How To Find A Really Good Coffee Grinder

The Search For An Affordable Quality Coffee Grinder

My Cuisinart DBM-8 Burr Mill Coffee Grinder is dying. It has produced very nice drip and french press coffee, and with a little help, espresso. The reason I say a little help is that you must run the coffee through the grinder as many as 5 times to achieve an acceptable espresso grind. I even tried to modify the grinder - with some success - it now only takes 2 passes to make espresso ground coffee. It now only runs when you press down on the bean hopper - the safety switches are somehow messed up, so it doesn't run unless you play around with it a lot. Sometimes I just take the second-pass ground coffee and run it through my old Braun push-button blade grinder just to get the job done. For this reason I am shopping for a replacement grinder for my dark roast coffee. I have got to find an excellent low-cost grinder for my coffee beans.

The quality and consistency of the coffee grind is critical to successful coffee preparation. See my blog post on the importance of grind in coffee making here. Although blade grinder may do the job, but for a more consistent grind, you need to use a burr mill grinder. This type of grinder runs slower than a blade type and heats up the coffee less as it grinds, retaining more of the coffee flavor.

There are a few common problems with the low-cost burr grinders:

• Because they are mostly plastic, the ground coffee builds up static in it and tends to spill everywhere


• The low-cost grinders range from around $50 to $200 - a lot more than the blade units


• The failure rate on some of these units seems to be fairly high - read the reviews people give for this info


• Quite a few of them don't produce a very uniform grind - which is why you are trying to buy this kind of grinder in the first place


• If you do find a really good one for the price - it always seems to be out of stock (I wonder why...)


• Finding one that does excellent french press and espresso grind is difficult, at best

In the last week I have discovered several possible replacements - and some really bad ones. In my next post, I will detail what my findings are, and what I am going to use as a new replacement grinder.

I hope this information helps you in your search for great coffee, and as always, may your next cup be the best!