How To Use a Coffee/Herb Grinder, And Why Would You Want To?

This post is also available in: עברית (Hebrew)

Many recipes (from around the web as well as my own) call for different types of legumes/grains/nuts flours.

I noticed many folks ask in different forums online where can they buy this and that flour, thus i’d like to take advantage of the stage here, and recommend that there’s no reason to buy these flours, in my mind. On the contrary, there are several reasons why you should not buy them: they tend to be more expensive, some of them will lose some of their nutritional values when ground so recommended to be consumed shortly thereafter, and they are less versatile (by that I mean that with the original product you can many dishes whereas with the flour we are limited to, well, basically, flour..).

So what do I suggest to do then instead of buying these flours?

Buy a herb/coffee grinder, and use that to grind these flours. It is a small kitchen appliance thus does not take much room on the counter, and/or fits perfectly in nearly any drawer or closet, it is easily cleaned, and it will pay it’s cost very quickly (for example, If I look at red lentils flour it is way more expensive then the red lentils themselves, at least where I come from, so don’t be ripped off!).

What can you grind in a herb/coffee grinder?

Lentils

Buckwheat

Oats

Rice

Tapioca

Chestnuts

Nuts and seeds (walnuts, hazelnuts, pecans, almonds, flax, sesame, etc.)

Herb seeds

Sugar (and by that make powdered sugar)

And coffee, obviously

So how do you do it?

Take the relevant ingredient according to the recipe you are making, place it in the grinder, and grind it. In most cases you would have to do that in 2-3 batches as these grinders tend to be somewhat small, but the whole process is really quick.

A few notes:

• Nuts: nuts may turn into a paste when ground, which is great for nut butter, but not for our purpose here. so when you grind nuts do it in short pulses, a few seconds each, and make sure you scrape the sides of the grinder and move what’s stuck to the blades.
• Storage: if you have any leftovers, place them in a closed jar or in a bowl covered with plastic wrap in the fridge.
• Blender: You could do this with a blender also. I almost don’t do that, as I usually need small amounts of flour, and for small amounts I find that the grinder is easier to use and clean (as it could get tricky to clean what’s stuck beneath the blender’s blades), but, for big batches a blender could be used.

Where can I get such a grinder?

There’s a great variety of Coffee Grinders on Amazon to choose from.

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