If you’re not careful, you can break your expensive burr grinder.

Rocks are very dense compared to a coffee bean. When the grinder tries to crush a rock, there is resistance and incredible pressure. This unexpected stress in your grinder can wreak havoc on the surrounding parts.

Some coffee grinders are designed to offload pressure on a user-serviceable part that can break, others will shift the alignment, and cheap grinders may damage beyond repair.

Protect your Grinder

My solution is to pre-weigh all my coffee beans the day before. I do this step for two reasons:

  1. It simplifies morning steps to make coffee (dump and grind)
  2. I can do a quality check to avoid rocks using an easy process

How to: Use 3-5 of the same sized containers Put a container on your scale and tare (1 time) Scoop coffee using a clean hand or scooper (Don’t pour)

Why this works?

Rocks are denser than coffee beans so that they will settle on the bottom of your bag of coffee. If you scoop beans from the top of the bag, you lower the chances of a rock landing in your grinder.

You can also check the bottom of a clear container after you shake it for any rocks (I always use the same sized Rubbermaid containers for pre-weighed coffee so that I only need to tare once)

Broken Grinder?

Have you broken a grinder or broken a burr?

  • I broke my burr on a rock last year and was able to order a replacement burr. That’s one reason I love Baratza grinders.
  • I replaced my Bodum Bistro grinder, which was super dull and took 2 minutes to grind 56g of coffee. (The new burr grinds in less than 30 seconds)
  • One of my readers mentioned that replacing a burr wasn’t enough. The rock broke the alignment.

Be careful what you pour into your grinder.

Stay safe and talk soon,

-Paul

PS If you want to level up your Hario V60, check out my upcoming Hario V60 Course.