COMMERCIAL COFFEE GRINDERS
For many, the day doesn't start until they've had their morning coffee. For others, it's needed as a mid-morning pick-me-up or an essential ice breaker in an important meeting. Make no mistake, coffee is big, big business, so making sure you have the right equipment to serve that perfect cup is always important, whether you're a coffee shop, pub, bar or hotel.
As well as buying a high quality coffee machine, it's worth taking careful consideration of coffee grinders. A good, precise grinder is an invaluable investment if customers are to take your coffee seriously. Due to the oxidisation process, coffee can begin to change taste within minutes of being ground, so it's absolutely essential to brew as soon as possible from the grinding for the best results.
USING A BURR GRINDER
Burr grinders use two revolving abrasive elements, such as wheels or conical grinding elements, between which the coffee beans are crushed with frictional heating. By crushing the beans, the oils in the beans are released, which are then more easily extracted during the infusion process with hot water, making the coffee taste richer and smoother.
Both manual and electric powered mills are available. These mills offer a wide range of grind settings, making them suitable for grinding coffee with various brewing systems such as espresso machines, "drip" filter coffee machines, coffee percolators, French press, and others.
THE RIGHT GRIND SETTING
Most professional coffee grinders have adjustable grinding settings, so it’s important to select the correct grind according to the machine you’re using and the desired results.
- Coarse: for percolators or cafetières
- Medium: flat-bottomed filter machines
- Fine: cone filter machines
- Extra fine: espresso machines
Of course, for speciality coffees, much more precise grinding and dosing is required. Some of the top-end coffee grinders have stepless grinding, which allows the user to adjust the settings for absolute, consistent grinds.
BLADE COFFEE GRINDERS
Blade grinders works in a similar way to a food processor; there is a set of spinning metal blades which roughly cut through the coffee beans. The longer you use the coffee grinder for, the finer the beans. The coarseness of the grind is determined by how long the grinder is left running. Coffee ground by a blade grinder can be rather inconsistent in size as some beans will be sliced through more times than others. In addition, blade coffee grinders can also be quite loud.
Article:Hand in hand with the growth in popularity of coffee, the demand for fresh juice and smoothies is also huge for coffee shops, cafés and bars. Santos are renowned for providing some of the best juicers on the market, so we put Chef Mark Veale to the test with two of the best. Find out which one he'd recommend in his Santos Juicers Review.