Get Started 101 | Grinders

If you’re looking to improve your coffee game, a good coffee grinder will have great impact on your cup. We realize the subject of coffee grinders can be a bit overwhelming, so we’ve put together a quick overview as well as some more resources to help you get started.

There are two primary grinder types:

Blade grinders
Blade grinders are the most affordable option, ranging from $20-$40. The disadvantages of blade grinders are poor grind uniformity and poor control over grind size. Since they use a spinning blade to smash the beans into pieces, there will inevitably be a mix of both large and smaller particles. The particles that are too small will over-extract which makes the coffee taste bitter, while the larger pieces will under-extract which causes a sour taste. In addition, the only way to control grind size is by the amount of time you run the grinder, making it difficult to be consistent. That being said, if this is where you’re starting, that’s completely fine. We have used blade grinders before, and while this is debatable, we feel that this is still better than pre-ground coffee from a more expensive grinder.

Burr grinders
Burr grinders use a set of either flat or conical burrs to cut/crush the beans. These range from the $50’s all the way to thousands of dollars. A large portion of the cost in materials and engineering goes into achieving a uniform grind size. There are both electric and manual burr grinders. You can get more bang for your buck with a manual grinder if you don’t mind the physical work of grinding. There are multiple variations of burr grinders- conical vs flat, ceramic vs steel, step-wise vs step-less. At the beginning stage we wouldn’t get too caught up in these differences. For a deeper dive check out the link below. You can find a decent burr grinder for around $150. It is our opinion that after around the $500 price point, you get diminishing returns for your money.

No matter what you choose, if you are converting from pre-ground coffee beans, we bet that you will notice an improvement in your cup.

For more in-depth information on grinders check out this video by James Hoffman.