Coffee Grinder: Burr or Blade?
It is the question to ask when you are considering buying a coffee grinder. Most coffee drinkers are not that meticulous when it comes to brewing their cup of coffee. However, the number of coffee connoisseurs all over the world is steadily rising and that translates to more people preferring to grind their own coffee beans.
It is worthy to note that you must select fresh coffee beans to grind. As there is a great variety of coffee beans grown from all over the world, there is no right or wrong coffee beans as the choice is in accordance to your taste and preference. The choice that you have to make is the type of coffee grinder to buy. There are basically two types of grinders: the simple blade grinder and the more competent burr grinder. If you use a simple drip automatic coffee maker, then a blade grinder will do. However, if you use one of those French press coffee maker, you might want to consider a burr coffee grinder.
What’s a Blade Grinder?
Blade grinders are popular because they are easy to use, easy to clean and are cheap. The two blades revolve round and round the canister as it hacks, chips or chops the coffee beans. The “grinder” is not a real grinder in a sense. The result is a mixture of powder and coffee chunks in varying coarseness. This type of grinder would do for an automatic drip coffee maker. But for the vacuum, espresso and French press, this blade will not do. The blade coffee grinder would do too for percolators, that is if anyone, except for school cafeterias, does still use percolators.
The blade grinder should do just fine, in theory. There are settings to choose the type of coarseness you want for your beans: coarse, medium and fine. The settings are automatic and it should produce the promised coffee bean. However, the result is not as promised and there is the tendency to burn the coffee beans due to action of the blades. The burnt taste would likely be evident in your cup of coffee. If you continue to use your blade grinder for your French press, be ready to see a lot of sediments left in your mug: that is if you let your hot coffee settle first before drinking it. If not, you might have acquired the taste to chew on some bits of coffee beans.
Having inconsistent coffee grounds would make it difficult to brew as coarse grounds take longer to brew while finer grounds brew quickly. A great cup of coffee is achieved by even sized granules.
What’s a Burr Grinder?
The principle behind burr grinding is grinding beans between two metal wheels. In the flat burr type, the two metals lie on top of the other crushing the coffee beans between them. In the conical burr type, the metals are cone-shaped with a smaller cone inside a bigger cone.
The distance between the two burr metals can be controlled by the settings. The farther the burr metals are, the coarser the granules. The closer the metal burrs, the finer the granules. Burr coffee grinders are best for they “grind” coffee beans into an even and uniform size. Between a wheel and conical burr coffee grinder, a conical burr is better. A wheel burr grinds faster and therefore noisier. A conical burr coffee grinder operates slower and therefore quieter and less messy as the coffee beans are less likely to clog the machine. A burr coffee grinder gives you the option to choose the fineness or the coarseness of the beans you are using. It even opens up the option for you to get any type of coffee maker as you will not be limited to the size of the granules your coffee grinder produces. However conical burr coffee grinders are the most expensive of the lot. Considering the great cup of coffee you’d enjoy, the price will be worth it.