Cleaning a coffee mill

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veg-o-matic

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Sep 15, 2004
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Baltimore, Hon!
I've been using a lovely vintage Kitchenaid coffee mill to grind my morning beans. I don't know the model number, but it looks like this picture that I borrowed from ebay.

Anyone know how to clean the beast? I'm guessing that one would want to get inside occasionally and clean out all the oils and stuff. I don't have the owner's manual so I'm at a loss. Don't want to start taking it apart unless I'm sure I'll know how to get it back together again.

veg

6-19-2007-10-45-55--veg-o-matic.jpg
 
Bob,

My BRAUN says to grind frozen beans at the coarsest setting every few weeks, then use a stiff brush to remove any residue from the grinding surfaces and chute.
But, really, the nature of these machine is such that they are pretty self-cleaning.
 
One DON'T....

DO NOT grind preflavoured beans with a burr mill like this!

Grind preflavoured beans with a "windmill"/blade chopper, not a mill like this. Or a blender.

The preflavoured beans will heat, the coating will melt, and you will gum up the mill irretreivably.

Lawrence/Maytagbear
 
I have several burr grinders. A Braun, and Krups, and a Melitta. Currently I use the Melitta because it tends to spew fewer grounds around. But they all will clog up their discharge chutes after a few grinding sessions. And they all come with little chute cleaning tools to remedy that problem.

The coolest burr grinder I saw recently was at Costco. It's one of the heavy cast metal Kitchenaid line. Something like $100 or more, but perhaps worth it. The achille's heel is that it has a thin walled glass container to catch the grind - looks very breakable, and not something that could easily be replaces with something more durable (it's an odd inverted cone shaped thing that has to fit just so into a spring loaded seal at the top). But along with the new cast metal KA toaster, it's otherwise built to last a long time. Or so it would seem. Certainly it would make an effective door stop!
 
Speaking of coffee grinders/mills...

Don't do as my brother's girlfriend did... she ground some spices (cloves, or something similar), in a manually operated wooden grinder. It seemed like a good idea at the time!

Coffee didn't taste the same, for weeks afterwards...
 
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