The Best Coffee Grinder
A cup of coffee is one of life’s simple joys, and the best brews start with fresh, flavorful beans. That’s where a coffee grinder comes in. While it’s convenient to buy pre-ground coffee, whole beans retain flavor longer and milling your favorite roasts through a grinder just before brewing guarantees the boldest, brightest cups. But not all grinders are created equally. The best ones feature settings that make it easier to achieve the right particle size for different brewing methods, from a straightforward French press to high-tech espresso machines — and most importantly, they produce those grinds consistently.
“The reason that’s important is that the second hot water hits your coffee grounds, it begins extracting the coffee,” says Casey Wojtalewicz, co-founder of Los Angeles-based Canyon Coffee. “If your grind sizes are all different sizes, you’re going to have small, fine pieces extracting water way faster than large pieces.” This uneven extraction can result in a muddy, bitter cup of coffee, Wojtalewicz explains, and in the case of espresso, it hinders a clean shot, since the pressurized water will pass through the coarse particles faster than the fine ones.
Through research, expert consultation, and personal experience, we’ve learned that electric burr grinders — like our top pick, the Baratza Encore — are best for consistency and control, since they uniformly crush beans rather than blend them. However, there are also good blade and manual models that will save you money and space.
It’s all in the beans. Nothing will improve your morning coffee, such as turning whole beans that you grind before grinding. It doesn’t matter if you drink with a multi-thousand dollar liquid cold Quantum AI-powered espresso machine or a 20 20 Mr. Coffee – changing whole beans will completely change your coffee drinking experience. Will
Best for Most People
Oxo Conical Burr Grinder
Oxo’s Brew grinder has a good balance of features, usefulness, and relatively low price among the electric grinders we’ve used. It’s a conical burr grinder, so it gives you the precision for most types of brewing. There are 15 settings, covering every brewing scenario from finely ground espresso to coarse-ground that’s perfect for a French press. Its slim, narrow profile doesn’t hog counter space—though it is 16 inches tall and maybe a tight fit under the cabinets (remember, you have to have space to take the lid off and pour in beans). It’s not silent by any means, but it’s not too loud, and it grinds quickly.
We’ve used this grinder daily for more than a year, and it’s holding up well.
Our Absolute Favorite
Breville Smart Grinder Pro
We have killed quite a few burr grinders in our day. They can be hard to keep clean, hard to maintain, and most of the ones you’ll find under $100 aren’t going to live very long no matter how well you look after them. The motors burn out, the burrs get worn down, and coffee dust builds up in places you can’t get to—being a burr grinder is a hard life.
The Breville Smart Grinder Pro is one of the best I’ve used. It has all kinds of helpful features like a grind timer and adjustable dose control, and attachments that let you settle a portafilter
right under the spout where the grounds come out. The standout feature for me is its cleanability. You can easily disassemble the hopper, get access to the burrs, and pull out the spill tray under the spout—it’s amazing for keeping a burr grinder in working order.
Baratza Encore Burr Grinder
There’s a good reason the Baratza Encore’s been unchanged on the market for over a decade. While coffee culture can often seem elitist and uninviting, this conical burr grinder is more accessible and less expensive than most quality grinders. There are 40 settings, from a fine grind for espresso all the way to a coarse grind for French press. However, if drip coffee is your life’s blood like it is mine, you’ll want to stick with a medium setting of around 20. It’s simple to operate, features an automatic shutoff timer, and doesn’t hog counter space (it’s about 14 inches tall, so check the specs against your kitchen).
The Baratza Encore is also easily cleanable and repairable. No tools are required to take the machine apart, and replacement parts are easy to obtain. Plus, there’s a one-year limited warranty.
KitchenAid Conical Burr Coffee Grinder
I appreciate how easily disassembled the KitchenAid Burr Grinder is. When you’re using a burr grinder for a while, you’ll eventually have to clean your burrs to keep it going, and getting to those burrs can be a pain. The KitchenAid grinder makes it super easy, you just twist off the hopper and the burrs are right there. That’s also true of some of our other favorites on this list, but this one’s burrs are just a bit more accessible thanks to their placement directly beneath the hopper.
The KitchenAid Grinder also features precise dose control, a dial controlling the consistency of the grind (with helpful guidelines for different kinds of coffee preparation), and you can swap the little container that catches the grounds with a holder for a portafilter makes which makes it super easy to grind exactly how much you need and not a single bean more.
Fellow Ode Brew Grinder
Most burr grinders (including our top pick on this list) are conical burr grinders. That means the burrs that grind the coffee are set up in kind of a cone configuration, and the coffee beans fall into the burrs to get ground, while gravity takes care of the rest — dropping the grounds into the waiting portafilter or cup. Flat-burr grinders are what you’re likely to see in your local coffee shop. They’re more consistent and keep themselves clean better, but they’re usually very expensive. (You can read more about them at the end of this guide.)
The Ode Brew Grinder, even though it only grinds coffee coarse enough for pour-over, drip, or French press brewing, is a really great grinder. It’s also nice to look at and built from solid metal, like a tank. The Ode thoroughly, speedily, and (relatively) quietly grinds your coffee beans. We recommend it if you’re looking to raise your coffee game at home but aren’t interested in making espresso.
