What's the difference between hand grinder and electric grinder? What brand do you recommend for the hand mill?

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For any manual or electric grinder, the most important thing is how to break the beans. For extraction, we need a uniform grinding size. The closer we get to the uniform, the better.

Inconsistent particle size can lead to insufficient or excessive extraction in the cup, so it can be ground as accurately as possible to make the extraction more uniform. This makes the whole cleaner and the taste more balanced.

Burr grinders are usually more accurate than blade grinders. When the blade cuts up the beans, the burr is crushed and ground. If you want to change the grinding size for different brewing methods, it is usually easy to adjust the grinder burr.

The hand mill always uses some kind of burr, while the electric mill can be a blade or burr. However, electric blade grinders are usually cheaper.

The main difference between the two is simple. No matter how much effort you put in, the electric mill will be able to grind faster than you.

What are the expectations of your opponent's mill?

Hand-ground coffee must suit your brewing process. If you know that you want to make coffee easily and conveniently, then the hand grinder is not for you.

However, if you want to be satisfied with the coffee "work", you can choose. There are other things to consider, too. For example, if your kitchen space is very limited, a manual grinder may be more suitable.

Others just like the style and aesthetics of the manual grinder. Christian Biernatek is the CEO of Kinu Grinders LLC. He said that a certain level of quality and care make high-quality hand mills different.

"customers should be able to see and feel our love, craftsmanship and quality of the grinder from the very beginning. We will work hard and pay attention to every detail of each grinder. "

Ryan Felbinger is the sales manager of Prima Coffee Equipment. He told me that a complete family espresso setting could be expensive. He added that it is not always easy to find an electric grinder that produces a consistent espresso grinder at a certain price.

"Home espresso is an expensive game. A good manual grinder can save you hundreds of dollars in advance without sacrificing any grinding quality. They are also one of the only ways to achieve perfect Turkish coffee grinding! "

But Ryan added that hand grinders are not for everyone. "if you grind more than 40 grams at a time (about two espresso cups), you may be happier to use an electric grinder.

"especially when you want to grind it down, it's a lot of work. As the grinding becomes rougher and rougher, the grinding on the arm becomes faster and easier, but it will still be tense after a minute or two. If you want to make a lot of coffee at a time, or drink a continuous cup of espresso, please do not use a manual grinder. "

It's one thing to brew perfectly at home. However, it is difficult to find a good cup of coffee during the journey.

Even if you can't find a good coffee shop, you can usually find mineral water with the right amount of magnesium and carbonate to make quality coffee in the supermarket.

Not only that, there are many brewing methods on the market that are so compact that you can take them with you when you travel-whether it's a mocha pot, a mini French press or an AeroPress.

But what really makes a good cup of coffee special when you travel is that you can grind the beans. Barb Garrott, co-owner of the Orphan Espresso manual grinder, said: "at first, our target market was coffee enthusiasts." Those who are thought to be coffee fans and coffee freaks. They are willing to seek the best equipment for their needs.

"however, with the development of the specialty coffee world, we see more and more people appreciate the mobility and simplicity of our grinders."

In recent years, there is a new trend of special coffee: "advanced" hand grinder. These not only provide alternatives that are simpler, cheaper or more mobile than existing electric grinders. Instead, they offer attention to detail and dedication to quality never seen before in the rival mill market.

Joe McTaggart is the service operations manager for Comandante. He told me that Comandante's grinder is designed to meet the needs of coffee professionals. When the company was founded, Bernd and Raphael Braune were already widely respected in the coffee industry. They find themselves sampling and evaluating fresh beans when they travel, but it is often difficult to find a "professional" bean grinder that can work under such circumstances.

Joe told me that this inspired them to create a hand grinder that could replicate the ruggedness of previous use while still being packed in a suitcase.

"We keep this approach in mind when studying, developing and selecting the material, geometry and finish of the Nitro Blade burr kit," he said.

"in our lab, we analyzed the mass and particle distribution of cups side by side to produce burr sets that maximize performance and grinding consistency."

Barb told me that Orphan Espresso's hand bean grinder was born out of acquired knowledge. After learning how to repair damaged old grinders, they went from renovating old machines to creating their own product lines.

"We are starting to expand our inventory from providing repair parts to selling general coffee sets," Barb told me. " "this includes a series of old wooden box hand grinders that have been repaired (we have repaired more than 1000 of them), as well as many of the special coffee accessories we design and manufacture."