Commercial rate coffee grinders are appliances manufactured to deliver an assortment of different coffee types and grinds. Anyone who is a coffee aficionado will vouch for the importance of freshly brewed coffee right before preparing a cup. And that is why investing in a quality coffee grinder that comes with the right amount of power whether for commercial or at-home use can greatly enhance your coffee drinking experience.
The best commercial coffee grinder will be a machine that comes equipped with all the right features including a larger capacity than regular coffee grinders, a medium-speed grinder rather than a high-speed model, and a machine that is easy to use and clean. Keeping these considerations in mind, our panel of experts have brought together a list of the most popular commercial coffee grinders available.
More features: 240 W power, LCD control panel, burr removal tool included, burr calibration option, electronic scale, 260 grinding settings
From Baratza, a company with award winning coffee grinders, comes the Forte BG – a stylish, yet hardy commercial grade grinder renowned for its performance and efficiency in café settings. The Forte is our list’s Editor’s Choice for all the right reasons: if you’re looking for a grinder with top-notch quality in every aspect and truly lives up to its name, look no further than the Forte BG.
This grinder has a sleek and polished look, with a stylish metal body that keeps a small footprint in your commercial or even home coffee bar. Don’t be fooled by its size: it packs plenty of power and more than enough intuitive features.
The Forte BG model sports 54 mm flat stainless-steel burrs made to provide accuracy and precision in producing coffee grinds. This machine is great for all brewing styles as it includes an impressive total of 260 different grind settings. For extra accuracy, a built-in digital scale exacts weight-based measurements to the tenth of a gram while a digital timer comes with three programmable preset buttons for easy access to your favorite settings.
The hopper has a “shut-off” functionality allowing you to remove and switch between beans without mess.
One thing you’ll notice with a brand-new Baratza Forte BG is that its burrs require a short amount of time to break in. In this time the burrs may lose some sharpness any will require grinding some extra beans before shots reach their peak consistence.
The Forte comes with a warranty of one year which can be considered short for a product in its price range.
More features: flat burrs, coffee dosing adjustment option, low mounted motor, seal-slide technology, 13 lbs/hour output
The ZIP-R commercial coffee grinder is a durable semi-automatic grinder from La Pavoni and is equipped for power and consistency.
The colored die-cast aluminum body is strong and protects most of the machine from external damage
The extra-large 63.5 mm tempered steel flat burrs of the ZIP-R offer superior efficiency, less noise, and most importantly, better control. This matters when making more particular grinds, such as espresso, as you can be more specific with the fineness or coarseness.
The ZIP-R also includes a built-in 58mm tamper, a useful tool in preparing better espressos for you.
There are numerous features that ensure this grinder will last you a long time by defending it from any possibility of overheating. Built with special insulating shields protecting the important internal components from overheat damage. The motor is low-mounted to prevent potential heat-build up from damaging the coffee beans in the hopper.
The hopper includes seal-slide tech to prevent beans from falling when removed.
You can truly tell this grinder was made for the long haul. With its hardy structure and protective measures, the ZIP-R is bound to perform consistently for years to come. On top of that, it comes well equipped for making superior espressos, making it the best commercial coffee grinder for espresso on this list.
Though this is a great commercial grade machine, it comes a bit pricey for home use, and is one of the heavier grinders on this list.
More features: front loading hoppers, 1320 W power, LCD screen, coffee grinding settings for beans types
For grinding coffee in a larger commercial setting, the Multi-Hopper Coffee Grinder from BUNN is a perfect investment. The MHG, or Multi-Hopper Grinder, is built with almost an industrial standard, designed with features that provide the varied selection that customers crave, all as precisely and efficiently as possible. It’s why we nominate it the best coffee grinder for a large coffee shop on this list.
The MHG comes with convenient front-loading hoppers that allow you to quickly change, refill, and clean with little to no hassle. The hoppers themselves are able to hold more than plenty of coffee beans, with a combined capacity of 6 lbs. They are large enough to serve as a storage system for your coffee beans.
The MHG prides itself on operating as error free as possible. With the BUNN BrewWISE wireless functionality, the hoppers are also intelligent and able to communicate to the grinder the type of coffee being used to ensure the perfect batch every time. This functionality makes the MHG a perfect partner among brewers, especially other BUNN brewers that are BrewWISE compatible.
The LCD screen displays all your settings as the grinding work is done for you.
Though the BUNN MHG is a high-quality machine with useful automated features, it really is exclusively made for large-scale commercial use. Buying it for a home would be impractical due to its hefty size and heftier price tag.
More features: 50 mm flat grinding burrs, 166 W power, manual control via push button, tinted hopper
The Rancilio Rocky Espresso Coffee Grinder is a small yet heavy duty coffee grinder that favors quality above all. Known with a reputation for being durable and dependable, this grinder is a great addition for the home or small café.
