What is the ultimate in coffee experience? We don’t know for sure but maybe coffee from freshly ground beans. Selecting your own coffee beans and grinding them into a dark brown powder. The smell alone would put a smile to your face. Let’s face it there are a lot of grinders out there that will do the job. However lets have a look at what features make the best coffee grinder.
How to do your own kitchen appliance reviews. Discover how to select the best coffee grinder with our coffee grinder reviews. Kitchen appliance reviews tend to only focus on one type or model. This buying guide shows you exactly what checkpoints to watch so you end up buying the Best Coffee Grinder America’s Test Kitchen for your needs!
Best Coffee Grinder America’s Test Kitchen 2023
Manual vs Electric
While there are wonderful electric models available, there are also some fine manual models which, while they do not hold or grind the quantities of the electric grinders, produce a wonderful bean coffee grind in reasonable amounts.
For the single person, a kitchen with limited counter space, or a person who does not drink a great deal of coffee, a quality manual coffee grinder is a viable option.
Blade vs. Burr
The burr coffee grinder versus the blade question is largely a matter of beans and roasting processes as well as quantity. For instance, the friction generated by the blades in a blade grinder heats the coffee beans enough to defeat a finely balanced roast.
Blade Grinder
The blade-type grinder uses a spinning blade to grind the beans. It slices the coffee beans and gives you a finer ground coffee depending on how long you let the grinder run. It works like your kitchen blender and does a good job. However, the beans, being irregular, produce a lot of heat that can ruin the coffee flavor.
Bur Grinder
Burr grinders come in two types – those with flat burrs and those with conical burrs. Flat burrs look a little like a stack of saucers, where conical burrs look like ice cream cones stacked inside one another. Both have cutting teeth to ‘mill’ the coffee beans. The fineness of the grind depends mostly on the area of burr the coffee has to pass over to reach the hopper.
Style and Decor
Coffee Grinders come in styles from a brushed metal shell appearance to a basic plastic base with plastic canisters.
Safety
It needs to be kid-safe so that little fingers cannot be hurt when they are exploring in places where they do not belong. Also, it should be impossible to hurt oneself with the device.
Retractable cord
Look for grinder with a retractable electrical cord or some kind of storage inside of it so that lengths of un-needed electrical cord can be neatly stored inside rather than lying about on the counter. Also enough cord length to move around the kitchen or countertop.
Operation
Does it operate quietly? What is the out-put consistency? The best gauge of quality for a grinder is the output consistency (after all, if it can’t do this correctly, who cares about anything else?).
Cleaning
The grinder itself should be easy to clean and easy to use without creating an extra mess in the kitchen when trying to empty the grounds into the coffee maker. Any washable parts should be simple to remove and dishwasher safe even on the bottom dishwasher shelf.
Multiple Blades and Speeds
Different types of coffee are ground different ways. A good coffee grinder should have the ability to make several different types. If your coffee grinder doesnt have multiple blades it should at least have multiple speeds or adjustments capable of controlling the consistency of your coffee.
Price
Coffee Connoisseurs are willing to pay up for a premium grinder. Value buyers seek the best price and basic features. Generally speaking, burr grinders are more expensive than blade grinders, but burr grinders are said to produce a better coffee grind.
Size
The size of your grinder will depend on your usage. Do you often brew coffee for many people? If so, you might use a unit with a larger capacity. Do you brew cappuccino or espresso often? This can determine how much you grind at one time.
Quiet
Once it is in use it should, ideally, be quiet. Do you need a relatively quiet coffee grinder to keep your hearing and your sanity intact. Nothing is more annoying than loud noises in the morning. A good coffee grinder should be quiet for a pleasant and less obtrusive experience.
Grind Settings
The best coffee grinders are so-called “stepless” grinders. They allow for an infinite number of coarseness modifications, allowing you to exactly dial in the best setting. A “stepped” bean coffee grinder has a coarseness adjuster that clicks into many positions, from large chunks to ultra fine.
Electric Timed Grinding
Once you’ve found the right grinds for your beans, you’ll want to regulate how much coffee you grind each time, so that your fresh-ground coffee won’t go to waste. Try to find a coffee grinder that offers a timed grinding period, within a few half seconds.
Hoppers
Your coffee grinder should have a hopper large enough to grind beans for a full pot in your coffee maker. The container (which is the hopper) should also be designed to allow ease of storage or use of the grind.
Extras
Rubber feet to help silence the machine by reducing vibration, a heavy duty motor to give that deep powerful sound rather than the high pitched whine so often associated with grinders.
Share Your Coffee Grinder Review
Ever accidentally ground up something other than coffee beans in your coffee grinder? Or bought a horribly noisy one? Or simply have the best coffee grinder we should know about? Let us know.. we’d love to hear about it.
We want to hear about your crazy, wacky, funny, interesting, useful stories, tips, ideas. Anything that you might have about coffee grinders would be so cool if you share it.