How to Maintain Your Coffee Grinder: Cleaning Frequency for Manual and Electric Grinders and Burr Cleaning Guide

Does Your Coffee Taste Mixed? It Might Be Your Grinder

For those who brew pour-over coffee at home, have you ever experienced this situation: when you start enjoying a cup of coffee you've just brewed, you taste the flavor of another coffee bean and begin to doubt your sense of taste. This might be due to residual fine powder from your previous brew still lingering in your grinder, causing the coffee flavors to become "mixed."

Some friends have asked FrontStreet Coffee, "Can I clean my grinder with water?" Well, regarding this question, why not first listen to FrontStreet Coffee discuss the daily maintenance and cleaning procedures for grinders?

After using a grinder, fine powder generated by friction and static electricity will adhere to the metal grinding burrs. Residual powder accumulates in both the powder chamber and grinding burrs with each use. If not cleaned, both coffee extraction and flavor will be affected.

Dark roast coffee beans produce higher oil content, and when ground with cutting burrs, more oil residue will accumulate. This could lead to channel blockage and consequently shorten the grinder's lifespan.

Types of Grinders and Basic Maintenance

Grinders on the market are mainly divided into manual grinders and electric grinders. Regardless of the type of equipment, daily cleaning and maintenance of the grinding burrs are essential.

Daily Simple Cleaning

After each coffee brewing session, rotate the grinding burrs and use a brush and blower to remove any visible coffee residue, including from the bean hopper, powder outlet, and powder collection container.

Also, place it in a dry environment to prevent the grinder from getting damp. For electric grinders, pay attention to aging of wires and sockets.

Cleaning Without Disassembly

If it hasn't been cleaned for a long time, gently run your finger along the inner wall of the powder chamber, and you might discover a noticeable powder layer with a rancid smell. This indicates that your grinder has absorbed too much ultra-fine powder and requires deeper cleaning.

Since the precision of each device varies, friends unfamiliar with mechanics may not dare to disassemble them themselves (also worrying about not being able to reassemble them properly).

At this point, we can use dedicated cleaning tablets (cleaning pills) for grinding and cleaning. Place the tablets in the bean hopper and grind them to "carry out" the trapped coffee fine powder.

When using cleaning tablets, note that the grind setting shouldn't be too fine, otherwise the cleaning powder itself might easily remain in the grinding burrs.

Deep Cleaning with Disassembly

When you experience unsmooth grinding or obvious inconsistency in coffee particle size during grinding, which affects coffee extraction, this might be caused by harder particles blocking the burrs or the cutting edges being worn down.

After disassembling the grinder, first check if the burrs are blocked. If not, pay attention to the degree of wear. Under normal circumstances, with two years of daily use, burrs will show some wear, leading to decreased grinding precision and increased fine powder. They need to be regularly inspected and replaced.

If the burrs are found to be in good condition after inspection, you can begin deep cleaning. The cutting burrs can be rinsed with clean water, but remember to let them dry completely before reassembly, otherwise this will also affect subsequent use.

FrontStreet Coffee recommends having professionals perform disassembly and inspection to avoid damaging or losing core components of the grinder. Regular cleaning and maintenance of your grinder directly affects the quality of coffee in your cup.

Connect with Coffee Experts

For professional coffee knowledge exchange and more coffee bean information, please follow Coffee Workshop (WeChat public account: cafe_style).

For more specialty coffee beans, please add FrontStreet Coffee on private WeChat (FrontStreet Coffee), WeChat ID: qjcoffeex

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473