Ceramic Or Metal Burr

Currently most domestic burr grinders are made using ceramic instead of steel.

Ceramic or metal burr.

So steel burrs are more effective at moving heat away from the coffee during the grinding process compared to ceramic ones. The burr set is made from sharp stainless steel and it goes through medium roasted beans like a knife through butter. No flat quality difference between metal and ceramic just different. In answer to your first question i do prefer the kyocera to the traditional box like grinders with steel burrs.

First their high strength blades are especially long lasting. Yet it s also more brittle. The steel delivers very nice uniformity on coarser grinds any kind of drip while the ceramic generates a lot more fines in the coarser range. This grinder is suitable for manual brewing but the company doesn t recommend it for espresso they have a few bigger models such as the e pro and the jx that are more suitable for that.

Heat is an important factor when it comes to coffee grinder burrs because any extra heat impacts your coffee s flavor since it burns off some oils present on the beans. First off ceramic burrs run a bit cooler compared to steel burrs or in other words they don t heat up as fast or retain heat as much as their metal counterparts. Ceramic burrs run a little cooler than steel burrs and there are some coffee experts who think the extra heat burns off some of the oils and impacts the flavor of the coffee. They start off less sharp than a steel blade.

Ceramic burrs are more brittle than steel so you could chip the ceramic burr if a very hard rock was hiding in the beans. In the end it s what tastes best to you. Ceramic burr are less thermally conductive than steel this means these burrs transfer less heat than steel burrs see below on heat. Both can make fine grinds espresso very well.

Quality of a burr comes much more from its machining tolerances and toothing design ceramic is typically used in very cheap and very expensive grinders. Some people also have a preference for ceramic or metal alloy burrs. Ceramic is harder than steel which means the burrs will stay sharp for longer. With that isolated variable the ceramic had more sweetness for coffees roasted for espresso and the steel burrs clarity of flavor seemed better for espresso with coffees at production or non espresso roasts.

Ceramic burrs require a custom mold or tool to form them. There are a couple of reasons for this. Small stones and other objects can end up cracking them. If the burr is ceramic then the transfer is slower and more of the heat generated during the grind stays with the coffee.

However they will retain their original sharpness almost indefinitely. For a couple of reasons.