2

I'm researching the difference between premium manual grinders and cheap manual grinders. In simple language, what is the 'technology' that allows for consistent grounds on premium grinders that the cheaper ones lack?

Sridhar Ratnakumar
  • 164
  • 9
James Lee
  • 21
  • 1
  • Are we talking about all kinds of grinders or just burr grinders? – Stephie Apr 16 '21 at 14:38
  • I think you may have accidentally created a new account to suggest the edit. Feel free to reply if you want us to merge the accounts. – JJJ Apr 17 '21 at 11:46
  • To elaborate on Stephie's question, grinders marketed as coffee grinders are sold in three main variants: blade grinder, conical burr grinders, and flat burr grinders. Among these, all higher end variants are burr grinders (for good reason). Are you asking about why some burr grinders are more capable than others, or are you asking about why the cheapest coffee grinders (blade grinders) are inferior to burr grinders? – R Mac Apr 18 '21 at 17:21

2 Answers2

4

There are a number of differences in a premium grinder compared to an inexpensive one. Some affect their ability to produce more uniform grounds, and some affect other characteristics that people are willing to pay more for. The uniformity of the grounds is mainly affected by two things.

One is the burr construction, which Ram Pari's answer talks about. Inexpensive burrs can do more crushing than cutting, which produces more fines and odd size shards. Sharp, precision burrs with a good pattern and good materials cut the beans to a uniform size, with less production of fines and shattered scraps, and they stay sharp longer.

The other main factor is the mechanics of keeping the burrs in precise alignment, and a precise distance apart as determined by the setting. Uniform particle size relies on the burrs being perfectly concentric so the openings that let the grounds out are the same size all the way around. The burrs also can't change their separation distance as the amount of grounds between them changes. Inexpensive grinders have a lot of wobble, especially as the grind setting goes coarser.

When you crank the handle, you put a lot of sideways force on the rod that turns the movable burr. Coffee beans also act like wedges and try to push the burrs apart while they are being cut. Both effects try to push the moveable burr out of being concentric with the fixed burr, or try to tilt it.

An inexpensive grinder allows this to happen, so the movable burr wobbles. This puts the burrs closer together on one side and farther apart on the other, which lets finer grounds out of one side and coarser ones out of the other. A high quality grinder will have a very robust mechanism that allows the movable burr to rotate but not tilt or move out of concentricity. On some inexpensive grinders, the design of the adjustment mechanism is another weak area that allows play in the burr at coarser settings.

fixer1234
  • 772
  • 2
  • 19
2

The biggest "technology" that can affect a coffee grinder is the burr set (Aka the bit that actually grinds the coffee). With the burr set, there's a lot of factors like

  • The material of the burr set (Different types of Steel, Ceramic etc)
  • The pattern of the cutting teeth is usually specific to each burr set maker.
  • How fine/coarse you can adjust the grind size and the level of adjustability between these two points (stepless / stepped)

While these are the "main" factors, there are other secondary factors like the driving mechanism that makes the actual burr set turn and even just how well the entire coffee grinder is built-in general (like the materials used and body).

Ram Pari
  • 86
  • 5