The Best Burr Coffee Grinders

While buying pre-ground coffee is convenient and makes a fine cup o’ Joe (if you store it properly), for a fresher, better, and bolder tasting cup, you’ll want to grind your own beans. With that in mind, we tested several top-rated grinders, putting them through the paces, going through many pounds of beans, and making over 20 pots of coffee to determine the pros and cons of each.

To keep things fair, we used the same brand and roast of beans, ground them for three different brewing methods — drip, Chemex, and French press — checked the grounds for uniform size and to make sure they matched the grinders coarseness setting, then brewed and sampled the coffee. These are our findings.

But first, let’s take a step back. When it comes to grinders, there are two types: blade grinders and burr grinders. We tested both. Similar to a food processor or a blender, a blade grinder looks like a small propeller that sits at the bottom of the grinding chamber. It slices or chops the beans into smaller and smaller pieces.

Burr grinders are essentially tiny mills used to grind beans between two revolving abrasive surfaces, called burrs. There are flat and conical burr grinders, where the burrs are made from various materials, and the distance between the surfaces changes the size of the grind. Your typical home burr grinder features conical burrs. And most coffee aficionados tend to recommend burr grinders over blade grinders as they give you more control over the coarseness and uniformity of the grind. We agree, thus our review focuses solely on burr grinders.