Best Coffee Grinder

The coffee bean quality and its freshness can make an enormous difference to the taste of the coffee. So once you have found a coffee bean you love, being able to maximise its freshness is the next step. This is where your own grinder becomes an essential part of your home kitchen equipment. Yes, you can buy your coffee beans from a trusted source that freshly roasts them and will even grind them in front of your eyes, so you know they are as fresh as they can be.

Why is freshly ground Coffee better?

Grinding starts the freshness clock ticking and you only have a matter of days, hours or even minutes to get the absolute best freshness into your drink. Some expert baristas even go as far as saying you only have seconds to get the absolute optimum taste and freshness out of the coffee beans. Having your own grinder means that you can buy your freshly roasted coffee beans and grind them at home, as and when you make a coffee. This allows you can keep the freshness locked in for weeks rather than days and only release it when you are ready to brew a coffee.

What to look for in a Coffee Grinder

like with all things choosing the best grinder can be a bit of a minefield which can depend on many factors you haven’t even thought about including what type of coffee you want to be brewing. To help in this process we have researched and reviewed the top coffee grinders for espresso machines, filter, pour-over, plunger/French presses, etc and tried to break down what you need to look for when choosing a grinder that is right for your needs.

Manual or Electric Grinder?: This is not as simple as it sounds as for a certain type of coffee a manual does just as good a job, is cheaper and you can get a bit of exercise at the same time;-) I am thinking pour-over/plunger here (i.e. the none espresso type brewing methods). These do not require the fineness of grounds and as long as the manual grinder produces consistent grounds of the right size, it can work just as well. You can even grind manually for espresso but its espresso that benefits most from an electric burr grinder.

In summary with a manual, you do the work and you get fewer options of grind size but they can be cheaper, with electronic the machine does the work, you get many more options but can be more expensive. Also, think about how many cups you are going to produce on a daily basis.

Burr or Blade:  This is an easy one, burr all the way, blade grinders do still work to some extent but they work more like a blender and the results can be more inconsistent. Burr grinders work more like your average pepper mills and will take you coffee brewing to the next level. Yes, burr grinder can be a little more expensive but not usually by much and will be worth the investment.

Grind settings:  All grinders come with several grind settings which allow you to set the coarseness of the coffee ground produced. Each coffee type requires a different ground setting so you need a grinder that has a setting for your preferred coffee. For example, cold brew requires a very coarse grind setting, plunger not quite as coarse, espresso fine right up to Turkish which requires an extra-fine ground.

Coffee Grind Size chart
Grind Setting	Description	Brew Methods used
Very Coarse	Still all broken up but contains large particles. Think kosher sea salt but slightly larger.	Cold-brew
Coarse	Contains distinct particles, much like kosher sea salt.	Plunger, French Press
Medium Coarse	Gritty like coarse sand/ table salt	Percolators, automatic coffee makers
Medium	Feels slightly smooth in the hand, slightly smaller particles than table salt.	Filter, Pour Over
Fine	Smooth white sandy beach, you can still feel individual grains but only just.	Espresso, AeroPress, Moka Pot
Very Fine	Cannot feel individual grains. Flour consistency.	Turkish coffee

Machine Footprint:  Obviously if you are limited for space on the kitchen the overall footprint of the grinder will need to be factored into your decision. also if you want your grinder to travel with you weight might be a factor too.

Build quality:  Depending on how much coffee you drink and how demanding you are of your grinder you may want to look for a long warranty to ensure it will meet your expectations. probably look for at least a year.

Best Manual Coffee Grinder

At the lower end of the price bracket, you can actually get better results from a good manual grinder than an electric one. For example, if you’re looking at a cheap or even expensive blade grinder/cutter you are probably better off going for a manual ceramic burr grinder. But it can be hard work at times especially if you are making a few cups every day so it does depend on what you are after. Maybe you could think of it as a bit of exercise.

Either way, a good quality manual grinder is the perfect starting point, especially for some of the coffee types that require a larger grind size (i.e. medium or larger), they can even do a good job of getting a fine ground but not in the same league as electric burr grinders at the upper end of the budget and as mentioned you will have to work for it.

Manual coffee grind size

Manual coffee grinders have fewer settings to play with, usually about 4: fine, medium, medium-coarse and coarse. But it will still allow you to experiment with your brewing so if you have never ground your own coffee before give it a try.

If you enjoy french press or percolator coffee one thing to try to get you started is purchase your usual beans in the whole form and try a larger more broken up grind size. It will be like a different drink, even with off the shelf coffee beans. I can remember my first experiment I could taste fresh floral/citrus flavors I had never tasted before.

Here are the example grinds i get with my manual grinder:

Best Electric Coffee Grinder

There are two reasons why you would want an electric grinder either to get the very best control and versatility of coffee grinding or you don’t want to it manually anymore, so I have tried to highlight the best available at both ends of the price scale without going into the crazy expensive price bracket.