It’s easy to become fixated on the correct brewer for your coffee: do you want a Hario V-60 pour over cone, or a Chemex, or a French Press? Once you figure out which brewing device you want to use, however, it’s just as important that you get a good grinder.

 

Please do not use a flat blade grinder. These are the devices with a single chamber you pour your coffee into with a single spinning blade on the bottom. Typically, you load coffee into the grinder and then depress the plastic cap to grind the beans. You keep pushing the cap until the grounds seem the right size, and then pour them out to use them.

 

Unfortunately, this system of grinding leads to a few issues. The primary one is inconsistent grind size. The flat blade will grind your coffee unevenly, meaning you’ll get both very fine and coarse grounds. Those inconsistently sized grounds will lead to inconsistent brewing. When water saturates your coffee bed, the water will under-extract the flavor compounds from the large grounds, and over-extract flavor compounds from the small grounds. Those brewing defects lead to coffee that’s simultaneously thin and sour, while also tasting dense and bitter.

 

No matter how good your brewer, you can’t compensate for that bad grind. When you purchase a grinder, avoid the blade and get a burr grinder. Burr grinders create consistent grind size and don’t generate the same amount of heat as a blade grinder. Burr grinders come in a few designs—either conical burrs or flat blade, and with different materials like ceramic, stainless steel, or glass. There are pros and cons to each option, but as long as you stick with burrs, you’ll grind coffee worth drinking.