
It's too coarse, so you put it through again, right? No! With a burr grinder, the preground coffee gets stuck inside the burrs, and you''ll have to do some disassembly to set them to rights again. PSA: Do not put preground coffee into a burr grinder. In cheap burr grinders, the burrs will typically get blunt from regular use, and the flimsier motors may burn out with regular use in a matter of months. The machinery in a high-quality burr grinder is a bit more complicated, and it's built to withstand greater wear and tear. There's a reason why they cost a little more than a budget burr grinder. If you can afford it, we highly recommend going with one of the burr grinders we've listed. See world barista champion James Hoffmann's video for some more blade grinder hacks.) (You can learn how to shake the beans to even your grind just a little. These grinders are cheap, and yes, using fresh beans in a blade grinder is far better than buying ground coffee. The result is an inconsistent, unpredictable brew.

Some of your coffee will be fine powder at the bottom, and at the top you'll have bits too large for even French press. This results in a more consistent grind, but for home brewers, conical-burr grinders are just as good-even if they require more maintenance and don’t result in consistent-down-to-the-micron-scale grounds.īlade grinders have a chopping blade that spins around like a food processor. The grinder action pushes the grounds out of one end, instead of relying on gravity like a conical-burr grinder, and the beans spend more time in contact with the burrs. In these, the burrs are laid on top of each other, and the beans pass through them as they grind. They deliver a finer, much more consistent grind than you’d get with a traditional blade grinder, even the nicest ones.įlat-burr grinders are similar, but they’re typically more expensive.

In a conical grinder, coffee beans are crushed and ground between two rings of burrs.

Our list consists mostly of conical-burr grinders.
