Cold brew coffee is an increasingly popular way to brew, and the delicate preparation for your cold brew which all starts with your ground coffee. Grinding beans fresh is vital for a vibrant taste in your cold brew. However, there are a lot of different grinders out there, so how do you find out which one is right for your coffee? We’ve broken it down and found the best cold brew coffee grinders.
This Bodum grinder is great for cold brew. It’s a blade grinder, so the grind of your coffee is determined by how long you run it for. This gives you more control over the consistency of your coffee, which is great for figuring out what ratio and grind is exactly right for your cold brew.
This device is small, compact, and stylish. It comes in at an affordable price too, so you’re getting great value.
The Chefman grinder can make up to 2.7 oz, more than enough for quite a few cups of cold brew. This is a burr grinder, which gives the benefit of an even consistency and more control over the texture. You can be sure you’re getting your coffee ground exactly right. It even features a detachable grinding disk so it’s easy to clean. This is a great choice if you’re looking for something high quality and drink a lot of cold brew.
This Mr. Coffee grinder is on the larger side for a grinder. It has the capacity for a lot of beans and to store everything after grinding. This is perfect if you like to brew up quite a lot of cold brew. The grinder can be adjusted to grind for different consistencies, so good news if you want hot coffee too. This is a great choice if you’re looking for something functional and simple for your cold brew.
A coffee grinder is only really as good as its blade or burrs, but a really high-quality burr or blade can get expensive. This is why a lot of people opt for hand grinders. While they’re harder work to operate, they enable you to save money on a high-quality product.
This grinder can be adjusted between 18 different settings, so you’re getting great control. It is made from brushed stainless steel for simple cleaning. This is a great choice for your cold brew coffee grinder if you don’t mind grinding by hand to make your coffee the best it can be.
This KitchenAid grinder is a stylish and functional machine. While compact in size, it can ground up to 12 cups worth of beans, more than enough for a day’s worth of cold brew. It also comes with stainless steel pots to easily measure and transfer the coffee. This makes clean up a much easier affair, great if you’re looking to make your fresh cold brew as quickly as possible.
This Krups grinder is a compact device but one with great functionality. It’s made from stainless steel and features a glass hopper on the top for your beans. You determine how fine the grind is by operating it for a longer or shorter period of time, so you can pulse as well as grind. While small, this is a great choice if you’re looking for simplicity in your cold brew coffee grinder.
This Krups Silent Vortex grinder deals with one of the biggest problems with grinding your own coffee; the noise. The sound of a grinder can cut right through you, especially when you’re preparing your first cup in the morning. This one uses a unique blade to keep things as quiet as possible. Outside of the volume, this is a great grinder with a lot of dishwasher safe parts. This is the grinder for you if you want the noise kept low while making your cold brew.
This is a burr grinder that uses stainless steel plates, which are significantly more durable. You can adjust your grind between 15 settings, and it turns at 450 RPM for the quickest grind without too much heat build-up. The grinder is stylishly designed with a glass hopper and container. If you want a functional grinder with great style, this is great for making your cold brew.
The Pinlo is a blade grinder with a scratch-resistant interior. The chamber can be removed for easy access and cleaning, making it much easier to get your coffee out. It also shuts off automatically before becoming too hot. If you want some of the hassle taken out of preparing your coffee then this is a great choice for your cold brew grinder.
This Ariete Conical Burr grinder is definitely one of the more feature-rich grinders. It is a burr grinder, so you’re getting great control and you can also alter the cup size. You can grind exactly the amount and consistency you need. This is a great grinder for your cold brew if you want those extra convenient features.
This Redmond grinder has a removable hopper and pot, it even comes with a free brush for the blade to make it simple to clean. On top of these extra features, it operates a fast and efficient blade. This is a great choice for your grinder if you want to avoid the hassles of cleaning up after your cold brew.
This Silex grinder can make a lot of coffee for your cold brew really quickly. The grinder uses a retractable cord and is pretty compact, so you don’t have to worry about adding yet another huge appliance to your kitchen counter. This is a particularly durable grinder, with a strong stainless steel blade and a one-year warranty. If you’re looking for a blade grinder that is built to last, this is a great choice for you.
A coffee grinder is one of the most important parts of your set-up, no matter how you’re brewing. When it comes to cold brew though, it is vital.
