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Best New Coffee Grinders

Brewing coffee from freshly ground beans is a coffee-lovers delight, but did you know that some grinders can rob the flavor right out from under your nose? With so many coffee bean grinders on the market, the Good Housekeeping Institute rounded up 20 of them to see which were the best.

Coffee grinders range in price from $25 on up to $125 and there are really two types," says Marjorie Cubisino, Food Appliances Tester, Good Housekeeping Institute. "One is the blade grinder that uses a revolving blade to grind the coffee all at one time. The other type is a burr grinder, and that uses metal plates with grooves in it that grind a few beans at a time. If a grinder heats up too much during grinding, it can actually destroy some of the aromatic oils in the beans and thatll give you a less flavorful brew.

The first level of testing at Good Housekeeping was to simply grind fresh beans down to a medium drip-size consistency.

At the very minimum, a good coffee grinder should be able to make a medium grind of coffee which is for a drip coffee maker," says Cubisino. "But, in our tests, we found that 9 out of 10 blade grinders and more than half of the burr grinders were not able to grind the coffee evenly.

In the end, only three earned the Good Housekeeping recommendation:

The Braun Aromatic KSM2 is a simple blade-type grinder. At $49.99, the Capresso Burr Grinder Sensor holds more beans and is exceptionally easy to use. The best performer was the Starbucks Barista Burr Grinder, but be prepared to splurge for the $125 price.

In general, the burr grinders outperformed blade grinders in the Good Housekeeping Institute tests. Good Housekeeping says the Capresso and Starbucks grinders were easy to clean, but their parts require hand washing.

For more information, check out the December issue of Good Housekeeping or visit www.goodhousekeeping.com.

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