than a jump.

"Micrometric" simply describes how fine those increments are. In practice it means you can chase a specific extraction time instead of choosing between two settings that bracket it.

Both are built around espresso. If filter coffee is your main drink, a dedicated filter grinder like the Fellow Ode Gen 2 is the better tool.

Cilindro or Kube Mill

The honest answer is that the grinding hardware is closely matched. You're choosing between convenience and footprint.

Choose the Cilindro if more than one person uses the machine, you make several coffees a day, or you simply want dosing handled for you. The 500g hopper suits a household that goes through coffee quickly.

Choose the Kube Mill if you're brewing one or two coffees a day, you're happy dosing by feel or by scale, or bench space is tight. It's also built with an anti-vibration system to keep grinding noise down, which helps if early mornings need to stay quiet.

With the grinding hardware this closely matched, you're mostly buying workflow, not a better cup.

Measure your bench first

This is the one thing worth checking before you commit.

The Cilindro stands 410mm tall, which is significant. If your bench sits under overhead cabinets, measure the gap, and remember you also need clearance above the hopper lid to pour beans in. Its footprint is otherwise modest at 154mm wide and 230mm deep, and it weighs 5.3kg.

The Kube Mill is shorter at 330mm tall, 130mm wide and 190mm deep, weighing 6kg. If clearance is your constraint, that 80mm difference may decide it for you.

Living with a hopper grinder

Both of these are hopper-fed rather than single-dose, and that's a real difference in how you use them.

A hopper means beans sit in the grinder rather than in a sealed bag. It's faster day to day, with nothing to weigh before you start. The trade-off is that coffee in a hopper is exposed to air, and it's awkward to switch between two different coffees without emptying it first. The smoked Tritan hopper helps by keeping light off the beans, but it doesn't change the basic trade.

If you keep one coffee on the go and get through it in a week or two, a hopper is the more convenient system. If you like having three bags open, single dosing suits you better.

Both come with a filter holder centerer, which holds the portafilter steady and aligned while it fills, so grounds go into the basket instead of across the bench.

Both also carry a 24-month warranty. If you're pairing one with a La Pavoni machine, our guide to caring for your La Pavoni covers the maintenance that keeps the whole setup working properly.

Who it's for

The Cilindro suits a household where coffee is a shared routine rather than one person's hobby. Programmable dosing means anyone can walk up and get the same result, and the large hopper means it's ready when they do. It suits people stepping up from a basic grinder who've realised that consistency is mostly about removing decisions.

It's not for you if you're the only one using it and you enjoy the process of weighing and dialling in, in which case the Kube Mill does the same job for less. It's also not the choice if filter coffee is your main drink, or if your bench has limited height.

You can see the rest of the range on our coffee grinders page.

You can see the full specification on the La Pavoni Cilindro Grinder product page. If you'd rather see one in person before deciding, get in touch and we'll arrange a time for you to visit us in Silverwater.