What Can a Coffee Grinder Do For You

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Now let me tell you the main reason why people use pre-ground coffee. For most people the real reason is that they have not really tasted what difference a freshly ground coffee makes! That was certainly the reason for me before I bought my first coffee grinder.

The problem with ground coffee is that it gets stale very quickly. The biggest enemies of coffee are air, moisture, heat and light. Air in particular destroys the coffee flavor very rapidly. When the roasted coffee bean is kept intact the surface of the bean is protecting the rest of the bean from the rapid degradation that air can cause.

Now, when the bean is smashed into pieces, there is no longer any protective barrier and the coffee loses most of its good stuff within a few hours. That's why coffee should be ground just before you brew it.

Coffee grinders are usually grouped into three categories: blade grinders, burr grinders and manual grinders. This categorization can be a bit misleading, so here is an explanation about what type of grinders each of these groups include:

• Blade grinders
  This includes all electric blade coffee mills.


• Burr grinders
  This includes all electric burr coffee grinders.


• Manual grinders
  This includes all hand coffee grinders whether they use a blade or burr grinding mechanism.

Blade grinders are very popular because they are cheap, simple, efficient and they also don't take up much space.

The main problem with the blade coffee grinder is that they do not actually grind the coffee - they smash it to pieces with a blade that rotates at high speed. This way of pulverizing coffee beans produces coffee particles of varying sizes - ranging from big chunks to very fine dust.

This non-uniform grind is pretty OK if you are using a paper filter. With metallic filters, a French press or a Moka pot you are likely to end up with quite a bit of unwanted sediment in your cup. The lack of uniformity will also impact the flavor of your coffee: the small particles will be over-extracted and the large ones will be under-extracted (no, it does not even out).

With the blade grinders there is no way to adjust how fine you want your coffee to be. You simply grind for a while then look if the coffee is fine enough and if not then grind a bit more and so on.

Blade coffee grinders also heat the coffee up considerably while grinding it. That destroys some of the coffee flavor. The grinding is rather noisy. Another issue is that the coffee ground in a blade grinder is likely to be full of static charge which makes handling it difficult and messy.

To reduce these problems it is best to grind the coffee in a series of short bursts (only a few seconds at a time) and to shake the grinder vigorously in between the bursts.

Having talked about the bad point of the blade coffee grinder, let me just emphasize that using a blade coffee grinder is still much better than buying pre-ground coffee.

Burr coffee grinders solve most of the problems that the blade grinders have. Burr grinders produce a much more even grind and in general don't heat up coffee as much as the blade grinders do. They are also less noisy.

When you upgrade from a blade grinder to a burr grinder you may be surprised to find out just what difference it makes to the taste of your coffee. For a start it will be less bitter because you don't get all the fine dust that comes out of the blade grinders.

Burr grinders grind the coffee beans between two burrs that can be either flat or conical. So what is a burr then? Good question - it's probably best answered by a few pictures:

With a burr coffee grinder you can easily adjust how fine you want to grind the beans. It is done by changing the distance between the two burrs - the closer the burrs the finer the grind. That's a big improvement over the blade grinders.

One important thing about the burr grinders is the speed with which they grind coffee - the lower the better. High speed burr grinders have several drawbacks: heating up the coffee, bogging down under heavy load, clogging up with very fine grinds and producing a lot of static charge.

What you really want is a low speed conical burr grinder. They are more expensive, but they eliminate (or at least significantly reduce) the problems that high speed grinders have.

If you are buying a grinder for an espresso machine it is good to know that there are grinders that have a special mechanism of dispensing coffee directly into the portafilter - these are called doser grinders. You can of course use a doserless grinder for your espresso machine but some people prefer a grinder with a doser.

I am a big fan of hand crank coffee grinders. Grinding your coffee by hand just sets the right atmosphere for enjoying your cup of coffee. In addition, a good manual coffee will give you a better grind that most electric burr grinders.

The coffee does not heat up, there is no problem with static and the grinding is so quiet that you don't need to worry about grinding coffee even in the middle of the night.

Important thing about the hand coffee grinders is to get a good one. Some manual coffee grinders are sold more as a decorative item rather than a functional grinder. So how do you know which grinder is good? Well, I will try to give you some pointers:

• You should get a conical burr grinder (some manual grinders are using blades - you should avoid those).


• The burrs should be made of hardened steel.


• Be prepared to spend at least $50 on a manual coffee grinder. The cheaper models are usually just decorations


• Some good brands are Zassenhaus or Lodos.

So, what can a coffee grinder do for you? Well, it can completely transform your coffee drinking experience. Your coffee breaks will become much more of a pleasure.

People often don't grind coffee at home because they think that it is not worth the hassle. I am sometimes surprised by people spending a lot of money on high quality coffee beans only to have them pre-ground at the shop. The thing is: they would get a better cup of coffee using cheaper beans but grinding them at home just before brewing.

So, next time you have a cup of coffee make sure it is freshly ground!