You might think, being a humble man of the people from humble origins such as I am, that I do not grind my own coffee. Friends, I can understand why you would think that! I am lazy and prefer to buy coffee pre-ground for me, and in large warehouse club quantities! I am not that particular about my coffee! It just needs to be hot. It doesn’t need to be hot, I will drink cold coffee from yesterday or longer (skim the mold first!).
But I do have a coffee grinder. As a matter of fact, it’s not my first! I bought the first after accidentally picking up a warehouse club sized bag of coffee beans, and I didn’t want to waste them! So I got a coffee grinder to use those coffee beans–and to see if I could really taste the difference (Did I? Who cares? I NEED COFFEE, ANY COFFEE, NOW!). But I found it difficult to clean the coffee grinder, so I ended up giving the coffee beans to a co-worker who is a coffee snob and donating the coffee grinder to a thrift store!
But that was ten years ago, and when I recently made the same mistake again, I had a dilemma! Do I send the coffee to the co-worker whom I have not seen in ten years (weird, but a tempting idea!)? No, friends, I bought another coffee grinder, and I discovered this easy trick to clean it out every time!
If you’ve used a coffee grinder, you know that the bits of finely ground coffee cling to the side stubbornly after you’ve emptied it.
You can’t immerse it in water, and the grinder blade makes it tricky to get a moist or dry cloth in there. Especially around the axle of the blade! But I accidentally discovered this fool-proof method for loosening and getting those reluctant particles of caffeination out:
I drop it on the floor!
The impact loosens the covalent bonds between the ground coffee and the grinder, and its position on its side ensure the particles fly all over your kitchen floor, you can walk over them in bare feet and absorb the caffeine from them later! Because these coffee grinder particles are so fine they will slide right under your dustpan edge if you try to sweep them up.
And the coffee grinder?
Spotless!
But, Brian J., isn’t this a little rough on the coffee grinder?
Well, gentle reader, I don’t care, I NEED COFFEE NOW! Also, the grinder only has to last me the duration of this bag of coffee beans, as I still prefer some industrial machine grind my coffee for me (and blend in some protein-rich insect parts that are actually allowed under the Whole30® diet!).
