5 ways to grind coffee without grinder
We all know that we have to grind our beans before preparing coffee. Some people decide to buy already grounded coffee, while other ones prefer to do it at home with a special machine.
But, what happens if we have coffee beans but not how to grind them? It already happened to me to be in the situation of needing to grind my coffee beans but not having a grinder, so I made some investigation and found some hacks.
In this article I will show you 5 ways to grind coffee without a grinder. Although these methods work, remember that you will never get the same results as with a special coffee grinder.
If you are going to grind your own beans, you probably want to read this article to know the precise size of grind your machine needs.
In this article you will find:
5 ways to grind coffee without grinder
Blender or food processor
Mortar and pestle
Hammer
Rolling pin
Manual spice grinder
Warnings
Final thoughts
5 ways to grind coffee without grinder
Blender or food processor
In the article that we talked about the different kinds of grinders, we mentioned that the blade grinder works very similar to a food processor. That's the reason why we could perfectly grind our coffee beans in a blender or food processor.
Put your beans inside the machine and press the start button. If it has different speeds it's better to use a slow one so you can control the size of the grind.
Such as the blade grinder, blenders and food processors will do an ok job but with very uneven grind. This can give you some problems while brewing your coffee, like over and under extraction.
A good way to avoid uneven coffee bean pieces is to stop the blender or food processor in the middle of the grind and shake it a little bit, so bigger pieces can be reached by the blade.
Mortar and pestle
An ancient kitchen gadget can save you if you don't have a coffee grinder. The mortar and pestle was used all over the world for cooking. Usually made of stone, people were able to put some hard food in it and smash it with the pestle.
For grinding your coffee beans you will do it a long time ago. Put the beans inside the mortar and hit them with the pestle until you have a fine powder.
The benefit of this method is that you can get more control and even ground coffee than if you do it with the blender or food processor (probably also better than blade grinder). The big downsides are that you will need to work hard and use your strength to smash the beans and you can't grind too many of them at the same time.
Hammer
The most rustic and noisy method you will find in this list, but when you need a cup of coffee everything goes.
For this method ideally you would use a kitchen hammer (the one to tenderize meat) but a normal hammer will work too. Please be careful of not getting hurt or destroying your kitchen!
Put the coffee beans in a bag (ziplock style) and lay it on a flat surface that can resist the hammer hits, such as a thick wooden table. Hammer the grains until you have the grind you are looking for, and now it's time to make your coffee.
There are almost all cons in this grinding method: it is loud, messy and tough. This will probably be your last resource when grinding coffee.
Rolling pin
Crashing your coffee beans with a rolling pin is similar to doing it with a hammer but less risky and noisy.
You have to put the coffee beans in a ziplock bag but instead of hitting them you will use your rolling pin as if you were doing pastry. Rolling the pin back and forth will break the coffee beans in small pieces.
It is recommended to start grinding a small amount of coffee beans, because if you start with a lot of them you will have a very uneven result.
The downsides of this grinding method are similar to the hammer ones. One upside is that it is more peaceful and you have less chances of getting hurt or breaking your kitchen, but it is also a slow and hard process.
Manual spice grinder
By far, the best option in the list. You can use a manual spice grinder to break your coffee beans.
This are some aspects you have to consider:
- Always try to clean your grinder before and after using it with coffee. You don't want a peppery coffee neither a SDFGHJKL
- Your manual spice grinder may not be able to process the hole coffee bean because of its size, so maybe you will need to crush it in smaller pieces before (with any method listed before)
Manual spice grinders make a very decent job, quite similar to a burr grinder. If you consider the aspects mentioned above you can certainly make a high quality coffee if you don't have a proper grinder nearby.
Also, with many of the classic manual spice grinders you can regulate the size of the grind, so this method will be useful for many brewing systems.
Warnings
Remember to be extra careful while grinding your beans with any of these methods. Some of them must be done with extra care to avoid any kind of injuries.
Final thoughts
Although these 5 ways to grind coffee without a grinder can save you in a hurry, we strongly recommend using a proper coffee grinder. All the tools listed before are not designed to grind coffee beans, so they might break if you use them constantly and also you will never get such a good grind as you can get with a burr grinder.
From all these methods, we believe that the most effective one is the manual spice grinder. Its function is quite similar to the real coffee grinders and it reduces the risk of having an accident.
Have you tried one of them before?