Commercial Coffee Grinder: Best Industrial, Drip and Espresso Grinders

If you’re in the coffee business, then you understand that people need their coffee to awaken them from their current zombie state. In fact, if you wait any longer than just a few minutes to serve them, they may very well become distraught and leave you a bad Yelp review... or worse!

According to the National Coffee Association (1), most Americans drink more than three cups of coffee per day. That’s a lot of potential business which is why your average coffee grinder may not be enough.

Want to learn about the best commercial coffee grinder that will have your customers raving about your business? Check out our list as we give you the best industrial, drip and espresso grinder for your business!

Best Commercial Coffee Grinder 

When you hear the term “commercial coffee grinder,” you might have a massive coffee grinding facility in mind. That is certainly the case for some industrial coffee grinders, but not for all. In fact, purchasing a commercial coffee grinder for your small or medium-sized coffee shop is an excellent way to boost the quality of coffee you offer while saving you time.

With so much talk about the qualities and options you have to choose from with a commercial coffee grinder, you’re probably biting at the “grind” to see the options for your business. Without further ado, below are our favorite commercial coffee grinders.

1. Mahlkonig EKK43

Best Commercial Grinder: $3,499

The sleek-looking EKK43 is a flat burr commercial coffee grinder that’s perfect for coffee shops. It contains two separate see-through grind chambers so that you can grind two different types of coffee beans at once.

With a grinding capacity of 1.9 – 2.2 pounds per minute, helped along by premium cast steel grinding discs, this is an ideal grinder for smaller-scale businesses. It has two 2.2-pound hopper chambers.

The EKK43 has functions for quick and easy grind adjustments. It touts itself as a leader in the international coffee grinding world for its uniform particle size and ability to extract an outstanding taste.

Versatility is a key component of the EKK43. You can use it to make a filter, espresso, and Turkish-fine coffee. You can even give it a quick rinse and use this grinder for spices, poppy-seeds, and grains with the help of special burrs.

If space is a concern for you, you’ll be happy to know that the EKK43 is a mere 30 in x 23.2 in x 9 in. It weighs just under 62 pounds—enough where you’ll want to choose a semi-permanent home for it.

Since this coffee grinder will likely be within your customers’ view, you can choose the color of the EKK43 to match your coffee shop’s décor. Your options include matte black, matte white, and copper.

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2. Mahlkonig E80 Supreme

Best Commercial Espresso Grinder: $3,399

Modern and stylish, the E80 Supreme commercial coffee grinder is an excellent addition to many coffee shops. It has a top-of-the-line grinding speed, even during peak times at your business.

You can rely on the E80 Supreme to produce superior tasting espresso due to its unique burr geometry. In fact, this grinder has patented Disc Distance Detection technology, which allows you to control the distance between burrs. 

At 38.5 pounds, the E80 Supreme is light enough to move around your coffee shop. It’s even smaller than the EKK43, at 9.4 x 24.8 x 13.4 inches, and with a 31.5-inch diameter, it gives you plenty of precious counter space to bake or prepare other drinks for your customers. 

You’ll never have to worry about burned-tasting espresso with the E80 Supreme; its powerful motor has active temperature management. High-speed performance and cooling properties are a barista’s dream, wouldn’t you say? We get a lot of people asking about our Mahlkonig K30 review and we hold strong to the notion that the E80 is the clear winner! 

As if it couldn’t get better, this grinder is quiet, so your customers don’t have to pause their conversation or get distracted from the book they’re reading. Furthermore, it embraces modern technology with a high-resolution and a nearly 3.5-inch display screen with a wide viewing angle.

Keeping your workspace clean is no doubt a priority for you. With the E80 Supreme, you’ll benefit from an adjustable illuminated spout, so you keep your coffee grounds in your espresso instead of the floor. 

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3. Mahlkonig EK43

Best Grinder for Filter Coffee: $2,899

The compact EK43 is an excellent supplement to the E-80 Supreme if you want a grinder for filter coffee, including Turkish-fine coffee. However, it also serves for espresso if you prefer to have a single grinder at your coffee shop.

As a classic Mahlkönig model, the EK43 has nearly 4-inch premium cast steel grinding discs. You’ll have full control over the grinding size, thanks to its precise grind adjustment. 

By ensuring an even particle size, even with constant use, you can rest easy knowing that your customers will benefit from outstanding flavors and body due to high extraction rates.

