We'll be honest - most mornings, we just give the coffee grinder a quick swipe with a damp sponge after whizzing our beans. But this does leave behind powdery grinds that build up in the nooks and crannies over time. So we've called in another handy kitchen tool to help us get the whole job done!
We've started keeping a rarely-used pastry brush close to the sink. Its bristles are stiff and flexible enough to get into the coffee grinder and sweep leftover grounds into the sink. You can find special coffee grinder brushes, but we think this pastry brush works just as well.
Then we give it a quick wipe with our sponge or a dish cloth to clean out any oils or residues on the sides of the grinder, and we're done! Our grinder lives on the counter, and we usually leave the top off to let any moisture left from the cleaning process evaporate.
Once every month or so (read: whenever we remember), we'll grind a few tablespoons of dry, uncooked rice in the grinder. This helps to scour away anything that gets missed in our daily cleaning and also seems to remove the coffee smell. We've heard that you can use a small piece of stale bread as well.
How do you clean your coffee grinder?
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I have an old coffee grinder that I use for dry spices. I clean it out after every use with part of a heel of bread. It works beautifully.
Running half a slice of white bread through it every once in a while works for me. (I think that was a Martha Stewart tip.)
oh no, i almost never clean mine...why do you need to clean it out every day?
Bread does work well. Personally I set aside a tooth brush.
Wow, never occurred to me to ever have to clean the coffee grinder... I mean, all that goes into it are coffee beans, and then more coffee beans... Hmmm.
Even cheaper than a pastry brush - a regular old paintbrush. I worked in a lot of coffee shops in college, and they all had a supply of paintbrushes.
I agree with Limadean, this is how we clean ours... an ikea paintbrush, does the trick every time.
@atthefarmersmarket, you want to clean it so the old grounds don't go rancid on you and make for stinky coffee.
You should clean the grinder out every few months, as some bean oil builds up on the blades, reducing the efficiency of the grinder.
I use a product called Grindz to clean out my grinder. http://www.seattlecoffeegear.com/Grindz-Grinder-Cleaner-p/scg10028.htm
ok, so what do you do if you have a burr grinder, not a blade grinder?
nm. that grindz stuff seems to be the answer. lol
I have one of those grinder brushes, and use it exclusively.
I use bread for the type of grinder you show above. I do need a brush for the burr grinder.
Throwing rice in there (or a burr grinder) also does a good job of cleaning up.
I recently bought a hamilton beach one that has a removable stainless cup, so you can wash it in the sink. SO much better!!!!
agree with staticfritz - a bit of brown rice and you are back in the game.
A brush and the occasional scoop of rice (or grindz) will clean out a burr grinder. I'm not sure what to do with a coffee bean smasher (blade grinder) :p
mine actually came with a brush that snaps into the side
This leads me to a paradox, you love your coffee enough to clean your blade grinder every morning, yet you do not have a burr grinder?
Oh, the rancid oil argument is invalid because if you are not using soap and water to clean it, you will not be getting all the oils. And the oil will only go rancid if it has access to water.
But yes, a clean machine will always perform better, I can not see a valid return on cleaning out the coffee grinder every morning. Once a month I could see, which I don't do because I have two burr grinders, one of which is more then twenty years old, never been cleaned and makes an uneven grind that has no trace of old coffee in it, rancid or otherwise.
I have a $25 Mr. Coffee grinder that has a removable plastic chamber -- I just remove it to dump the grounds into the basket, and then I wash it out periodically with the dishes. It's also dishwasher safe.
I also like the electronic timer that accounts for the amount of coffee and the fineness, and I got one in red to go with my kitchen.
It never occurred to me that I need to clean my coffee grinder!
It's not the grinds are as much the problem as the residual coffee oils.
I grind plain white rice to sop up the oils and then use a pastry brush to clear out the residue. The ground rice binds together because of the oils and is a cinch to brush out.
Believe it or not, grind up a paper towel. It works perfectly!
So I had a burr grinder for about a month, and hated every bit of it. I had to clean about 4 parts every single time I used it, unground beans were always left at the bottom, ground coffee got everywhere (static), and the whole operation took about 15 minutes every morning. Are they all like that, or was it just because I got a cheap one from Target? (I Freecycled it and got a blade one instead.)
@Joan A: Yeah, that is NOT normal!!!
Cheapest burr grinders will be about $30-$50, and I'd guess if you paid less than that, you probably were ripped off. I have one in that price range with no problems over the 3 years I've been using it.
It should NEVER leave unground beans, and it should take the same amount of time as a blade grinder - maybe 10-20 seconds for enough for 6 cups.
As far as the static, I get that in mine, but I don't mind it. If you want to avoid it, then go for a grinder with a non-plastic bin for the ground coffee, if you can. Or read reviews specifically for that feature. It's coffee, it can be dusty, so static may happen.
Oh, and you should brush out grindings when you remember, especially if you get flavored coffee. It's just to avoid any build-up that happens because of the oils in the beans. It won't break anything if you don't, it'll just help it run more smoothly.
I think it was $20 at Target. I only got it because they had no blade grinders, and everything else was way higher (more than $50).
I didn't mean that the actual grinding took 15 minutes, just that all the disassembly and cleanup and reassembly took that long.
Maybe I'll look into burr grinders again when this blade one craps out. Thanks for the info.
I clean out my coffee grinder by putting more beans in it the following day and grinding them.
Once in a blue moon, I'll simply take a paper towel (or the bottom of my garbage t-shirt I'm wearing if I just woke up in the morning, and just run my finger around the container in the direction the blade spins (so as not to accidentally cut myself).
Eventually I'll get a burr grinder, but my blades have been working fine for, ohh, the last 10 years.