Okay, we’re going to level with you. If you’ve been using a blade grinder for your coffee beans, you’ve been doing it wrong. Do NOT grind your coffee beans with a blade grinder. Doing so is WORSE than buying pre-ground coffee.
Yes, worse. Why?
First of all, the key to brewing a great cup of coffee is consistency, and if your grinds are not all the same size, some will be over extracted, some will be under extracted, and the result will be, well… a subpar coffee 😔
Why Blade Grinders Suck
Some guides say that vigorously shaking your grinder will help. Shake around all you want, you’re never going to get your grinds 100% consistent…
Aside from a clear lack of consistency, blade coffee grinders have another pitfall: they can only work by spinning extremely fast, which causes heat and friction. This heat and friction, as you guessed, is bad news. This means your coffee is already heating up so it won’t taste as fresh and the end result will be overcooked.
Now, compare all that nonsense to a burr grinder, which use uniform pressure and rotation to essentially ‘crush’ beans into a perfect consistency. They can achieve this at low speeds, meaning no added heat, and maintain a precise and consistent uniform grind.
Brewing for espresso? It’s even more critical that your grinds are uniform/consistent.
If you use something like a blade grinder, here’s what is likely to happen, and don’t say we didn’t warn you:
To Summarize…
- Choose a conical burr grinder, not a blade grinder. We may be biased but we recommend our burr grinder 😁
- Blade grinders are terrible at achieving uniform grounds. Uniform grounds make coffee extraction easy.