Can you grind coffee beans without a coffee grinder? Yeah, it’s not going to be fun or give you the best tasting coffee, but it can be done.
There are actually a few popular methods to grinding beans when you are lacking a grinder – or power to operate your grinder. I’ve outlined some of the best ways possible below with a quick summary and tutorial for each technique.
Of all of these, the most popular method is probably to grind coffee in a food processor or to make your own DIY mortar and pestle for those people that don’t already own one.
Grind Coffee Beans With A Mortar & Pestle
The slowest, but probably the best, way to grind coffee beans without the aid of a grinder tool is to use a mortar and pestle. For generations, over hundreds and thousands of years the mortar/pestle combo has been used to mash things together, break up small things, and generally pulverize stuff.
You usually think of old timers grinding wheat into flour with one of these, but you could just as easily grind beans into a fine powder that would rival any blade grinder run on electricity today. By crushing, you get bits and pieces that aren’t jagged, meaning your extraction will be a bit nicer and even bodied.
So How Do You Make Your Own DIY Mortar & Pestle?
Simply stated, I like to think of a mortar and pestle as an elegant set of tools to crush hard things by hand. In much the same way filling a bag with whole coffee beans and then crushing it under the force of a blunt object is basically the same thing on a larger scale. The hammer is the tool that comes to mind.
The easiest way to make your own coffee grinder is to just grab your hammer and lightly smash your coffee beans inside a bag. You can read more about this procedure below. What’s great about it is that the results are not shredded beans but actually crushed beans where the particles more closely resemble ground beans.
This is a pretty hefty amount of manual, though, and takes a good deal of time. If you haven’t lost power and want a faster solution then turn to your food processor.
You Can Grind Coffee Beans With A Food Processor
A very common question on this topic I get is:
- Can you grind coffee in a food processor?
or
- Can you grind coffee beans in a blender?
Well, assuming you have plenty of working electricity and have a good food processor you can easily shred your coffee beans into coffee sized particles in a food processor. If you try this, it’s likely that your particles will only get so small because the food processor is pretty large bodied compared to a real electric blade grinder.
Basically, you are never going to be able to use your blender to make dust out of your coffee beans. What you will be left with will be larger shards of coffee beans which may be OK to use in a French press due to their size, but the flavor of coffee they produce will still be lacking.
Like using a blade coffee grinder (or a Ninja coffee grinder) the shredded and splintered beans will not give the best tasting coffee, but it will be passable for most people.
How to Grind Coffee in a Blender
If you do try this out then it’s probably best to only use the “grind” for coffee made in a French press and many of the larger particles will simply not extract many desirable flavors without a good, long steeping.
The large sizes basically require the steeping of a French press pot, just be ready for a bit of bitterness caused by the random small particles and coffee dust the food processor creates.
If you are thinking about using a food processor to grind coffee, you can always improve the results by using a fine mesh sieve to filter out the dust. Then, use the larger particles to make French press coffee.
Editor’s Note- If you are making French Press coffee make sure you don’t put your grind down the drain.
Grind Your Whole Coffee Beans With A Bag And A Hammer
Like the mortar and pestle method, the “beat the crap out of your beans method” will crush beans into smaller coffee sized particles but won’t likely be precise enough to get a good small and even grind size. In some cases, beating the beans will leave a few quite large pieces that are even a bit big for a French press, but may well work for cowboy coffee.
The hammer and beans in a bag trick is a frequent way to get coffee while camping or spending time on the open trail. Many people don’t travel with equipment and find that whole beans stay fresher, longer. By hammering the beans to a smaller particle size, you can then steep them in a pot of near boiling water to make coffee and then, when you are ready to indulge, just pour the coffee and grounds through a paper or cloth filter.
Sock, anyone?
How About Using a Rolling Pin to Crush the Beans?
One alternative to the bag and hammer trick is to put the beans on a hard, flat surface and cover them with plastic wrap, or a plastic bag if you have one, and then use your rolling pin to lightly tap, crush, and roll the beans into usable granules. I think his method produces similar results to the hammer method, but it is a little bit messier and requires more surface space.
*Note – Using the same method, an alternative to a proper rolling pin might be to use a large wine bottle or something similarly sized, though you should obviously be careful that you don’t break it and hurt yourself.
Making Coffee Without a Coffee Grinder?
A Video Demonstration
This video also demonstrates a great way to prepare roasted beans for brewing without a grinder.
This page is still a work in progress, as I want to list off a few more common methods for making coffee grind without a grinder, but in the mean time we do recommend checking out these manual grinders, which don’t cost much and are quite portable. I also want to remind you to save those coffee grounds after you use them. Here are a bunch of creative ways to reuse spent grind.
We know that electric grinders are way easier to use, but in the event of a power outage or a camping trip it pays to have a good manual grinder.
Lastly, in the case of a camping trip or a power outage, do you have the ability to make coffee without a coffee grinder? Here are a number of ways to do so. Look for a long feature on the site on that topic to follow in the coming weeks.
