topics coffee information

Proctor Silex E160BY Fresh Grind Coffee Grinder

First, Yes... it is small. I use a French press and make enough coffee for two cups. This is perfect and then some. If you want a grinder that is for much larger pots, then this is not the right grinder for you.

ALSO, if you are retarded, then you won't quite understand why the lid is circular with one flat section. That will particularly be the case if you bought this thinking you were going to grind coffee adequate for a 10 cup pot.

So why is this a 5 star coffee grinder?

BECAUSE of the design. If you are using this for small pots of coffee, then you will realize that the flat portion allows for you to set the grounds down. It also makes POURING the grinds easier somehow. I have a grinder with a flat top and the grounds don't quite fall out as nicely as they do out of this rounded top. I think it has to do with how coffee grains fill into corners.

ALSO, the windy cord thing, though a it takes a bit of getting use to, is a wonderful feature for storage.

The last reason I would recommend this has to do with my favorite technique for getting all the grounds out into the lid. I usually turn the grinder upside down and hit the grinder 1 more time so that the grinding/wind moves all the grounds from the grinder into the lid. I tried this with a more typically designed grinder and had far more grounds stay in the grinder.

Highly recommended for coffee or cinnamon sticks. I have had mine for over 5 years and it is still kicking.

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Krups 203 Electric Coffee and Spice Grinder

There are two things I take very seriously in this life: one is books, the other is coffee (not surprisingly, the often go together). While the bulk of my reviews are children's books, I felt it necessary to go against type and review this coffee grinder. Most coffee experts as well as everyday, casual drinkers agree that the best tasting coffee is brewed with freshly ground beans. Once beans are ground, they begin to oxidize, much like an opened bottle of wine. Old preground coffee has a tendency to taste bitter, and with the proliferation of inexpensive grinders, more and more people are buying whole bean coffee to grind right before they brew. Of course, finding the RIGHT grinder for the price is the tough part. Grinders exist in every form and size and expense bracket. Quite a lot of round, domed grinders I've used have unsharpened blades on a mount that is too high to really grind beans fine enough for specialty coffee like espresso or Turkish. The Krups has a few advantages over other grinders, namely these: ** The blades are sharp and mounted low in the housing. Maybe other manufactures are saving a few pennies by putting flat tongues of metal in their grinders, but they don't have the edge to pulverize beans like the Krups can. ** The machine has a higher RPM than other machines. This makes it easier to reduce grind times and with additional speed, can reduce whole beans to powder in less than a minute (I've had a Black n' Decker that couldn't grind beans for Turkish coffee if you held the button for half an hour). ** the housing is oval and the lid is flat. I'm not an engineer or physicist, but I think the flat lid and oval shape allow the beans to fall back towards the blades for further grinding (again, my Black n' Decker allowed the beans to spin around the lid in a whirlpool pattern that was pretty to look at, but pointless for actually reducing the grounds to the small particles I wanted). ** it has a large capacity. Do you like strong coffee?? Use more grounds, then!! The box says that you can grind up to 20 cups of java at a time. I don't know about the sorts of demitasses they must be using to gauge the volume of a "cup", but I do know that this machine can grind up enough beans for a number of very stiff MUGS of coffee. In the disadvantages column, the only one I could site is that the housing cup is slanted down, I'm assuming for decorative purposes. Hence, I'm forever spilling beans out of the lower side. My new secret is to measure the beans out in the LID, first, then turn the whole thing upside down and put the housing into the lid. Since I only use it to grind coffee (and while I drink my fair share, I don't have the thing running nonstop day and night), I can't speak with any aplomb about how sturdy a machine is or how long it lasts. I once dropped one after a year and broke it, but it seemed nowhere near quitting, so I can't vouch for how long it would work under normal, non-butterfingered conditions. My assumption is that anything with such a high RPM rate isn't intended to be kept running for long periods of time-- creates too much heat and friction-- so if you plan to grind coffee night and day, it's probably best that you spend the money on a professional model intended for cafes. All in all, a fine piece of workmanship and definitely worth the extra few dollars over many of the other, cheaper, more poorly-designed grinders on the market today.

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