Seeking spice grinder recommendation

Off Topic
#1

OK, so for all you people who can actually cook - I need a recommendation please.

I need a spice grinder. Doing it with a molcajete/tejolote is getting real old! Here’s my parameters:

  1. Dry Spices. Hard granular spices like mustard seed, coriander, caraway weeks, occasionally peppercorns. Capable of coarse grind.
  2. Size. Small. Capable of small batches - typically batch would be a couple tablespoons. I don’t want to have to put in a cup of spices to fill it up far enough for the blades to actually engage something.
  3. Other stuff. Nope. I do not need to grind coffee or salt. I do not need to grind nuts and I don’t need to make “paste”. It’s OK if it does those things, but those aren’t a benefit to me.
  4. Electric vs. manual - don’t really care.
  5. Removable to wash. Don’t care. It’s only for dry spices.

All suggestions are appreciated. As you can see above, my current process is back in the stone ages.

#2

For what it sounds like you’re after, any smaller, 4oz grinder work.
When looking for them online, they’ll be listed either under spice grinders, pepper Mills or salt and pepper grinders.
Most are pretty decent, but I personally would get a nice wooden grinder with metal internals, not the plastic ones.
A lot of the fancy looking Grinders tend to have plastic internals so the gears or the grinding teeth wear down pretty quickly.

Most of your Grinders will be adjustable from extra course to extra fine, so you should be able to adjust the grind to your liking or, like me, adjust it to specific dishes.

#3

Sadly most of the ones I’ve found get really good initial ratings and then shortly thereafter people complain that they fell apart (or that the grinding rings lose their magic and the stuff just passes through them). So I’m looking for a recommendation for one that someone has owned for a while and they can vouch for its longevity/sturdiness.

#4

Well, that’s why I was saying to stay away from the plastic internals, because those are the ones that tend to start out great and then lose their “magic”.

The ones that I have had, I have had for many, many years without an issue. The only problem there is that I picked mine up at a Marshalls or Burlington for $10 a piece over about three or four week period as I found them.

They have served me well, I haven’t noticed an issue with them “losing their Magic”, and work well to this day.
They don’t have it brand name on them, and it’s been long enough ago that I have no idea what brand was on the tag.
But I can tell you is that they are wooden and they do have good, stainless steel internals.
To know dulling or loss of use issues there.

Of course, unless you’re trying to grind up rocks with them.

You may also want to look around at Rockler, amazon, Etc because they do have solid stainless steel kits so you can turn your own on a lathe if you don’t find anything to your liking.

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