Good grinders are primarily defined by this one thing - good particle distribution.
When brittle beans are broken by two toothy burrs, your coffee is essentially busted up into an array of little pieces. Some will be smaller, some larger, but hopefully most of them will be about the same size.
What good grinders do best is ensuring that the spectrum of sizes isn’t too broad. There will inevitably be a few fines (small ones), a few boulders (big ones), but the vast majority of your grounds will be the grind size you were hoping for.
This matters because your water’s ability to penetrate your coffee beans on a cellular level is in direct correlation with how big each piece of ground up coffee is. Water will penetrate the small bits quicker, the large bits not so much, and if there’s a broad spectrum of shapes and sizes you’ll likely be left with an un-even extraction. The result? Your coffee likely won’t taste too good…
Here’s what we can do about that!
1️⃣ Grind finer.
If you have an average performing grinder, its performance will fall off a cliff as you grind more coarse. Keep it in the fine zone to get the best particle distribution it can give you.
2️⃣ Give a sieve-like tool a try.
Personally I own the Shimmy from Fellow Products to sieve out the inconsistent particles from a budget grinder. Sieves are designed for this very task, to remove the microfines from your ground coffee before you start to brew.
Read more about the Fellow Shimmy here.
3️⃣ Get a better grinder.
I was hesitant to say this, but I’d be remiss to not at least mention it. It’s a good option, but only if it’s feasible for you. Most burr grinders on the market today can grind coffee good enough to make tasty coffee - but they all have a ceiling. If you want to raise that ceiling, and upgrade might be in your future.
Don’t hesitate to send me a DM if you want to chat about an upgrade path for you!
