About Grinding Coffee

How to Get the Best Results Grinding your own Coffee

So first of all, why grind coffee at all? The reason you're grinding the roasted coffee beans is to create more surface area to be hit by the hot water. While the uniformity of the grind is important, far more important is the fineness of the grinding, the choice of which will depend entirely on the brewing method to be used, some of which require a coarse grind and others which require a fine grind. Confuse the relationship between the type of grind and the type of brewing method and you will end up with a cup of coffee that is either far too weak or far too harsh.

Types of Coffee Making and Grinding

Turkish-brewed coffee requires a grind that could be considered pulverised into dust. A filter coffee machine will take a very fine grind. A mocha or espresso machine will use a fine grind that's a bit coarser. A French press or percolator will use a medium grind and a vacuum brewer will use a medium grind that has some coarseness.

For a pulverised grind to be used for Turkish or Arabic coffee, a manual method is best. A mortar and pestle will crush any coffee bean in powder. For other grinds, one of the four type of grinding machines can be used: a roller, a chopper or a burr-grinder.

Roller Grinding

In a roller-grinder, corrugated rollers crush a bean into a grind dependent on the separation of the rollers -- any fineness of grind can be created. however, these machines are large, expensive and intended mainly for commercial enterprises.

Chop Grinding

In a chopper, coffee beans are cut into smaller pieces by blades much like those in a blender. Because the blades spin at a high speed, much heat is generated by friction, volatile oils will boil off and the flavour of the resulting brewed coffee will be much reduced . Grinds from a chopper are perfect for drip brewing, but not for espresso or French Press brewing.

Burr Grinding

In a burr-grinder, two shaped pieces of metal grind the coffee bean between them. The metal pieces have rough surfaces and can be in the shape of either wheels, disks or cones. There are both electrical and manual models. The burr-grinder will make a grind suitable for any type of brewing except for the fine powder required for Turkish or Arabic coffee. Special manual burr-grinders, however, do exist that will create that fine Turkish grind.

Burr-grinders with conical heads rotate the most slowly of all the burr-grinders and therefore create the last heat from friction. So, for home grinding, a conical burr-grinder will work best to create the grind of coffee that you will need for whatever brewing method you choose to use.

For coarse grinds, use the pulse method by quickly turning the grinder on and off. For finer grinds, keep the grinder on as you count off seconds - with practise, you'll know how many seconds equals what type of grind.