Turmeric Grinder Recommendations

June 22, 2018 4:01 PM

We have some dried turmeric roots that we would like to grind to a powder. Can anyone suggest a good electric grinder for doing this. Ideally it would be compact and useful for other grinding tasks as well - perhaps crushing almonds to a coarse power or grinding flour from sorghum . This is an appliance that would probably be used a few times per month.
posted by metadave to Home & Garden (6 answers total)

Best answer: Unless you can wash every bit of it, any grinder you use will turn everything else you grind in it bright yellow, once you've used it for turmeric. I occasionally add turmeric root to my juices and I have to bleach the juicer parts to get the colour out, even on the metal mesh of the centrifugal juicer basket. So I'd recommend a dedicated turmeric grinder.
posted by essexjan at 5:33 PM on June 22, 2018 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I have an El Cheapo bullet-style coffee grinder that I use for grinding up herbs. I think it's a Hamilton Beach, but what was important was that it cost about $20 and was available on Amazon Prime. It will absolutely turn things to dust if you let it, no sweat. I've never ground turmeric but I'm not seeing anything online saying that it's particularly tough. You'd want to chop it up before feeding it to the grinder, but that's normal. I wouldn't worry too hard about buying The Best Grinder, even the cheap ones seem to work great.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 6:04 PM on June 22, 2018 [2 favorites]

Best answer: I have to grind up some turmeric today and intend to use a coffee grinder I bought specifically for grinding spices. I'll let you know how it goes.

(But I use a food processor for grinding almonds).
posted by bunderful at 5:16 AM on June 23, 2018

Response by poster: Thanks to everyone. All these answers are helpful.

@bunderful, after reading @Anticipation...'s suggestion, I got out a coffee grinder and tried it out on some turmeric. At first it didn't work - the grinder just knocked the turmeric around. Afterwards I happened to watch this video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cuiw8jqIRxA which suggested "roasting" the turmeric in the microwave for two minutes first. I had less turmeric than the video demo so I gave it only 1 minute in the microwave but afterwards the coffee grinder ground it up nicely.

@essexjan is correct about the powder turning things yellow - be careful when you open the coffee grinder.
posted by metadave at 9:24 AM on June 23, 2018 [1 favorite]

Just a warning. I've used a coffee grinder for spices, and it will eventually break and break horribly. Mine ground one of the internal metal cogs into some expensive mushrooms so finely that the entire batch was wasted.

I'd love to get my hands on an Indian "mixie" to see if it works better for that purpose.
posted by liminal_shadows at 9:50 AM on June 23, 2018

I use a 10'' ceramic mortar and pestle for all sorts of grinding and smashing tasks. It isn't that laborious, really, and since my electricity comes from solar panels I think twice about acquiring and using electrical kitchen appliances.
posted by Agave at 7:18 PM on June 23, 2018