How To Grind Coffee Beans Without A Grinder
If you are a coffee enthusiast, chances are you already have a small coffee grinder in your kitchen, and this is not a problem you have encountered.
Unless your grinder breaks.
Maybe you don’t own a grinder, and you usually buy your coffee already ground, and you accidentally bought whole bean coffee. Perhaps you were given some whole bean coffee, and you don’t know what to do with it.
Regardless of how you got into this predicament that requires you to grind your coffee without the luxury of this vital piece of equipment; we are here to help get you out of this mess and still allow you to be able to enjoy your coffee.
Grind Your Beans in the Faithful Blender
A ubiquitous kitchen appliance that is used for many uses and grinding coffee is just another one of its abilities. If you have one of the small personal size blenders, these will work too. Just be careful not to blend too long as this could cause the beans to heat up.
What you need:
A blender personal sized or regular
How to do it:
Place a small amount of the coffee beans in the blender and grind to your desired consistency being careful not to run the blender for too long.
Continue until all the coffee is ground.
Coffee in a Mortar and Pestle? (It’s not just for spices)
A fail-safe way is to use this antiquated device for grinding your coffee. While it is not one the most common tools found in a kitchen, there is a reason it is perfect for grinding spices. It achieves a reasonably even grind consistency.
In case you want to add this to your kitchen to use besides grinding coffee, here is a link.
What you will need:
Mortar and Pestle
A small bowl to put the finished ground coffee in
How to do it:
Add a few beans at a time so that they don’t all escape.
Forcibly use the pestle and crush the coffee beans then move the pestle in a circular grinding motion in the mortar to give the beans a finer texture.
Put the ground coffee in the small bowl and repeat these steps until finished grinding all the coffee you need.
Use a Hammer Or Meat Tenderizer Mallet to Crush Coffee Beans
If you don’t have a mortar and pestle, this option could work for you as most have at least a hammer.
This way won’t yield that perfectly even ground coffee you would find in a grinder, but in a pinch, it can crack the beans enough so that you can brew and get through your day.
What you will need:
Hammer or a Meat Tenderizer Mallet with a flat side
A large Ziploc bag
Parchment paper
Thin towel such as a flour sack towel
How to do it:
Cut two pieces of parchment paper, so they fit inside the Ziploc bag.
Put the coffee beans you want to grind inside the bag in between the two sheets of parchment paper.
Place the bag of coffee inside the folded towel.
Hammer the beans with enough force to crush from one side of the bag to the other, periodically checking them to check the grind consistency.
Use a Rolling Pin, Can or Even an Empty Wine Bottle
If you don’t have a mortar and pestle or a hammer, you are sure to have at least one of these. Using one of these is a bit more refined way than the hammer and will yield a bit more even grind consistency than the hammer option.
The rolling pin’s design allows a downward force to be applied to the coffee beans and can grind your beans in a pinch. You can still use a full can of food or carefully use an empty wine bottle.
What you will need:
A rolling pin, large can of food or an empty wine bottle (be careful not to hurt yourself)
A large Ziploc bag
Parchment paper
Thin towel such as a flour sack towel
How to do it:
Just like in the previous method, cut two pieces of parchment paper to fit the Ziploc bag.
Put your coffee beans inside the bag in between the two sheets of parchment paper.
Place the bag in the folded towel.
Using the rolling pin, can or wine bottle like a hammer, gently beat the coffee beans until they are crushed.
After beating the beans, roll over the bag using downward pressure in a smooth motion, so the beans get ground as evenly as possible.
A Hand Operated Meat Grinder or Mincer Could Work
While this may is a long shot, perhaps you just might have this in your kitchen. You won’t be able to choose a grind setting, but it will give you a more even grind than the rolling pin method.
Once you run it through, it will be somewhat coarse and to get a finer grind, collect it and run it through the grinder again.
What you will need:
Hand grinder or mincer
Bowl
How to do it:
If your grinder has a smaller grinder plate, use it.
Place your coffee in the hopper and grind the coffee through once until all the coffee has been cracked open.
Put the ground coffee back in the hopper of the grinder and grind again.
You should have a nice even coarse grind nearly perfect for french press as a result.
The Bottom Line
Coffee experts and aficionados all agree that freshly ground coffee produces the best cup of coffee. The natural flavors of the coffee are preserved in the whole beans and then released in the grinding process. Of course, a regularly cleaned coffee maker makes a huge difference as well.
Grinding your coffee just before brewing, protects the flavors of origin and preserves the freshness of your coffee until you use it. We understand that a grinder may not be available to you at all times.
If you keep finding yourself in this situation, you may just want to buy a grinder to make your life easier and your morning habit a bit more stress-free. Nevertheless, these five tips can get you out of a bind and enable you to enjoy your coffee at the peak of freshness.
What is more worthwhile than toiling through a problem and finding success in your solution?