As with the EKK43, its sister EK43 offers the option for using individual grinding discs to grind spices, linseed, and grains. Not many industrial coffee grinders provide the capability to function for both coffee and baking needs.

The EK43 may look small, but it’s a powerhouse. It can produce over three pounds of coffee per minute. Take one look at its photo, and you’ll think we’re joking, but we swear it’s true!

In fact, the EK43 is so efficient that many coffee competitions rely on it, including the famous World Brewers Competition. To find out more, be sure to check out our Mahlkonig EK43 Review for a more detailed synopsis.

Since this coffee grinder only has a capacity of a little over three pounds, it’s a good fit for small-scale coffee businesses. If you’re operating a business requiring massive amounts of coffee grinding, our next pick is for you.

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4. Mahlkonig DK27LVH

Best Industrial Coffee Grinder: $29,999

When it comes to industrial coffee grinders, it’s hard to beat the DK27LVH. If you’re new to the industrial coffee scene, the price tag might be a shock at first, but it’s an investment that will repay you for years to come.

Heavy-duty tungsten carbide burrs have a massive 7-inch diameter for grinding massive quantities of coffee beans at once. Just how huge, you wonder? The hopper holds 66 pounds of beans at a time and averages 616 pounds of beans per hour. 

With a three-phase, 25-amp motor, the DK27LVH has a high starting torque. However, surface cooling ensures that the coffee beans don’t burn, and it prevents the machine from wearing.

There isn’t anything small about this industrial grinder—it weighs over 342 pounds and measures 31.1 x 48.4 x 63 inches. If you need to cart your grinder around, you can purchase a mobile stainless steel container with wheels to make the job easier.

When you’re producing mass amounts of coffee grinds, a homogenous grind is more important than ever; repeat business depends on it. For this reason, the DK27LVH offers grind adjustment wheels so that you have full control over the quality of your coffee bean grounds.

The DK27LVH is ideal for businesses who want to mass-produce coffee grinds for distributing to coffee shops or selling to larger vendors.

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5. Mahlkonig E65S-Grind by Weight

Best Budget Espresso Grinder: $2,999

 

The stylish E65-Grind by Weight performs exactly as its name implies—it uses real-time weight control when grinding because of its doser feature.

Other grinders use volume as their primary form of measurement, but this can lead to significant inaccuracies. By setting the doser to a preset weight, you’ll know that you’re consistently getting the right espresso amount with each grinding session.

In addition to the E65S-Grind by Weight’s slogan of “every gram matters,” the machine also features active temperature management, so you don’t overheat your espresso grounds. 

Furthermore, it uses brand new Disc Distance Detection technology to ensure the perfect amount of espresso bean fineness.

Thanks to an adjustable illuminated spout, you can feel confident that your espresso grounds will land in your coffee cup. It also helps you avoid wasting coffee grounds—we know how extra important this is in the penny-pinching days of starting a new business.

With so many excellent features, you may expect the E65-Grind by Weight to come at a high price. 

However, this is one of the most economical commercial coffee grinders on the market, so it’s a great option if you’re starting a small business and aren’t ready or able to invest a large amount of money into a grinder.

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6. Mahlkonig GH2

Best Budget Filter Coffee Grinder: $999

 

If you want a budget filter commercial coffee grinder, look no further than the GH2. With a 4.4 pound hopper, it’s perfect for small to medium-sized coffee shops. 

With 85mm of hardened Italian steel burrs, this durable grinder will provide you with batch after batch of uniformly ground coffee. Despite offering various stepless grind adjustments, the intuitive settings and one-button operation make it easy for anyone to learn how to use it.

An advantage of the GH2 is how easy it is to make small tweaks to the grinding process. That way, you can customize your coffee grounds for everything from preparing Turkish coffee to French Press style.

Thanks to the vertical nature of its grinding discs, the GH2 ensures the grounds arrive in your customer’s coffee cups and don’t get stuck in the machine.

When you set this grinder to “coarse,” you can expect it to produce around one pound of coffee grounds per minute. Obviously, this isn’t a good fit for industrial coffee ground businesses. 

However, it does the trick for small-scale coffee shops. You can even use it to fill coffee bags on the spot for your customers. 

The GH2 comes with a tool kit. That way, you’ll have everything you need to clean and maintain it, including a bristle brush and a slotted screwdriver.

