Coffee drinkers around the world have turned to grinding their own coffee beans at home; they enjoy knowing they have the freshest possible cup of coffee ground from fresh coffee beans they purchase at their local grocer or coffee shop.
Grinding coffee beans in order to insure the freshness of the coffee requires the coffee drinker to purchase a coffee grinder.
Choosing a quality coffee grinder should not be done without understanding the different types available and choosing the one that is affordable and will do the job efficiently.
There are basically two types of home coffee grinders, the blade grinder and the burr grinder.
The blade grinder is the less expensive of the two models.
It is the type most often found in homes due to the cost of the burr grinder being much higher.
Blade grinders are simply sharp blades that rotate at high speeds to pulverize the coffee beans.
These types of grinders are most often controlled by the operator through a pulse mechanism.
The user presses and releases a button to turn the grinder off and on.
These grinders do an adequate job but are hard to manage as far as maintaining a consistent grind.
In addition, these types of grinders tend to heat up quickly and can burn the beans and leave a scorched taste if they are not used with control.
The pulses have to be short and rapid to crush the beans without causing this scorching taste.
The disadvantage to using a blade grinder is mainly the lack of consistency.
It is very hard to recreate the same grind more than one time.
This means that the same pot of coffee can't be brewed more than once.
On the other side of the coffee aisle is the burr grinder.
These grinders use rotating wheels to crush the coffee bean rather than cut it up like the blade grinder does.
These grinders produce very little heat and the coffee bean has little chance of becoming scorched.
The main advantage to the burr grinder is that most of them have settings that allow the user to specify the length of the grind.
This makes it possible to have consistency and always be able to recreate a pot of coffee based on the grind setting.
The biggest disadvantage to the burr grinder is the cost.
These are expensive to purchase and are typically found in coffee shops and on some of the upper end coffee makers that have built in grinders.
There are some models that although expensive are not out of reach for homeowners.
Those homeowners who do purchase a burr grinder find that they are more reliable than blade grinders in producing perfect grinds for their coffee.