The Rocky Espresso Coffee Grinder comes equipped with 50 mm commercial grade, flat stainless-steel grinding burrs for better grind control. Along with 55 grind settings, this grinder can produce any fineness of coffee grounds according to your preference.
One thing that makes the Rocky grinder stand out among other smaller coffee grinders is its quality. Made to last, this grinder will provide a consistently precise grind for years to come. These units are even tested for functionality before being packaged and shipped out.
This grinder is manual, giving you the type of coffee you want only on demand. The motor is fast and quiet for minimal annoyance. This particular model (SS) also comes without a doser for added control, and pours directly onto a portafilter that can fit on the grinder’s removable rack.
Some users found that the spout can be messy, and the portafilter should be held directly beneath the spout to reduce any possible mess.
Avoid using oily beans in this grinder, as this can make the machine prone to jamming.
Overall, the Rancilio Rocky Espresso grinder is a hardy manual machine that’ll get the job done efficiently for a wide selection of coffee types, for a long time. This is why it’s our choice for the best commercial coffee grinder for a small coffee shop.
More features: semi-automatic controls, 8 lbs per hour grinding ability, 50 mm flat burrs, LCD screen, micrometric grinding adjustment, automatic doser
The Nuova Simonelli Grinta is an excellent commercial coffee grinder for those seeking a more affordable option. Despite its budget friendly price tag, the Grinta is sure to exceed your expectations.
Designed to function in a busier commercial environment, the Grinta will last more than enough time with the regular home brewer. It’s something of a small workhorse – despite its convenient size, it has a powerful motor capable of grinding up to 8 pounds per hour. Not only is it fast, it’s precise as well. The 50 mm flat steel burrs make sure the grinds are consistent – perfect for finer doses, especially shots of espresso.
The Nuova Simonelli Grinta can also offer a variety of coffee grind types, with semi-automatic controls allowing you better control over adjustments and preferred brewing methods. Adjusting the Grinta is also user-friendly: release the setting lock and rotate the hopper to adjust accordingly.
One setting not recommended for this grinder, however, is the extra fine for Turkish coffee. It’s uncommon, but some users note that the extra fine grounds can get bunched up, making it prone to clogging. For other settings such as pour-over or drip, this grinder will work perfectly fine.
We nominate the Grinta for this list’s Budget Pick, thanks to its power, efficiency, and commercial-grade quality all packed into a relatively affordable compact machine.
More features: LCD screen, conical burr, porta filters included, burr cleaning brush included, 165 W power
The Breville Smart Grinder is a machine looking to sweep away the home grinding competition, with a wider selection of grind settings and features that offer you the best control.
This mainly automatic smart grinder is equipped with a vast arsenal of 60 grind settings, as well as an electronic timer that allows you to adjust the grind time all the way down to the fifth of a second. With 10 micro-adjustments available beneath the bottom burr (amounting to a whopping total of 600 settings), this grinder is more than sure to cater to your preference with variety and precision.
You can grind your coffee into any type of container, portafilter, or paper filter for that extra freedom to do as you like with the Smart Grinder. The stainless-steel conical burrs offer a consistent grind that has less of chance of overheating and damaging the beans.
It includes a clear and concise LCD display and interface displaying the settings you have chosen, making everything simple enough for even the beginner brewer.
The Dose iQ feature allows you to program your own personal dose size, and for each grind category.
The 18-ounce hopper includes a locking system for mess-free removal.
One issue that may come with this grinder is in its larger grind settings – though advertised as such, the largest grind is still a bit fine for French press.
Overall, the Breville Smart Grinder is versatile, user-friendly, consistent in grinds, and on top of that, reasonably priced: all reasons for us to nominate it the best heavy-duty coffee grinder for home use.
Purchasing a commercial-grade coffee grinder can grind your coffee beans to a perfect consistency and be fast enough to keep up with the crowd. So here are some features and tips to know before you dive into the world of self-made coffee.
Using ready-made pouches isn’t going to cut it when it comes to coffee. If you want to sell the best quality coffee, you need freshly ground beans on demand. For enrichment, speed, and reliability, a coffee grinder is what you’re looking for.
To be successful, you’ll need a unique flavor customer will crave to try again. There is no better reason to invest in a commercial-grade coffee grinder.
Blade grinders are the more common types of grinders you can find in the market, but that doesn’t mean these are the better kind. You won’t get consistent and quality ground coffee if you use a blade grinder, no matter how heavy-duty it claims to be.
For grinding fine coffee, the burr grinder promises consistent and powdered results. To create the ideal cafe gusto, a burr grinder is the right way to go. All our featured models are burr grinders.
