The quest for the right grinder begins

Peugeot Coffee Mill, $140

I started back in 2009 with a manual coffee mill from Peugeot, which had a phenomenal warranty of life on the burr-grinders. The coffee mill worked by putting whole roasted coffee beans in the top chamber and adjusting the fairly simple thumbwheel to the wanted grind size. The adjustment of the thumbwheel made it easy to adjust from fine to very coarse, according to the needs of the brewer and type of coffee.

Burr-grinder:
Burr coffee grinders are especially significant for keeping the flavor and aroma of the coffee beans intact. Burr mills differ from blade grinders in not producing as much heat from friction (This is especially important for coffee enthusiasts looking to get the most flavor from the freshly ground beans). 

The pros about this type of coffee grinder is that it will not heat the beans while grinding, leaving the coffee´s essential oils untouched. This would ensure more of the fresh ground flavor would be released in the brewing process. The manual coffee mills will also be non-elektric and therefore be unplugged, which will lead to opportunities for taking the grinder to your friends houses and being the cheapest way of grinding.

The cons about the coffee mill is, likewise its pros, that its driven by hand and for that reason extremely hard to grind for brewing that demands a very fine grind. I have because of this hand driven mill a lot of days where I would go miles around the espresso machine, because it was not worth the effort.

The function of this particular coffee mill is said from turkish to press pot, but in my experience I would not recommend this for any turkish or espresso brewing. The burr-type coffee mill is perfect for when grinding for press pot or filter coffee, but not for the espresso or turkish coffee if you seek flavors beyond pods. The coffee mill have a serious problem when setting it for a very fine grinding, not because it can't, but because the handle will be impossible to rotate. Sometimes I even tried used a wrench from the toolbox to adjust the coffee mill, which resulted in a good cup of coffee, but a broken mill after a couple of grinds. After returning the coffee mill at the shop multiple times, I concluded that I needed a automatic grinder which was able to grind fine enough for espresso and therefore the quest began.

Stay turned for next post about selecting the right coffee grinder for your need and how I found my way in the consumer jungle of coffee grinders.

// Hendrup