Grinding with a blade "grinder"?



A blade-grinder is great for making sugar into icing sugar, or chop nuts or spices such as fennel, cumin and coriander fine, but a "grinder"? No, it is not.

A blade-grinder is a  chopper,  a cutter; the action of the blades is a chopping motion, whirling through the air, cutting the beans, grain, nuts, seeds or spices in un-even little bits as they come into contact with the blades.

As the speed of the blades is so high, a lot of heat is generated.
Sometimes this can be so much that, if you are making icing sugar, the sugar actually melts in the bowl of the machine.
A grinder grinds, and by definition  one piece of the mechanism is unmovable, the other one is moving against it, and grinding the beans, spice, nuts or grain between them.

A good grinder also grinds at low speed, keeping the temperature of the ground food as low as possible.
Even flour mills can ruin the grain they are milling into flour: if the mill runs too fast the oils in the grain overheat and the flour will go "off".

The same thing happens with nuts and seeds if you make peanut butter or tahini: fast grinding causes the oils to heat up, and the end-product is a rancid tasting nut-butter.

Coffee beans too have oils which can overheat during  grinding...
and that means that the flavour and aroma which was contained in this volatile oil now has disappeared... and your coffee will taste bland.
However, with a bit of know-how, using a blade chopper for your coffee beans IS possible and as  a blade chopper is small, relatively cheap and easy to pack  it makes the ideal "grinder" to take along when you are travelling.

First,  you need to know what to buy:
  • if possible, buy a blade-grinder with variable speed or at least multi-speed.
  • make sure the chopping-bowl itself is no bigger than 1/2 cup
  • the blades preferably should have upturned ends
  • the chopper should have a push-to-run button, not an "on/of' switch
AND you need to know how to use it!
  • fill the bowl of the blade-grinder according to the instructions; most machines will have a "Max." line engraved on the side.
  • do NOT overload the machine; if the blades have to work too hard to move the mass in the bowl, they will generate a lot of heat.
  • put the lid on firmly and secure it.
  • turn on the chopper and let it chop for about 10 seconds; if your blade-grinder is multi/variable speed, use it at medium speed.
  • after that , every 2 or 3 seconds, WHILE HOLDING THE LID WITH ONE HAND AND THE MACHINE WITH THE OTHER HAND, turn the machine upside down for a second.... this allows the contents to mix so the "grind" ends up as evenly as possible.
There is no hard and fast rule for the amount of time needed to "grind" your coffee in a blade-grinder.
 Variables such as size of the bowl, speed of the blades and age of the beans all play a part, so you may have to experiment a bit to get the right grind for the style of coffee you want to make.