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7. Mahlkonig EK43S (Compact)

Best Compact Coffee Shop Grinder: $2,899

If your space is limited and your customer base small, the EK43S is a fantastic commercial coffee grinder option. 

Despite its small size, it has a massive 98mm flat cast steel burr. That ensures you receive a premium performance and even ground sizes. 

As such, the EK43S isn’t lightweight; at nearly 63 pounds, it’s manageable enough to carry around, but you’re better off finding a somewhat permanent home for it in your coffee shop.

As you’re working on finding your coffee grinder a home, the dimensions you’ll need to account for are 9 x 27 x 16 inches. Super tiny, right?

Just as wonderful, the EK43S is versatile. You can use it for a filter, espresso, and Turkish coffee by taking advantage of an easy-to-use grind adjuster.

Keep in mind that the EK43S has a relatively low-lying spout. That means that it’s best to use for single-dosing espresso or pour-over coffee. Compared to its larger cousin that we covered earlier, the EK43, the EK43S offers four more inches of height clearance. 

Since you’ll likely be showing off your coffee grinder in a place that’s visible to your customers, you can choose from a matte black or matte white finish, according to what goes best with your coffee shop’s décor. 

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What’s the Purpose of a Good Coffee Grinder? 

You don’t need us to tell you that a coffee grinder is for turning coffee beans into grounds for coffee consumption. However, it isn’t necessarily common knowledge why people don’t brew coffee using whole coffee beans.

By grinding coffee, you increase the compactness of the area that water passes through during the brewing process. By doing so, you force water to take its time trickling through the coffee grounds, picking up flavor along the way that it brings into your cup of Joe. 

Another way to look at this is when rain falls on a bed of rocks versus soil. The rain will quickly flow through the rocks (coffee beans) but will pass more slowly and even pool on top of the soil (coffee grounds) before it’s absorbed.

Any coffee enthusiast knows that the best-tasting coffee comes from beans that recently underwent grinding. Therefore, the best commercial coffee grinders will allow you to grind beans quickly. 

These coffee grinders also have options to stop production so you avoid making more than you can reasonably sell before the grounds become stale.

Now that we’ve covered the basics, let’s dive into what you’re here for—your business!

Analyzing Your Business

No two commercial coffee grinders are the same. So, it’s important to look at your business and determine what your needs are (and aren’t). There’s little point in purchasing a mega industrial-sized coffee grinder when you have 50 customers a day coming through your door.

So, before purchasing your coffee grinder, consider the following points:

• The type of business you own
• Your business layout
• What kind of coffee grinder is conducive to your long-term plan

Type of Business

Since you’re looking for a commercial coffee grinder, coffee undoubtedly plays a role in your business. However, you need to consider what percentage of your business it is and how many customers you serve.

For example, a small shop specializing in select coffees will require a smaller coffee grinder than a large restaurant that mass produces a single type of coffee for hundreds of customers.

Calculating the approximate coffee ground batches you need to make in a day is an excellent start, but it doesn’t end there.

You also need to consider how quickly you need to brew cups of coffee. If you have customers constantly rolling through your door, you’ll want to ensure the commercial coffee grinder you purchase can produce large batches of coffee grounds fast.

Alternatively, if you have fewer customers or lots of special coffees that don’t sell as quickly, a grinder that can stop swiftly or grind specific, small amounts are features you should look for.

Business Layout

Size may not matter for everything, but when talking about industrial coffee grinders, it definitely does. 

Many commercial grinders are bulky. However, that’s not to say that you can’t find a powerful smaller grinder if you have limited space, and we’ll show you several such options in this guide. 

You should begin by measuring the area that you’re willing to dedicate to a coffee grinder. Then, narrow down your search from there.

Another item to keep in mind when looking for a coffee grinder is its portability. If you have a small coffee shop, you likely already have a permanent location where you want to put your coffee grinder.

However, depending on your business needs, you may want a portable grinder. In that case, you’ll want to look for one that is light enough to carry or has a wheeled container.

Long-Term Plan

Even the most economical industrial coffee grinders are an investment compared to the cost of home grinders. 

However, if you foresee your business expanding in the future, in the long run, it might save you money to invest more upfront for a coffee grinder that can handle a higher capacity. 

Alternatively, a single, large coffee grinder might serve you now. 

Nevertheless, if you’re thinking about offering many different coffee flavors in the future, then purchasing a few smaller grinders that add up to a similar price to what you would have paid for a larger grinder might be a better option for you.

