Burr Grinder Vs Blade Grinder: Which One Makes Better Coffee?

If you’re a coffee lover and always in pursuit of newer things to enhance the flavour and aroma of your daily coffee, you’ve come to the right place. Today we’re going to talk about the most essential tool of your coffee-making process. No, not the coffee beans (though they indeed are important and play a significant role in the way your coffee tastes in the end). It’s the coffee grinder type, we’re discussing today. 

If you want to enjoy the authentic taste of coffee, then forget machine-makes; go for home-ground coffee. For this, you need to make the first crucial investment– the grinder. The two most common options today among the different types of coffee grinders are burr and blade grinders. So, burr grinder vs blade grinder; which one does the trick? Here, we compare the two to help you decide the best one for your morning coffee.

What is a Burr Coffee Grinder?

This is the most conventional type which has perhaps been in use since our grandparents’ time. It has two coarse surfaces known as burrs that revolve and grind beans by means of abrasion. Coffee beans are thrown in between the burrs, a few at a time, and get ground up pretty evenly. Grind and brew coffee makers often come with this type of a built-in grinder too, given the many upsides to using a burr grinder over a blade grinder.

Advantages of Using Burr Coffee Grinders

1. Uniform grinding – This is possibly the best advantage you can enjoy from this grinder. Be it black or milk based coffee, you get the true aroma only when the coffee powder is uniformly ground.
2. Adjustable with different brewing devices –The burr grinder enables grinding of coffee into different sizes which means that you can use it in several brewing devices to prepare your favorite brew.
3. Long-lasting – Coffee grinders are often expensive and hopefully you wouldn’t want to be spending over them repeatedly. It needs to be durable and sturdy. Since these grinders are made with burrs, they tend to remain sharp for several years. Having a burr grinder at your disposal, you never run out of aromatic morning coffees, mid-break brews and pre-workout caffeine doses.

Disadvantages of Using Burr Coffee Grinders

1. Limited availability –Burr grinder isn’t very commonly available in all supermarkets and kitchen retail outlets. As such, they end up being in limited demand too.
2. High on cost – While a simple design hand burr grinder may quickly be available at a starting price of $20, the electric ones might be slightly on the higher side.

What is a Blade Coffee Grinder?

These are the simpler designed grinders, and all of them are perhaps designed alike – with a double-pronged blade located at the bottom of a chamber. The blade spins very fast, quickly chopping up the beans as they touch it. A large number of blade grinders come with a single button. Press it, and it triggers the blade to start spinning.

Advantages of Coffee Blade Grinder

1. Ease of use – These grinders offer the maximum convenience. Just press the button, and you get freshly ground coffee in only a few seconds.
2. Easily available – They’re easy to find in almost every supermarket or kitchen retail outlet.
3. Easy on pocket – They’re super affordable too – you can find one in even less than $20!

Disadvantages of Coffee Grinder Blade

1. Non-uniformity – The coffee grinding doesn’t happen too consistently; your coffee beans may not be ground up uniformly and come chunky.
2. Low on durability – Blades tend to lose their effectiveness with time.
3. Produces heat – The grinder heats the coffee beans in the grinding process; this may end up in releasing some of the original flavors of the coffee grind.
4. Lack of control over grind size – Since there’s just one single button to start and stop grinding, the user doesn’t have much control over the size of the grind they may like for their brew.

Blade vs Burr Grinder Coffee

1. For a French Press – This particular method requires a medium-to-coarse grind if you want to enjoy a well-brewed cup. If it’s too finely ground, it might just slip through the mesh filter and all that’s left behind in the cup is a grainy residue. Blade grinders may just fine grind the beans since there’s no control over the grind size.
2. For a Pour-Over – The tools needed for a great cup of coffee – a filter, coffee mug, and some freshly ground beans! But it isn’t that simple because you need a great grinder. Here again, a burr grinder does its job well because you can control how much you want your beans ground, plus the beans don’t end up getting over extracted.
3. For a Moka Pot – How do you make the perfect Moka Pot? Just make sure that the beans are ground evenly. And which of the two grinders does that better? Undoubtedly, the burr one. It keeps the grind size consistently even, even preventing the unpleasant layer of slurry left behind at the cup’s bottom. The blade grinder, on the other hand, shows some uneven results.

Conclusion

? – for the uniformity and the control of grind size, a burr grinder turns out to be more resourceful over blade grinders. If price is not a concern, we’d recommend our readers to invest in a high-quality burr grinder.