A Burr Coffee Grinder Is As Good As The Experts Say

I try not to deny myself anything, but I never felt the need for a burr coffee grinder. I’m not sure why. The conventional wisdom is that coffee starts to go stale as soon as it’s ground, so if you buy ground coffee at the store, you’re already out of luck. Although it makes you wonder why so many people would go to the trouble to brew coffee fresh with stale grounds, it does seem reasonable that freshly ground coffee would taste better. And so it does. My trusty $20 Krups blade grinder gave me the freshly ground coffee advantage – for only $20! But they say burr grinders are better, for so many reasons …

So when I got one, the perfect gift (something I wouldn’t buy for myself), I got the opportunity to put it to the test. With the blade grinder, I’d measure the beans, dump them in and then hold the button down and count to 20 while the blade spun around and made a lot of ear-splitting noise. Any more than 20 seconds and the blade would heat up and scorch the coffee, so if the coffee looked like it was mostly too coarse, then 20 more seconds or so. What could be simpler?

Not having to count to 20, for starters. Measure the beans, dump them in and turn the dial to set the number of seconds. It grinds, shuts off and you’re done. Very handy, except the number of seconds doesn’t matter that much. The setting of the burr grinders on the dial somewhere on the range between Extra Fine, Fine, Medium and Coarse determines precisely what the size of the grounds will be. So if you use a French press or a vacuum pot, you can experiment until you learn how to make the grounds the perfect degree of Coarseness to keep anything finer from passing through and leaving sediment in your cup. Once you have it perfected, you can replicate the process every time. They are higher quality and more durable, too.

Affordability: 8                         Luxury: 8

Available from Amazon