Blade vs Burr Grinders
If you’ve been using a blade grinder on your coffee beans, you’ve been making one of the most common beginner coffee grinding mistakes.
It is an often-repeated mantra that it is better to grind your own beans, as opposed to purchasing pre-ground, as ground coffee loses up to 60% of its aroma within 15 minutes.
But, if you are using a blade grinder you may be better off purchasing pre-ground coffee.
Blade grinders use a high speed spinning blade to chop the beans apart, resulting in varying sized particles of the bean.
This could result in your coffee coming out either bitter or sour.
The high-speed blades also create friction, with the finer particles clogging up under the blade and heating up, these grounds and can give the coffee a burnt aftertaste.
The key to a good cup of coffee is consistency. By controlling the three key elements, the size of the grind, the temperature of the water, and the brewing time.
You can read more about the relationship between these elements, here.
That is why baristas around the world strongly recommend using burr grinders as part of your coffee preparations.
A burr grinder uses uniform pressure and rotation to ‘crush’ the beans, delivering a more consistent ground.