So you have your freshly roasted coffee and you’re eager to get it home and brew it up. You get out your grinder, pour some beans in, press the lid for a period of time, and presto, ground coffee. When you remove the lid, you notice that some of the coffee is powdery and some of it is still a bit chunky. The lack of uniformity in the particle size of the grounds can turn a great coffee bean into a horrible cup of coffee. When brewed, the finely ground coffee will over extract flavors to create bitterness. The coarser grounds will under extract and won’t release the desirable coffee flavors. The result, a really disappointing cup of coffee!

Solution: Consider replacing your blade grinder (which actually chops instead of grinds the coffee) with a burr grinder. A burr grinder can be set to uniformly grind your coffee for the proper particle size for the brewing method you are using. (Ie. A very fine grind for espresso, or a coarse grind for French press.) Selecting the proper grind setting for your brewing method is equally as important, otherwise you will once again have either underextracted (watery) coffee from grinding the coffee too coarse, or overextracted (bitter) coffee from grinding the coffee too fine. Remember, only grind coffee as it’s needed, because it stales within minutes of being ground!