Coffee grinder . Tool used in the kitchen to grind coffee beans. Formerly they were manual but nowadays there are electric models.
Summary
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- 1 History
- 1 The Peugeot mill
- 2 Principle of operation
- 3 Industrial coffee mills
- 1 Strawberry mills
- 2 Roller Mills
- 4 Current grinder
- 5 Other uses of the coffee grinder
- 6 Curiosities
- 7 Sources
History
When coffee arrives in Europe, the spice mills are partially adapted to grind the coffee, the first known method is to use a mortar with roasted beans. The real first mills appear in Europe and Turkey in the 17th century. In Turkey, grinders are made up of a copper or brass cylinder. Chiseled or adorned with precious stones, they are endowed with a mechanism consisting of a vertical axis that drives a knurled nut, and often by a folding crank located on top of the grinder. The first French mills are luxury models for the salons of the great nobility. Saint-Etienne will be a major production center for these exceptional models, drawing on the experience of long-standing precision mechanics in weapon manufacturing. In Francethe first mills “in series” are called “Louis XIV models”. They have a body carved from a single piece of wood. For this reason they are called monoxyle. They are often made of walnut. They were made to order by toolmakers or blacksmiths. Strictly functional mills appeared around the middle of the 18th century . They are usually equipped with a fixing leg, which allowed them to be attached to a table. The star model of the time is the so-called hourglass. It consists of two cones joined by a bayonet mount. It also has a fixing device. In the 19th centuryThe cubic mill appears, establishing itself as the best solution for individual use. First the open cavity wooden Flemish mill, then the Peugeot mill in France from 1840
The Peugeot mill
Peugeot grinder
The cubic grinders have their drawer blocked by a brass plate slightly fixed on the drawer by a screw and bearing the inscription “Peugeot-Jackson-Pont-de-Roide Doubs”, used from 1866 to 1877 . It was Peugeot frères that gave the cubic wooden grinders their notoriety and made them the symbol of the coffee grinder. Wood cubic grinders were the most important production of Peugeot grinders. There are 56 different models representing 280 versions, if the wood types, sizes, bush material, colors and decorations are differentiated. Started in 1840, sales continued until 1960: “One hundred and twenty years of manufacturing that give proof of the exceptional quality of these mills”, according to the general catalog published in 1993 by the Peugeot museum. The “silent mills” date from 1938 . They are removed equipped with a sheet metal hopper that absorbs the vibrations of the mechanism and any deformation. The decal makes its entrance in 1936 . It consists of a self – adhesive gray and pointed oval in black, a lion on arrow and the words Peugeot brothers (1936- 1945 ). From 1938 to 1961 , this sticker takes the form of a fairly large shield, reduced from 1950 .
Manigueta mill
The cranks are in round polished steel or, from 1890 , nickel-plated on the luxury models. The sheet metal bushings are painted bronze or green, in brass or nickel-plated brass. Coffee is loaded from the back until 1935 , on the right until 1960 .
After the First World War Peugeot had the merit of popularizing the home wall mill. Peugeot modeled the American mills of the beginning of the 20th century . The first ones, in varnished wood, resemble tall rectangular boxes, generally made of metal, for sale from 1920 to 1935 . The second half of the 20th century marks the decline of the coffee grinder, reaching its almost total extinction with the appearance of the electric mills in 1975 .
Operating principle
Its operation is simple and it is based on a lever located in the upper part that rotates a set of gears inside the machine, while whole coffee beans from an upper tank fall into this system, being pulverized and stored in a third party. Deposit. The result is collected in a lower drawer.
Industrial coffee mills
Strawberry mills
Strawberry mill
It is ground by means of two strawberries, one fixed and the other rotary, trapping and grinding the coffee between them. The separation of the strawberries is adjustable, so that the precise granulometry can be obtained: from an almost pulverized coffee for Turkish coffee, to granulometries of 0.7 mm or greater. The strawberries are mechanized from special steels of great hardness, and the drawing and the lines of exit are very important. There is wear due to both the working temperature, which dilates the discs, and continued friction in the grinding work. It influences the type of grinding – more wear in fine grinding than coarse -, the degree of roasting and the type of coffee, the roasted being the most abrasive. The quality of these mills lies mainly in the milling of the discs, the materials used in their preparation and the cooling, which is by air, affecting one or both strawberries. A correct milling prevents dust from being produced when grinding, providing sponginess to the product and the consequent increase in volume of the package. This type of mill is built with milling capacities of up to 600 kg per hour.
Roller Mills
Roller mill
They are high-capacity mills, from 300 to 4,000 kg per hour, used in large, ground coffee processing industries. They are hydraulically or electromechanically operated and use milled sets or pairs of rollers, usually in three steps: The mill is fed by vibration with a drop curtain, to ensure that the grain reaches the first phase with a regular and distributed flow across the width of the roll. Once the coffee has passed the different stages of grinding, an endless extractor transports it to a compactor to achieve a uniform density that favors automatic packaging. In this type of mill, the cooling of the rollers is by water. An independent station cools water that feeds the inside of the roller shaft and the endless auger in a closed circuit.
Current grinder
thumb | right | Electric grinder Nowadays different variants of electric grinder are used, these allow grinding the grain at different speeds and different grain sizes. Long grinding should be avoided to avoid heating the beans.
Once the coffee is ground it must be consumed immediately. Otherwise it should be stored in a tight, dry, dark and cool container.
Other uses of the coffee grinder
Just like grinding coffee, the grinder is a very practical tool for grinding different ingredients into powder, it is also the best choice when you want to grind small amounts, for example, to make spice mixtures such as pepper.
Curiosities
It is important to control the temperature of ground coffee: it cannot be above 50ºC (the ideal is to achieve that it does not exceed 35ºC) since from here we can notice tastes of burnt coffee and we will also have more gas losses and aromas than usual. The speed of the motor, the state of the strawberries or rollers and the cooling of the system are elements that must be taken into account to preserve the quality of the coffee.
For each use and for each type of machine, there is an adequate degree of coffee grinding. There was a time when it was forbidden to sell packaged ground coffee, to avoid unwanted picarescas, but today it is normal to buy ground coffee, with which the consumer can save himself the delicate operation of grinding the coffee in its right degree. The determination of the granulometry or measurement of the ground particles is a function of the type of coffee machine that will be used in the preparation of coffee.
