Buying Advice: Manual Coffee Grinders

This post is my third article in manual coffee grinders (aka hand coffee mills) sequence. (Hand Coffee Mill: Mechanism and Usage, Hand Coffee Mills)

Assume that you started to think that hand coffee mills are great and you decided to buy one. I am sure there a number of questions in your mind! I think one is so important among those questions.

Which is the Best Hand Coffee Mill?You can find many coffee mill brands and models in the market. Some of them are really cheap ones that are mainly manufactured as decorative or tourist products. If you’re looking for a hand coffee mill with which you can really grind coffee, please keep reading…

It’s actually not easy to understand quality of a mill, especially if you’re going to buy your mill over the Internet. First, you should decide what you’re looking for. As this blog is about Turkish coffee, I assume you’re looking for a manual crank style mill that can grind extra-fine coffee.

Actually, I really don’t like shopping by just following some certain brands, such as my jeans must be X brand, or my sneaker must be Y brand. What I care during shopping is quality and functionality. “How a product looks like” or “what brand it has” don’t have too much importance to me.

However, looking for specific mill brands is the easiest, and probably, the safest way to obtain your mill –especially if it’ll be your first mill or you’ll buy it over the Internet.

Zassenhaus, Sozen, Acar or Hon?
I think the most known brand for a coffee mill is Zassenhaus. Over time, Zassenhaus’ Turkish coffee mill, 175M Havana, has become a legend. Zassenhaus has been producing manual crank mills since 1867. The company located in Solingen is actually known for spice mills, swords, knives, scissors, and razors.

 Zassen manual coffee grinder: 175M Havanna

But, there’s another brand that’s also very successful at manufacturing high quality hand mills, especially Turkish coffee grinders. Its name is Sozen (Sözen in Turkish), which is based in Turkey. Although it has been producing very high quality coffee mills for more than 100 years, Sozen isn’t known as widely as Zassenhaus is. I think it’s mainly because of that it’s a very small family business, which is isolated in Turkey. Sozen has a small workshop that is specialized in production of coffee mills, which are handmade. Sozen also manufactures spice mills, cezve (pot), scoops, and mortars.

Sozen traditional manual coffee grinder

Sozen is definitely my top choice as a hand coffee mill. That’s not only because Sozen coffee mills are much cheaper than alternative ones, but also Sozen offers the highest quality. Sozen mills offers uniform and very fine grinding. As a result, Sozen presents a great price-quality combination.

If I were in place of Sozen’s owners, I would definitely try to expand production by improving production facility. Also, they can make improvements in marketing too. Even a simple web site in English may double their sales.

There’re two other Turkish brands that I can suggest you. Acar and Hon are the mill brands coming after Sozen. If you can’t find Sozen, you can buy Acar or Hon.

Hon manual coffee grinder

Acar is coming after Sozen, since their coffee mills require much more turning of the joint arm –of course, comparing to Sozen-. As an example, coffee for one cup of Turkish coffee takes about 150 turning with Acar, while the same amount of coffee needs about 50 turnings with Sozen.

Is there too much explanation? Are you lost among words? Okay, in short, I suggest you to prefer Sozen, Zassenhaus, Acar or Hon by order.

If you have a chance to examine a mill before buying, then my suggestion is to take a look at burr and mill, which are the most important parts of a manual coffee grinder. If it’s possible, try to test the mill before buying it.

New Domain: TurkishCoffeeBlog.com

Finally, I've a ".com" domain! :-) From now on, you can reach my blog from this address:

http://www.turkishcoffeeblog.com/

I also changed name of the blog from "Mahir's Turkish Coffeehouse" to "Turkish Coffee Blog". The very same content, under a different name. :-)

Hand Coffee Mill: Mechanism and Usage

A traditional manual coffee mill’s outer shell is made of solid brass or wood.

Design of a hand-crank coffee mill can be box or cylinder. In this article, I mainly talk about cylinder-shaped grinders.

On the top of the mill, you can see a crank handle, which can be lift off to put coffee beans into your mill. Working mechanism of a hand coffee mill is based on same mentality with that of a pepper mill. Just turn the crank to rotate crankshaft in order to grind coffee beans.

(crank handle)

(the upper body of the mill - the crank handle and crankshaft was removed)

The inner conical burr is similar to that of a pepper mill. The burr can be steel or iron. Of course, steel ones last longer than latter one.

(the burr - you can see the residue from the coffee I drank while I was writing this article :-)

(bottom of the upper part - the burr and crankshaft together)

There is a nut (screw), which not only keeps burr stable but also gives you the opportunity of adjusting coarseness. You can change the adjustment by screwing up or down the nut. So, your grinder can be adjusted for ultra fine coffee (for Turkish coffee), or a coarser grind suitable for other brewing methods, such as French-press or espresso. For example, if you want to have Turkish style fine coffee, you should screw the nut as tight as possible without breaking the joist.

(the nut - the model above has an external tool to adjust it)

(bottom of the crankshaft)

Bottom of the mill is a kind of canister. You can easily remove that part to get your ground coffee. Shape of the bottom part can be cylinder or globe. Actually, there’re no differences between two shapes. It just depends on your choice. Some people think globe ones are more ergonomics.

There’re two final tips about using your hand coffee mill. You shouldn’t keep extra beans in your mill. Otherwise, you may get a metallic aroma from your ground coffee. Also, you shouldn’t adjust the nut when there’re coffee beans inside of your mill.

Hand Coffee Mills

Finally, I found some time to write a post! This article is about hand coffee mills, as not only these mills are great to grind your own coffee but also I've received a number of questions about them.

I really enjoy using traditional hand coffee mills. There’re a lot of reasons behind this love. First of all, it’s really exciting to know people used similar devices ages ago to prepare their coffee! Second, you’re not dependent on electricity, so it’s really an environmentalist device. Third, a manual coffee mill is really compact and small. Furthermore, the coffee, which is ground with a quality hand coffee mill, is so good as if it’s ground with a professional grinder. Last, but not least, by grinding your own coffee, you can drink very fresh coffee!

Do I sound too nostalgic or sensitive? Okay if you think so, please just wait for another reason. I think it’s the cheapest way to grind you own coffee in your home! :-)  Just think about how much you should pay for a high-quality coffee grinder… Most probably, more than $300! But, I just paid less than $50 for my hand-made manual coffee mill that can be used to grind coffee beans for different brewing methods -from espresso to Turkish coffee!

If I need to summarize, benefits of having a hand coffee mill are as follows:

- No need for electricity
- Relatively cheap- Functionality of adjustable grind -from Turkish fine ground to coarser
- Nostalgic
- High grinding quality
- Easy to keep and to carry
- Freshness and taste

How about the bottom side? I think the main difficulty of the hand coffee mills is that they depend on your muscle. But, actually, using these manual grinders is not as hard as it sounds, if you don’t consume coffee in massive amounts.

As a summary, if you’re not a heavy coffee drinker, or you like taste of fresh coffee, or you just looking for some nostalgia, I highly recommend you to buy a traditional hand coffee mill.