Coffee and Espresso Grinders: Guide

Coffee bean grinders are a very important part of making a great cup of coffee or espresso.

In this article, we will discuss the differences between coffee and espresso grinders and help you decipher between what is and what is not important when looking for your next grinder.

Manual vs. Power coffee and espresso grinders

Manual is oftentimes fine for people who do not drink a lot of coffee or espresso. If you drink coffee daily or typically have multiple cups per day, you should definitely consider going with a powered unit for a faster and easier grinding process.

Are coffee grinders worth the money?

Cheaper grinders tend to have motors with less power. They make up for this by spinning the blade faster. This makes it hard to get a consistent result. Grinders that are able to make espresso are usually more expensive than those that can only grind coffee beans. The reason for this is that espresso must be ground to a much finer consistency. The smaller the grind is, the harder it is to make it consistent. Oftentimes grinders get around this by not allowing the user to grind fine enough for espresso.

What to look for when buying a coffee and espresso grinder

Build quality

Is build quality important to you? If this is a product that you may only use a couple times a month or you are okay with having to replace the grinder when it breaks, then a cheaper build quality would be sufficient. On the other hand, if you will use the grinder everyday and want to use it for years without worrying about breaking, then look for grinders with a better build quality. Items that companies often times will skimp on when building a lower end grinder is that they will use cheaper plastic instead of higher end plastic or metal. They will also make the burr out of a cheaper material (usually ceramic) whereas the nicer grinders will often be made out of metal.

Grind Size Control

There are typically two options when it comes to the type of grinder.

A blade grinder, which uses a blunt blade to smash the beans. This method makes it very hard to control the grind size.

A burr grinder has two disks in which you control the space between each cutting surface. You can either make the two burrs closer together or farther apart. The biggest difference is that with the burr grinder, it is a set grind size and once your coffee is ground to that size it will not be ground anymore.

Grind Uniformity

This will be a large deciding factor of the quality of your coffee or espresso. If your grinder cannot grind uniformly you will have some coffee that gives off more flavor because it is smaller, whereas some other coffee will not give the flavor you are looking for because it is too large.

Recommended Grinders

Check out my blog here to learn more about espresso machines.

Check out James Hoffmann here or on YouTube. He is very knowledgeable about espresso and has many videos on the topic.