To flow, we must first turn it into a fine powder

January 3, 2022 8:07 AM

What is the best spice grinder available on the market right now?

We use a lot of whole spices at home, and for quite a while we've been getting by with a cheap blade-style coffee grinder to process them. However, after one more large batch cooking session where I've had to deal with chunks of unground spice that need to be sifted out, as well as fines getting thrown out of the grinder and making a mess, I think it's time for an upgrade.

So - where do we go from here? Are there spice grinders made with burrs like high-end coffee grinders? Should I just give our current (conical burr) coffee grinder a thorough cleaning and devote it to spices (and buy an upgrade for coffee)? What are my options here? I am not particularly interested in manual grinders or mortars for this application - like I said, we go through a lot of spices and I'd rather devote my patience to something else.

posted by backseatpilot to Food & Drink (16 answers total)

FWIW, you can get into some ridiculous money if you want the ULTIMATE grinder... The Mannkitchen Pepper Cannon. $199 USD.

If that's a bit too rich... There's Reluctant Trading's Anders Mill (for pepper or salt) , available in 2 sizes, with the "medium" at $60 and large at $80 depending on specific finish. They have other designs and finishes as well.

What's surprising is these are still manual mills.
posted by kschang at 8:16 AM on January 3, 2022

I bought this grinder specifically for spices at the beginning of the year (to replace a 20$ electric coffee grinder that I had been using) and have been very happy with it. Does a good job grinding and the little grinding cups have a plastic lid to use while grinding that keeps everything inside.
posted by Captain_Science at 8:18 AM on January 3, 2022

I went through this search last year so I am watching this thread with interest. For mixed up spice blends, he best thing i have found is re-using one of the glass ones with the plastic top ones that came from a grocery store with rock salt in it.

For peppercorns i've resigned myself to having several vintage of pepper grinders from e-bay dedicated to my various favorite peppercorns (black, white, tasmanian). My saved search is "made in italy c.c." because i found one grinder with that marking that was good.

I DO NOT recommend this highly rated cast iron grinder it utterly sucks for tons of reasons, but one if them is that you can't ever get all the ground spices out and it doesn't even grind that well.
posted by wowenthusiast at 8:23 AM on January 3, 2022

I love my pepper cannon, but am not sure it would be a good fit for your day to day spice grinder. It can be a pain to load up with pepper corns. It's not such a big deal since I only need to do it every once and a while. I would find it frustrating if I was filling it up several times a week. Or at least would need to come up with a better system.

Keeping it in the coffee grinder world. How's about upgrading to a burr grinder? Hario is well regarded entry level brand.
posted by phil at 8:40 AM on January 3, 2022

Never owned one myself, but this Cuisinart spice grinder appears on three different best-grinder lists and is the one carried by Williams-Sonoma, and being snooty about kitchen gear is kinda their raison d'etre.
posted by box at 8:50 AM on January 3, 2022

Response by poster: (I don't know if it matters, but this will be for more than just pepper. We don't grind our own cinnamon, but basically everything else goes in the grinder.)
posted by backseatpilot at 9:06 AM on January 3, 2022

I know James Hoffmann (coffee expert) uses a Hario Skerton manual coffee grinder as a pepper mill, presumably because he’s the kind of person who has spare coffee grinders around the place. So using your coffee grinder for spices might work? It’s an experiment I would be fascinated to try if I was spending someone else’s money to do it.
posted by Bloxworth Snout at 9:09 AM on January 3, 2022

The problem with using any kind of grinder for multiple spices is how to clean it between spices so as not to have residual flavors from one grind to the next. Like you, I sometimes use a repurposed blade-style coffee grinder, because it has a bowl that's easy to wipe (mostly) clean between grinds, but I'm not sure you can do that easily with a burr grinder.

So my solution is to use a big, heavy, stone mortar and pestle, which can be thoroughly cleaned between uses (building muscles in the process). Yes, it does not result in a perfectly consistent grind, leaving a few larger chunks that might not be desirable. But it is very satisfying to use, and in a way, provides a more authentic grind when it comes to traditional recipes from cultures where nobody ever heard of a blade or burr but the mortar and pestle was a permanent presence in the kitchen. Also, it lasts forever. And if you really don't want larger chunks, use a little sifter to eliminate them.
posted by beagle at 9:09 AM on January 3, 2022 [5 favorites]

The local Kitchen Kaboodle (like Williams-Sonoma but less bougie and much smaller) has a Kyocera coffee grinder and a Christopher Kimball grinder (can't link to them their web store doesn't create item links so I linked to the manufacturer page).
I usually go with whatever they have since they don't give shelf space to things that don't work and their prices are reasonable.
posted by fiercekitten at 9:18 AM on January 3, 2022

If you're doing at least a cup of spices at a time, you could always use a Vitamix with the 32 oz. dry container. Total overkill if this is all you're using it for, but once you own a Vitamix, I bet you'll find other ways to use it too.
posted by rjacobs at 10:29 AM on January 3, 2022

I'm into making my own curry powders and other spice blends, and I use two grinders for this. One is a mortar and pestle, which lets me smash stuff like garlic and hot peppers in with my spices when I want to do that. The other is an Epica coffee grinder. The Epica is great, and I wanted one where the cup was removable and thus easier to clean, and this has met my needs beautifully for years.
posted by bile and syntax at 10:45 AM on January 3, 2022 [1 favorite]

My trick is to take the cheap coffee grinder and add an insert that makes the grinding area about 1/3 its normal size. Just use the grinder's lid as a template to cut out a piece of scrap plastic, like a deli container or yogurt lid. Then drop in your spices, put the insert in and then the actual lid and you now have a turbo-charged grinder. I did this on a basic Krups model, but as long as there's a lip you can put an insert on that clears the blade mechanism it should work on other grinders too
posted by O9scar at 10:50 AM on January 3, 2022 [3 favorites]

I have a Zassenhaus for pepper and use either a mortar-pestle or coffee grinder for everything else. Coffee grinders were cleaned with stale bits of bread that cleaned it from physicsl bits and soaked up stray oils. I would then dump the bread bits into a bag for use later.

I would look at what is on offer for serious spice users who grind for curries and things like idlis. Here is a page for mixer-grinders that handle both wet and dry.
posted by jadepearl at 12:18 PM on January 3, 2022

I have the Christopher Kimball grinder linked above and honestly don’t love it. Were I in the market for another dedicated spice grinder I’d get something with a form factor like a blade coffee grinder—wide open bowl, easy to clean, grinding with the push of a button.
posted by Sublimity at 2:45 PM on January 3, 2022

Go to an Indian grocery, and buy whatever they're selling. If they have more than one, ask a couple of bystanders which one they use and then get the most popular.
posted by aramaic at 3:22 PM on January 3, 2022 [1 favorite]

I've never done research, but have gone through a few spice grinders, one of them like the Epica. So far, the Cuisinart linked above has been a good balance of doing its job well while minimizing mess.
posted by homesickness at 3:19 PM on January 5, 2022