Brewing cold brew is a lot about adjusting everything. The grind, the beans, the ratio, and even the temperature need changing until you get it exactly how you like it. A lot of this is wasted if you’re not using a decent grinder.
A grinder takes your beans, and it mashes them up in tiny pieces. This sounds simple, but performance and quality here are really important for the taste of your cold brew. A high-quality grinder is needed to get your coffee to the exact right consistency.
Even in grinds of the same consistency, the quality of your equipment will have an impact on the final taste of your cold brew. Heat is a big factor. Your beans will heat up as they are ground, from the heat of the grinder, static from the beans vibrating against each other, and the actual grinding.
Heat affects the final taste of your coffee by removing the oils and flavors that have built up in the roasting process. Ideally, you should find a grinder that minimizes these effects.
All of these factors are going to alter the taste before you even finish grinding your coffee. So, there is a lot going on in the simple act of grinding up coffee beans.
The main two types of grinders are blade grinders and burr grinders. A blade grinder is a sharp metal blade that spins around, slicing up the beans inside until they’re the right consistency. A burr grinder has two cone-shaped burrs, which are plates positioned close together with sharp ridges. The coffee is ground and smashed up between these ridges.
One grinder cuts coffee beans up and the other crushes them between two plates. However, there are pros and cons to each brew method.
A burr grinder doesn’t transfer nearly as much heat and gives a more consistent grind. A blade grinder spins its blade until you stop it. This can result in unevenly ground coffee depending on which parts of your ground coffee the blade has hit the most.
A well-designed blade grinder can give a consistent grind, but it is a bit more difficult than with a burr grinder. You should keep this in mind when you’re looking for the right grinder for your cold brew, burr grinders make it easier to get your grind just right.
High and low-speed grinders can be a bit deceiving if you’re new to making cold brew coffee. It might seem like high speed is better, since it is faster. This isn’t really the case. It is more like cooking food, often taking your time with your cold brew will pay off with a higher quality end product.
A high-speed grinder is going to generate way more heat, allowing your coffee’s taste to degenerate. A speed grinder is a significantly better way to grind your cold brew coffee since it keeps most of the oils and flavors from roasting intact.
Both burr and blade grinders can run at a high speed, so always look for a lower speed grinder.
Cleaning a coffee grinder can be quite a daunting task. However, if you approach it properly it can be done quite easily.
To clean a blade grinder, you should first remove any coffee and ensure it is disconnected from the power supply. Remove and clean any elements of the grinder which can be cleaned separately. The oil from your beans can become a bit of a problem over time. To properly remove this, you can blend a batch of plain rice. This will absorb the oils that are loitering in your grinder. The blade itself should be cleaned with a soft brush and lightly scrubbed.
For a burr grinder, you can use the same system for cleaning the removable parts like the hopper. The burrs themselves are a little trickier. The simplest way is to run a specific burr cleaning pellet through them. A soft brush can be used to clean any coffee or oils stuck inside of the burrs if you don’t have cleaning pellets.
Coffee grinders are really important for how well your cold brew turns out but their function is actually quite simple.
A blade grinder spins a sharp blade quickly. This knocks into the beans and slices them into the smaller pieces you need to actually make coffee. This method controls the consistency of your coffee by running the blade for a different length of time. More time slicing up beans will make the end product smaller.
A burr grinder is two conical burrs. These are ridged gears that turn. The beans drop into the space between these two rigged plates, which move and grind up the beans. This forces all of the beans to be crushed in the same way, giving a consistent grind.
On the surface, a grinder might not feel like the most important thing in making your cold brew. After all, most beans are sold pre-ground, so how vital can a grinder be?
A grinder is actually the most important part of your coffee set-up. The freshness of your coffee beans contributes a lot to their taste. The most high-end coffee machine can’t make a good cup out of badly ground coffee. Coffee begins to lose its flavor after it is ground. The taste degrades, nuances are lost, and it becomes more bitter.
Buying pre-ground beans give you stale coffee the majority of the time. Grinding your beans fresh avoids this. It isn’t just about grinding though, the quality of your grind is vital too. Coffee that is incorrectly ground makes for subpar coffee in any machine. This is particularly true in cold brew, where you need a specific and consistent grind if you want the best coffee every time.
This makes your coffee grinder the most important piece of gear when you’re making cold brew coffee. Even the best equipment and beans are ruined by a bad grind. So, finding the right one for your cold brew is important.