Choosing a burr grinder

August 9, 2008 10:59 AM

Do I need a conical burr grinder?

We use both a French press and a Mukka pot at home. We've been grinding our beans for the press at the grocery store or coffee shop and using a blade grinder for the Mukka, which needs a fine grind. I'd like to grind everything at home so want to get an inexpensive burr grinder. I know, from MeFi searches and elsewhere, that conical grinders are the best, but they're out of my price range for coffee accessories. Will a wheel grinder, like this or similarly priced Cuisinart models suffice? I'm not starting a coffee shop here but also don't want to deal with a ton of sludge at the bottom of my cup.

I know very similar questions have been asked before, so please don't 'previously' me unless there's already been talk on the cheap-but-good-enough front. Thanks.

posted by monkeymadness to food & drink (10 comments total)

Many of the recommendations (including mine) in this thread are inexpensive and produce excellent results. Have you looked at that already?
posted by odinsdream at 11:09 AM on August 9, 2008

Should be fine as you don't sound incredibly fussy. I replaced my blade grinder with a cuisineart and was really dissapointed as the grind was really coarse (would be OK for French Press and maybe the Mukka pot). I ended splashing out on a Rancillio Rocky and love it, but probably overkill for you (I'm a pure espresso head though)
posted by twistedonion at 11:13 AM on August 9, 2008

odinsdream: I did, yeah. I'll look again, but I got the impression the cheaper recommendations were restricted to coarse grinds and not espresso.

twistedonion: I actually like my stovetop grind espresso fine.

If I can get an inexpensive Burr for the press and use a blade for the Mukka then I guess that would be alright. I've just been borrowing a blade grinder since mine has gone toward spices. It just factors in more cost, since I'd need both.
posted by monkeymadness at 11:21 AM on August 9, 2008

tastes differ, but the french press is designed for a coarse grind... did you mean the burr grinder for the mukka pot?

looks like you can get mr coffee, the grinder for $25 at amazon... would probably be fine...
posted by geos at 12:19 PM on August 9, 2008

I had that exact grinder for about a year. (When the burrs wore out, I tossed it.) Worked great for french press. I didn't think it ground fine enough for espresso, but it worked OK - though that's what you're paying for in the higher-priced models; the more money you spend, the finer you can grind.

My path on this was that grinder, and then it wore out, and then I got a nicer Caprezzo (which ran about $150 - it was a gift). I'd stick with the $25 Mr. Coffee (I got mine at Target, btw) and save up for a nicer machine when that one wears out.
posted by mrg at 12:35 PM on August 9, 2008

geos: I meant burr for the coarse grind.

It's looking like the Mr. Coffee or a Cuisinart DMB for about the same price so far. Thanks for the advice, all.
posted by monkeymadness at 1:27 PM on August 9, 2008

Do you NEED a burr grinder? No, you certainly do not.

Will you notice a difference in the quality of your coffee by switching to one? Yes, without a doubt.

My advice is to buy a whirley-blade thing, and use it. If your cup of joe is meeting all of your desires, then great, congratulations. If you replace that thing with another one when the motor burns out, you should be able to go decades on the price of a relatively inexpensive burr grinder. If, after days/weeks/months, you decide you aren't getting the best out of your coffee, put aside a little each paycheck, and there you go. 150$ is only, what, a little over 12$ a month?

In my experience, for most people using the blade things, your freshly ground coffee will make you laugh at all the poor saps who still grind their coffee out a week (or more, gasp!) at a time in the store. Using a burr grinder will make you wonder why you didn't pony up the cash sooner. It is easily the single largest improvement in the end taste that you can make.

[Full disclosure: not only did I buy a set-up to home roast coffee, I gave it away and bought a much more expensive and sophisticated one. When I travel, I bring my hand coffee grinder, french press, and mug with me.]
posted by paisley henosis at 1:32 PM on August 9, 2008

Too slow!
posted by paisley henosis at 1:33 PM on August 9, 2008

Any grinder is better than no grinder (coffee starts to lose flavor rapidly the minute it's ground), but the big thing you get with a burr grinder is consistency in the grind.

Most of the good flavors in coffee are in the first 2/3 or so of the flavors you can extract -- all of the bitterness and fail is in the remainder.

If your grinder produces pieces of substantially varying size ("boulders and dust"), the littlest pieces will add bitterness to your brew (due to increased surface area causing increased extraction), and the biggest pieces won't contribute as much of the good flavors as they could.

My advice would be to get the grinder you can afford today, and save a little bit here and there for an upgrade down the road -- the difference between the whirly-blades and a good conical burr can be nearly as dramatic as the difference between pre-ground and freshground, or even robusta-in-a-can vs. a good arabica.

As far as recommendations for burr grinders, for me the Kitchenaid Pro-Line Burr Grinder (usually around $175 online) is an amazing grinder for anything but espresso -- I particularly like how fast it is to switch between grinds (between a press-pot grind and a drip grind, for instance). For an inexpensive whirly-blade in the meantime, I carry a Bodum C-Mill (about $20 online) in my travel kit, and it works just dandy despite a lot of abuse and banging around.
posted by nonliteral at 4:12 PM on August 9, 2008

I recently went from a blade to a burr and am never going back. There really is an appreciable difference even with my plain old cone filter drip machine. You just have better control of the end product and can fine-tune it as as need be. Of course my new grinder was a gift from a friend, so cost/benefit is hard to gauge, but I do like my coffee, and have already saved about some major cash in the past few weeks because I'm more likely to brew at home than I was before (presumably because I think the blade grinder was a limiting factor in getting really good results previously - but also because I like playing with my new burr grinder).
posted by drmarcj at 8:37 PM on August 9, 2008