Posts Tagged ‘coffee grinder’

Communicating Grind Size

Tuesday, May 4th, 2010

One of the biggest problems when describing a brewing method is getting across what size of ground coffee to use. The trouble is that each grind setting on a coffee grinder will produce a range of sizes rather than one exact size.

How coffee grinders work

The reason we get a range of sizes from a grinder, is that grinders use a crushing action to break the bean into smaller pieces. On a conical burr grinder, there are two discs: a female cylindrical disc and a male dome shaped disc. Each disc has ridges (know as teeth) running across its surface, and it’s these ridges which crush the bean. Obviously crushing isn’t an exact science. Irregular sized pieces break off from the bean each time it’s crushed between the grinder’s teeth.

If you look at the cross section below of a burr grinder: the bean enters at the top and as it progresses down, the gap narrows between the two discs, breaking the bean into smaller and smaller pieces. The ground coffee cannot escape from between the grinding discs until it’s small enough to fit through the gap at the bottom (indicated by the two red arrows).
Burr grinder cross section
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3 Ways to Improve Your Coffee for Less Than £20

Friday, January 29th, 2010

1. Grinder

Simple coffee grinder

A simple hand grinder can make a big differance

The key to great coffee is freshness and unfortunately pre-ground coffee just isn’t that fresh. Air is the world’s greatest thief and given its chance it steals valuable flavour from coffee. If you can smell coffee in the air, then you’re losing flavour from the cup.
 
Of course some loss is inevitable; there’s no stopping air. But you can minimize the affect by reducing coffees contact with the air. Whole beans are much better protected than grounds as they have a much smaller surface area. While whole, air only has contact with the outside of the bean. But once its ground into many tiny pieces air can penetrate nearly everywhere.
 
So if you grind just before you brew, you’re going to capture much more flavour in the cup. Now you don’t have to invest hundreds in a grinder to reap the results. A simple hand grinder (less than £20) is perfectly adequate for most brewing methods – filter, cafetiere, stove-top coffee maker. It’s only when you start brewing under substantial pressure (espresso) that you really need to invest more money.
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