For the best quality in your coffee grinder, you should look for prices with a minimum of $200 in mind. It may seem like a lot, but coffee grinders are an investment to be taken seriously. Elite coffee grinders go over $1000.
Grinders will offer all types of features and accessories to appeal to consumers. Don’t be fooled though, you don’t need every accessory you’re offered. The main priority will always be the quality of the grinder. Once you’ve found a great grinder, you can look to the additional features to convenience yourself.
There are two types of burrs you can select from; a flat burr and a conical burr.
Flat burrs are a handful, but if a strong flavor is what you’re aiming for in your coffee, then these are ideal. Flat burrs create chip-like grinds, but in order to do so, they have to spin fast. The faster they spin though, the likelier your grinds are to burn up. This will ruin the overall taste which is not something you want. They also clog up easier which means they’re higher maintenance.
Conical burrs capture aroma better which is complemented with a taste-intensity and complexity. Since gravity is the main key with conical burrs, there isn’t as much of a worry when it comes to burning up the coffee grinds.
When it comes to durable materials, the top two contenders are stainless steel and ceramic. Stainless steel is the more common construction you’ll find. However, there are some problems with stainless steel.
Since it’s a metal, there’s always the fact that it’ll heat up after repetitive usage. This can burn your ground coffee which is not what you want. Some grinders have cooling fans, but these add to cost and are still liable to break down.
Ceramic doesn’t heat up. It does cost a little more and the consistency isn’t exactly up to par with that of a stainless steel grinder. Luckily, the difference isn’t very noticeable in the taste, only in research. If you’re ready to invest more money, then ceramic is a great idea. If not, then stainless steel will still give you great results, just keep an eye out for when it heats up.
The size of the burr makes a great impact on not only the quality of your coffee but your performance behind the counter as well.
The best size to go with is a medium. Even though large sizes spin faster, they also heat up faster and lead to burnt grinds, which is bad. Therefore, medium-sized burrs are the best option. They make a shot in 6-8 seconds.
You don’t want to purchase a machine that takes up the whole counter since you will have other machines working at the same time. You’ll also have cups, lids, and stirs all over the place.
It should be big enough to navigate easily, but small enough so it doesn’t take up more space than it needs to, like the Baratza Forte BG.
The bigger your hopper is, the more beans it can hold at once. You’ll want a decently sized hopper that can store an abundance of coffee beans. At the least, try to ensure you get more than ten cups of coffee out of the hopper’s volume. Otherwise, busy days will be more hectic than you’ll want them to be.
The BUNN 35600.0020 offers a generous hopper capacity of 95 oz with the La Pavoni coming in second at 35 oz.
The grinder holder, quite like the hopper, should have a larger volume so you can make more in one go. You don’t want to be scrambling for ground coffee after every customer. You’d never survive rush-hour with a grinder like that.
In comparison to any manual grinder, all automatics work much faster. You can choose your setting, and let the grinder work by itself as it grinds to the perfect consistency. Of course, you are giving up some of the control you’d have over the grinder with a manual model.
If speed is your priority, then there should be no issue in using an automatic model.
Whether you’re looking for a commercial-grade standard to work with at home or at work, maintenance is not something you’ll want to spend your whole day on. Especially if you’re running a cafe, you want a grinder that doesn’t create a mess of itself.
It should be easy to clean and not prone to clogging itself up after a few uses. Try to get a grinder that can survive a day with less than five clogs.
Since a commercial-grade coffee grinder is an investment you’ll want to take seriously, it’s best to look for a warranty that covers for a long period of time. The warranty should also cover most if not all possible malfunctions your coffee grinder may encounter.
For commercial-grade products, look for a minimum of a one-year limited warranty and be gracious to anything that exceeds this. Some products will come with split warranties, such as the BUNN Multi-Hopper Coffee Grinder which has a two-year warranty on parts, and a one-year warranty on labor.
For a thorough understanding of your coffee grinder and all it can do, take a look at this video for the help you’ll need to get started.
Our top choice for commercial coffee grinders is the renowned Forte BG from Baratza. It’s a top-quality product that lives up to its name with a stylish build filled with nothing but intuitive features that ensure you get the perfect grind every time. It may be on the pricier side, but the features included make it a worthwhile investment.
For a machine that can specialize in espresso grinds, look no further than the ZIP-R from La Pavoni. It comes built-in with all the right tools for the job, and is made to provide consistently under regular commercial use for an extended time.
Finally, if you’re looking for a value pick, the best commercial coffee grinder for you would be the Nuova Simonelli Grinta. This grinder is reliable and enough to get the job done in a smaller commercial or home setting, with a consistent grind every time. It’s simple enough for any level of brewer and its semi-automatic functions make grinding coffee convenient.
