We have reviewed the best blade, burr, and manual coffee grinders you can buy. Many coffee experts insist that the most important thing for making good coffee is a good burr grinder. Grinding coffee yourself allows the full flavor of the coffee to be expressed because much of the aroma and taste lies in the essential oils of the bean. Even the best beans won’t brew evenly (or taste great) if they aren’t ground evenly.
Here, we’ve shortlisted a few of our favorite and best coffee grinders to ensure your beans are at their best. From hi-tech German design to staple kitchen names, traditional Kilner-style and portable best coffee grinders, we’ve put machine after machine through its paces and ground several cafetières worth of beans in the process.
Melitta Calibra Coffee Grinder
This grinder from German coffee specialist Melitta (it invented the first coffee filter back in 1908) is utterly brilliant. The main selling point – other than looking at the absolute business on your worktop – is that there is an integrated LCD weighing scale to make all your barista dreams come true and this scale makes it the best coffee grinder. Coffee geeks will enjoy that this weighs to the nearest gram, you then twist the dial to select one of the 39 settings between coarse, medium and fine grinds, tailoring your favourite blend to your requirements.
This is a conical stainless steel grinder that delivers consistent, quiet and accurate results every time, right down to the finest espresso grind. You can use the dials to select the number of cups you want to make or stick with manual selection to stop and start grinding yourself – this is ideal for when you’re grinding beans for an espresso maker or other coffee equipment. It’s easy to clean (the parts are dishwasher safe), holds a whopping 375g of beans and looks incredible. You can’t fail to love this best coffee grinder.
Krups GVX231 Coffee Grinder
This is a well-priced and best coffee grinder that appears smart on your worktop with sleek black lines and a brushed silver finish. It can grind up to 200g of beans directly and is fairly powerful at 110W, so only takes seconds to blitz through those beans – though it’s worth noting that it’s quite noisy compared to other machines.
Choose from a variety of grinds, from coarse to superfine, then select what percentage of cups worth you require: there are 17 settings, which ensure your coffee is consistently ground to your ideal consistency. Once the chosen amount is ground, the machine will switch itself off automatically or is often turned off manually which makes it the best coffee grinder.
The compartment the grounds collect into isn’t airtight, so you’ll get to use the coffee immediately or invest during a secure container to take care of that aromatic freshness if you propose to store it within the fridge for a couple of days. an excellent choice for coffee making newbies who want an efficient machine without dispensing three figures. The capacity would suit a few or an individual household.
De’Longhi KG49 Coffee Grinder
This is an “all-in-one” style and one of the best coffee grinders. With just one compartment for grinding and storing, it is more compact than the Krups grinder reviewed above (its closest counterpart in this roundup for style and price).
This machine features a sliding scale grind selector – from coarse to medium. Simply fill the container with beans – it takes 90g – and push to grind. The illuminated indicator will tell you when the beans have been ground to the level you like them. This is a swift process thanks to the durable stainless steel blades and 150W of power.
The container is transparent so you can see the grinding process yourself (it’s also fully removable for easy cleaning). The fact this all happens in one compartment means that the maximum aroma is preserved. The machine’s capacity makes up to 12 cups of coffee. A brilliant, budget-friendly option.
Kilner Coffee Grinder with storage jar
Kilner fans and traditionalists alike are going to be impressed with this sweet chrome steel manual grinder. The grinding part of this best coffee grinder attaches to a 500ml Kilner jar and twists backtrack when you’ve finished grinding. Plus, it’s a spare twist-seal and a two-piece lid to preserve all that freshly ground deliciousness.
It’s small but has enough storage capacity to suit a couple of coffee drinkers, making enough coffee per grind for several large cafetière’s worths. Alternatively, cram and store within the fridge where the freshly ground aromas will stay intact for each day or two because of the airtight design. The grinding mechanism felt a touch clunkier than others, but it still does the trick without much effort. It also offers adjustable grinds which are sweet for a multi-coffee drinking household.
Smeg CGF01 Coffee Grinder
Brand new from the prettiest purveyors of kitchen appliances, this Smeg coffee mill offers form and performance, with those signature rounded lines, chrome plating and trademark 1950s styling. It’s definitely not one to cover during a cupboard. The grinding is professional level because of a chrome steel conical burr mechanism, which may grind up to 12 cups of coffee in seconds.
Choose from 30 variations from fine, medium and coarse via an easy lever function. This best coffee grinder tackles the beans in a matter of seconds and is as quiet and smooth as the Melitta reviewed above, grinding straight into the removable storage pot. A gorgeous piece of kit that Smeg devotees will clamour to feature in their collection (there are various accompanying coffee products within the range too).
Dualit Burr Coffee Grinder
Dualit’s best coffee grinder provides an honest in-between option for anyone who would really like a mechanical grinder for ease and volume but would rather not enter triple-figure prices. This is often a sensible little item that comes with a conical burr grinder for professional grinding performance. The key thing about this particular machine is that it spins more slowly than the others we tried. This is often noticeable in how quiet it does the work but doesn’t make the grinding process anymore.
“The slower grinding minimizes any clogging (not something we encountered with any of the grinders we tested but apparently can happen with particularly oily or flavoured beans) and produces less heat”.
Dualit
This machine is super simple to use: select the fineness of your grind by pointing an arrow on the bean hopper to the relevant setting on the body of the machine, then either select your number of cups using the dial on the side or press and go yourself. Easy. We like.
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