As some food for thought, having two or more coffee grinders has an added benefit—insurance if one grinder breaks or needs maintenance. No doubt, such situations are still inconvenient, but they would allow you to keep your business up and running while you fix your broken grinder.

Finally, when looking at the long-term plan for your business, it helps to weigh the impact of an inexpensive grinder in the present to what the cost implications could be in the future.

Less expensive grinders tend to require more maintenance and need replacement parts more frequently. All that adds up, so investing greater capital now in a grinder could end up saving you money in the long run.

Industrial Coffee Grinder Features

In conjunction with analyzing your business, you’ll need to know the features that commercial coffee grinders offer, so you’re equipped to choose the best fit for you.

Whereas home grinders can produce small batches of coffee, industrial coffee grinders excel at making massive amounts of ground coffee quickly.

The following features are iconic of commercial coffee grinders:

1. Speed
2. Quantity
3. Quality
4. Ease of Use

Let’s look at each of these points in more detail.

Speed

Time is money, so you understandably expect that your commercial coffee grinder will save you time. 

A standard coffee grinder can typically grind around 1 – 3 pounds per minute. If you’re just dipping your toes into the commercial coffee grinder world, that might sound decent.

But consider this—an industrial grinder can whip out 300 to over 600 pounds of coffee every hour. You don’t need us to tell you how much more earning potential you have by purchasing such a grinder for your coffee grinding business.

Quantity

At this point, you have an idea of the massive amount of coffee grinds that industrial coffee grinders produce per hour. But you might be wondering—how many coffee beans can the grinders hold before someone has to refill them?

The “hopper” refers to the area that holds the coffee beans before you grind them. Hopper sizes vary greatly depending on the grinder’s size and how much money you’re willing to spend. Typically, hoppers can hold anywhere from 3 – 60 pounds of coffee beans.

Determining the right hopper size for your needs is important. 

For example, if you need to quickly grind large amounts of coffee, choosing a small hopper would mean that you or an employee would have to stay near the grinder more often, monitoring it before the hopper empties. 

Generally speaking, the larger the hopper, the more efficient the grinder. And so, it likely comes as no surprise that grinders with large hoppers typically cost more.

Quality

You could have the fastest coffee grinding production on the market, but if your coffee grounds taste bad, no one will want to buy them.

How you grind coffee beans makes a huge difference in the coffee’s taste. If you grind the beans too finely, the coffee will have a bitter taste from over-extraction. 

By purchasing a high-quality commercial grinder, you can rest easy knowing that it’ll produce uniform coffee particles that aren’t beat to a pulp.

So, you might be thinking—what types of features should you look for in a commercial grinder to ensure high-quality coffee grounds?

It all has to do with the grinding disc. The disc will be steel, but the type of steel varies. Die-cast and tungsten carbide steel are more durable for managing large quantities of coffee beans and long-term use.

The most common type of disc in commercial coffee grinders is the flat burr. These discs excel at offering consistent grind texture, and they tend to draw out chocolate and nutty flavors from coffee beans. That said, there are many other types of grinders, which we’ll cover shortly.

The disc design is equally important for coffee quality. You’ll want to look for a disc that has good reviews regarding its sharpness and sturdiness (you don’t want the disc chipping off into your coffee grounds!). 

Furthermore, some grinders offer cooling properties, so you don’t have to worry about the coffee beans taking on a burned flavor.

Ease of Use

There’s little point in purchasing a commercial coffee grinder if it’s too complicated for you and your employees to work with. Furthermore, each coffee grinding business has different needs, so you should seek out qualities in a grinder that will make your life easier.

Below are some examples of different features that coffee grinders contain to make them more convenient:

• Adjustable spouts
• Barrel or container attachments
• Ability to stop grinding on the spot
• Wheels to move the grinder around your roastery
• Function to change the grinding style between batches

Picking and choosing between these coffee grinder features are among the most exciting part of deciding on your grinder. Just imagine the time you’ll save and the extra money you can earn by selecting a grinder customized to your needs!

Types of Grinders

Before we talk about our recommendations for the best commercial coffee grinders, it’ll help you to understand the different grinder styles from which you’ll have to choose. 

Although there are only a few standard go-to coffee grinder styles for industrial use, we’ll share all the options here in case you want to stray from the pack.

