Freshly ground coffee will always give you the best, most flavorful brew. But how you grind the coffee before brewing it makes a big difference. For personal use, there are two types of commonly used home coffee grinder: the flat blade and the burr grinder.

The flat blade grinder is the most common design seen in the home environment because of its price and easy availability. Seen in department stores for as little as $20.00, these grinders work much like a food processor. A measured amount of coffee is put into the grinder and a flat metal blade powered by the high powered motor grinds the coffee. The longer you run the grinder, the finer the grind. The advantage of these grinders is all done to their price while their downside is that they deliver inconsistent results. The coffee is ground in small batches and you will end up with a wide mixture of fine and course ground beans in each batch.

A burr grinder will deliver consistent, finely ground coffee. These grinders work by forcing the beans between two parallel metal grinding disks or cones called a burr mill. The coffee beans are held in a storage receptacle inside the grinder and fed through the burr mill as they are ground. The fineness of the grind can be adjusted by reducing the gap between the burr mill disks. These grinders deliver a very fine, consistent grind. The downside is that they can get messy as they grind. Also the inexpensive burr grinders use a high speed motor causing the beans to heat up due to friction during grinding. This reduces their flavor. A burr mill that has a low speed motor or gear reduction system for low speed grinding will grind the beans with less friction during the grinding process.

Getting a great cup of coffee takes freshly ground beans and using a burr mill will deliver the higher quality grinds for your brewing pleasure every time.