Best Coffee Grinders Review

You like the line at your favorite coffee shop? Ok, besides the cute barista, you can do better: start by grinding your own beans, then check back with Gear Patrol for other suggestions for stepping up to the big leagues. The journey from coffee hack to ambrosia connoisseur begins with freshly ground java in your French press, drip, or espresso machine. A quick primer, and then on to our picks:

Best Coffee Grinders Review are distinguished by consistency, range of granularity, and low-temperature, low-noise operation. Your baseline grinder generates higher temperatures and coarser, irregular grinds — and sounds like a small war. Fineness of grind is essential to pulling an espresso shot that has the characteristic “crema” and extracts the full, distinguishing essential oils that set apart good java from dreck (read the sidebar below for more on this). Consistency is also critical for replicating quality coffee, shot to shot.

Avoid spinning blades that chop your beans — you want a conical burr grinder that crushes and pulverizes the coffee to the required fineness (coarser for French press, the finest moondust for Turkish coffee, with espresso a few settings less fine). Low speed trumps high speed, as high temperatures generated in the latter change the flavor and character of the resulting grind. If the machine has a strong enough motor to power through the beans, reduction gears are unnecessary — for a less powerful motor, gearing turns high RPM into low speed torque. $150 is a price point where the requisite specs come together to produce the fineness necessary, without tasting-spoiling temps. The exact cost and specs are up to you — but here are ten great places to start (and very possibly end) your search.