Burr Grinders

Burr grinders are by far the most popular choice for commercial coffee grinders. Business owners love them because they offer the option for you to choose the grind size. Regardless of the size you choose, you can rely on them to offer consistent sizes among the coffee beans.

So, how do burr grinders achieve such a consistent grind? They have two serrated blades that travel around each other. In doing so, they grind the beans together instead of simply slicing through the beans like other grinder styles.

The oscillation of the two blades also helps extract more coffee bean oil, further enhancing the coffee’s flavor. Knowing you want a burr grinder is a start, but it’s not the only choice you’ll need to make. 

There are two types of burr grinders—conical and flat. Which style is best is a heated debate among the coffee community, so you’ll need to do your own experimenting to see what you prefer.

Conical Burr Grinders

Coffee shops tend to favor the conical style of burr grinders. The blades of these grinders have a cone shape, which pushes the beans down towards the sharp end. 

Conical burr grinders create a phenomenon that’s called a bimodal distribution. If you don’t have a microscope, you’re going to have to trust us on this one; although the coffee grinds look uniform to the eye, under a microscope, one is slightly larger than the other. 

We know what you’re thinking—we just talked about how important uniformity is for producing the highest-quality cup of Joe. And while that’s mostly true, this ever so subtle size difference reduces the ease of which water flows through the grinds. 

For that reason, coffee made with a conical burr grinder has a stronger flavor, which is ideal for making espresso.

Flat Burr Grinders

Flat burr grinders work entirely differently from conical ones because of their two horizontal blades. One blade faces up and the other down, with coffee beans ground between them. 

What makes the flat burr design so wonderful, however, is that the coffee grinds pass back through the blades for a second time to ensure every coffee bean breaks down perfectly.

You can tuck your microscope away for flat burr grinders; the grinds are beautifully uniform. 

Since flat burr grinders produce a coarser grind, they’re ideal for drip coffee, French presses, and pour-overs. When it comes to commercial coffee grinding, many businesses prefer conical burr grinders because the flat burr variety tends to produce more noise and heat during long uses. 

Additionally, flat burr grinders have a reputation for getting coffee beans stuck in their crevices.

Doser Grinders

We’re taking a bit of a liberty here, as doser grinding isn’t a type of grinder per se, rather a dispenser style within any given grinder.

Doser grinders contain a chamber where freshly made coffee grounds fall. They have a lever you can pull to dispense the grounds into increments of your choosing into a portafilter.

Almost all doser grinders are programmable, so you can take a “set it and leave it” approach. They’re highly efficient machines that can quickly section out small bits of coffee, which is ideal when grinding beans for espresso. 

Doserless Grinders

Given the qualities of a doser grinder, you can probably picture how doserless grinders work. By using a chute, doserless grinders send ground coffee directly into a portafilter basket. 

In most cases, you’ll be able to control the ground coffee via a start and stop button on the side of your grinder. 

That’s an ideal option for making espresso, but doserless grinders are a good fit for only experienced baristas since they’ll need to eyeball the right amount of coffee grounds to dispense.

Benefits of doserless grinders include less waste since you control how much coffee to release at any given time. It also aids in offering the freshest cups of coffee.

Stepped Grinders

You won’t see many steeped commercial grinders for sale since they’re not ideal for mass coffee ground production. However, a benefit of stepped grinders is that you can quickly adjust the grind size without having to stop production to redial your machine.

Sometimes, other types of grinders that offer uniform grind sizes need redialing after use. However, stepped grinders allow you to grind batch after batch of coffee beans without you having to worry about the ground size changing.

The disadvantage of stepped grinders is that since it’s so simple to change between grind sizes, there’s a higher risk of accidentally producing the wrong size during mass production as you switch between different coffee varieties.

Stepless Grinders

Yes, just like there are doser and doserless grinders, there are also stepped and stepless grinders. A stepless grinder might be the right fit for you if you want to ensure a precise grind with every batch.

Stepless grinders have notches that you can preset according to your liking to enhance the coffee’s flavor and texture. That also helps with maintaining a consistent grind. 

The precision that stepless grinders offer means that it’s easier for different employees to ensure they’re getting the right setting.

Filter Coffee Grinder

Before you purchase a filter coffee grinder, below are some things to consider:

• Understand what types of filters you want to use with the grinder. Cloth filters have less of an impact on coffee taste than paper filters.
• