Grind Coffee without a Grinder – 5 easy methods

Fresh coffee beans, but no coffee grinder at hand? In fact, you can also grind coffee beans without a coffee grinder.

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Why grind coffee beans?

Coffee beans are ground to allow the water to extract the delicious flavors and oils from the coffee beans.

In addition, coffee is a relatively sensitive and perishable commodity. Like the fruit that the coffee bean grows in, the roasted coffee bean loses its aromas and flavors through exposure to the elements (air, moisture, light, etc.).

Methods of grinding coffee without a grinder

Using a blender to grind coffee

Blenders are great for grinding coffee. Try to put a certain amount of coffee beans into the blender and grind them at an even speed. Once you feel the beans are well ground, add more beans to grind. Do not fill the blender too full, this could lead to blockages.

Beans are not ideally ground with a blender. The advantage, however, is that almost every household has a blender. Even if the results aren’t perfect, it’s enough, to brew a good cup of coffee.

There are also blenders that have a grinding function. If you have such a blender, you can use this function to grind coffee beans.

An important clue:

Blenders get hot during operation, which can burn the beans. Therefore, use den mixers with short mix intervals.

How do you grind coffee beans in a blender?

Here is a step-by-step guide on how to use the blender to grind the beans.

Choose the setting for the mixer. We recommend the “medium to high speed” or “grind” setting.
Place ½ cup of coffee beans into blender and secure lid securely.
Select the pulse setting and begin grinding the beans at 3 to 5 second intervals.
Repeat this process up to 6 times for up to 30 seconds.
Now you can take the ground coffee out of the blender and prepare the coffee.

Using a mortar and pestle to grind coffee

Mortars have been used since ancient times. It is used to crush ingredients, which can be processed into powder with the mortar. Mortars are used in kitchens, laboratories and pharmacies. Grinding coffee beans with a mortar or pestle requires a lot of work and patience.

This method is more time-consuming and may take time, but the results are effective. However, when grinding coffee beans with a pestle and mortar, you should make sure that you filter out the unwanted dust from the coffee beans. Ideally, you need two tablespoons of coffee beans for one cup of coffee. So, make sure you only put that amount in the mortar and don’t put too much in at once.

The advantage of this method is that you can grind smaller amounts, which is ideal for a single serving. The downside is that using the pestle and mortar properly takes a lot of skill.

Control the degree of grinding with the mortar and pestle. You can make a finer blend for drip coffee or a coarser blend for French press coffee.

How do you grind coffee beans with a pestle and mortar?

Fill the mortar ¼ full with coffee beans.
Hold the pestle with the dominant hand and the mortar with the other hand and press down on the coffee beans.
With the pestle hand mortar while crushing the coffee beans with a firm twisting motion.
Once the coffee beans are crushed, you can use the mortar and pestle grind the beans finer.
Once the coffee beans reached the desired size, you can brew coffee.

Crushing the beans with hammer

Place the required coffee beans in a zip-lock bag and cover with a towel or other clean cloth place it on solid ground. Pounding the beans might not give you the best ground coffee beans, but it should do the trick in a pinch.

Depending on the hammer, you should dose the force, we don’t want to destroy anything unnecessarily.

The advantage of this method is that you can find a hammer in almost every household and you can use it without electricity.

How to grind coffee beans with a hammer

Place ½ to 1 cup of coffee beans in a resealable bag, squeeze out all the air, and seal the bag.
Wrap the bag in a clean towel or rag.
Hit the coffee beans with the hammer.
Continue the process until the coffee beans are the desired consistency.
Put down the hammer and brew your coffee.

Using a rolling pin to grind coffee

This method works well with a French press because the beans tend to be coarser than you might want to use for drip coffee.

Whether you’re using a wooden roller or a marble roller, which is heavier than the regular wooden roller, or even a stainless-steel roller, the goal should be to finely grind the coffee beans.

The coffee beans end up much more evenly than with a hammer. Measure out the number of coffee beans and put them in a zip lock bag. Then slowly start rolling over the coffee beans.

How to grind coffee beans with a rolling pin

Place ½ to 1 cup of coffee beans in a resealable bag.
Before sealing the bag, squeeze out all the air to avoid bursting the bag. Once all the air has been squeezed out, seal the bag.
Roll the roller firmly over the coffee beans in the bag while applying pressure.
After each pass with the roller, arrange the coffee beans so that they lie together in the bag, and then repeat the process with the roller.
Continue until the beans are ground to the desired consistency.
You are now done. Now brew a fresh cup of coffee.

Using a meat grinder to grind coffee

The meat grinder is a kitchen appliance that can be compared to a metal pencil sharpener. It is used to make minced meat.

The meat grinder’s internal blades are good enough to shred or grind anything. However, always make sure to measure the number of coffee beans you put in the meat grinder, as too much could limit the work of the device.

Place ½ to 1 cup of coffee beans into the top inlet of the grinder.
Have a container ready at the side outlet of the grinder to fill with the ground coffee.
Begin grinding by manually operating the meat grinder’s “arm” or handle.
Continue until you have ground all of the beans.
You are done. Now brew a fresh cup of coffee.

Conclusion

A coffee grinder is still the best device for grinding whole coffee beans to your liking. However, if you don’t have a coffee grinder ready or there is a power failure, the methods explained above can be also very helpful.