Hannah explores whether a cheap coffee grinder is negatively affecting the cup of coffee you’re drinking and whether expensive burr grinders are actually worth it.
Buy Our Winning Burr Coffee Grinder:
Buy Our Best Buy Burr Coffee Grinder:
Buy Our Winning Blade Coffee Grinder:
Buy Our Winning Automatic Drip Coffee Maker:
Watch Our Full Burr Grinders Equipment Review:
Follow Hannah on Instagram:
Watch more Is it Bad?
Check out our What’s Eating Dan? series:
ABOUT US: Located in Boston’s Seaport District in the historic Innovation and Design Building, America’s Test Kitchen features 15,000 square feet of kitchen space including multiple photography and video studios. It is the home of Cook’s Illustrated magazine and Cook’s Country magazine and is the workday destination for more than 60 test cooks, editors, and cookware specialists. Our mission is to test recipes over and over again until we understand how and why they work and until we arrive at the best version.
If you like us, follow us:
31 Comments
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Do blade grinders make grinds small enough for espresso or bialetti express
The real test would have been to blind taste test burr, blade and pre-ground coffee
I've been using the blade grinder you've been recommending for years and I can't stand the fact that it always builds up one giant lump of overly finely ground coffee in the bottom of one side no matter how much I shake or pulse it which clogs up my filters, please recommend a new one
Any way you can do a blade vs ode burr grinder? I'm a little shocked by this because there definitely seems to be a flavor difference with the two grind qualities
April 2022, I bought the Krups blade grinder at Walmart for $19. It's been a good purchase & my 1st coffee grinder. I'm not a picky coffee drinker. I just wanted to up my coffee game just a bit.
0:05 Why are you not recognised as the greatest ventriloquist on the planet? Only kidding, thanks for the advice. Just ordered my first grinder: a cheap(ish) blade variety.
Interesting result. Consistency/repeatability favor the burr grinder. I own a burr grinder and appreciate the ability to change the settings based on the beans.
I was agonizing over buying a cheap Hamilton Beach coffee grinder and a spendy 1Zpresso. Saved me $150 dollars. Thank You!!!
Drip brew is more tolerant of variability – mostly anything will do.
With espresso machines you HAVE to use burr grinders to be able dial in the correct size geind to equal correct brew volume/time.
meh… it's all the same, the entire theory behind burr being better is from the internet and social media, it's worked it's tricks as it always does and has convinced people that unless they believe in the idea that burr tastes better they're somehow inferior human beings. Are there scientifically measurable differences? Sure, but you and I aren't machines.
Drip coffee is different than espresso. For espresso you must have a burr grinder
A blade grinder can be used for grinding other things and is easier to clean afterwards.
Using a blade grinder is like throwing darts blindfolded. Can you hit the bullseye? Yes, technically you *can*. Are you going to do it reliably? Not without a ton of practice and luck.
Everyone's got to start somewhere. Preground vs cheap krups grinder … still more control with a cheap krups. 😀
I got the Capresso Infinity Conical burr grinder cuz Test Kitchen had such great reviews on it. But the metal part of the burr on my grinder has gotten many spots of erosion on it and I am really disappointed that the metal can degrade like that after a year. I called their customer svs and they said the coffee beans' oil can do that. Wow……..
Those coffee elitists must hate, that a 10$ maschine is the same as their 300$ maschine.
Just look around any other youtube video, they will still defend the 300$ as "expensive, but if you want the
bestreasonable". Talking about self-dillusion here.There are some bad blade grinders. These are the ones that heat up so bad they cook the beans while grinding. Or have a huge gap under the blade causing over grinding to get all the chunks broke up.
This grinder grinds coffee but oh the mess. It takes the joy out of freshly ground coffee. Grounds everywhere. Should be used outside.
So the thought is that the cheapest coffee grinder is best. Not really, cheaper grinders use block burrs that produce high amounts of fine. And also sound like vacuums. Spending 100+ on a burr grinder would be sufficient.
Just a Fantastic video. I am amazed by the succinct yet informative style of this channel.
When blade grinders are compared to entry level burr grinders for methods where grind size isn’t as detrimental blade grinders tend to do somewhat better. But with espresso, where blade grinders are compared with higher end grinders then it’s obvious burr grinders evidently win
For me personally, freshly ground coffee is way better than pre ground. And burr grinders are better than blade, but specifically for French press. I have used a blade grinder for drip and espresso just fine. But I have had a very hard time using a blade grinder to get my grounds actually ground, but not so fine that I have a ton of crap at the bottom of my cup of French press coffee.
Well I mean hand grinders exist
Thanks for making this very useful video. This question is no different than: best wine, best audio speaker, best phone, best car, … It really boils down to how thick is your wallet. My gripe about burr grinder is that it is too expensive compared to the blade grinder. I can buy a blade grinder for $10, where as the burr grinder costs $100+. So, this is exactly what I was looking for.
Me, a man who can barely tell a dark from a blonde roast: ah yes I will buy a burr grinder because it will affect the extraction of the coffee and I'll totally be able to notice
Solid advice. I use a small manual burr grinder for my own coffee, but when I have people over, I’ll use my cheap blade grinder (I’ve never been able to tell the difference).
Coffee and tea geeks are the worst. Just how stupid someone needs to be to think that he is a better individual because he drinks some liquid "proper" way?
it's better to use a good coffee grinder over an expensive coffee maker. I know this for a fact, because my rancho silvia espresso machine needed service every ten or so years and I used my old espresso machine that is total crap when that happens, I've got it stored away nice and dry and clearn, but keep it just for when my good machine needs serving. even with my rancho rockey grinder, I made some really amazingly not bad coffee from a total peace of it machine. better then I did with my old grinder that I thought was good grinder but clearly no up to the task when it comes to a real espresso machine's needs to turn that coffee to gunpowder.
it's better to use a good coffee grinder over an expensive coffee maker. I know this for a fact, because my rancho silvia espresso machine needed service every ten or so years and I used my old espresso machine that is total crap when that happens, I've got it stored away nice and dry and clearn, but keep it just for when my good machine needs serving. even with my rancho rockey grinder, I made some really amazingly not bad coffee from a total peace of it machine. better then I did with my old grinder that I thought was good grinder but clearly no up to the task when it comes to a real espresso machine's needs to turn that coffee to gunpowder.
it's better to use a good coffee grinder over an expensive coffee maker. I know this for a fact, because my rancho silvia espresso machine needed service every ten or so years and I used my old espresso machine that is total crap when that happens, I've got it stored away nice and dry and clearn, but keep it just for when my good machine needs serving. even with my rancho rockey grinder, I made some really amazingly not bad coffee from a total peace of it machine. better then I did with my old grinder that I thought was good grinder but clearly no up to the task when it comes to a real espresso machine's needs to turn that coffee to gunpowder.
Your test can't be too conclusive. First, I'm sure your people who use the blade to grind the coffee know how to grind coffee for consistency. There's method to achieve this that requires the person who grinds to be attentive. Pulse, stop, shake, examine ground… So your result of the ground using the blade is probably not much different than the grounds going through the burr. But at home, for common folks, it's probably too much work to grind the coffee with the blade grinder that would achieve accuracy and consistency. So the burr grinder should be the way to go.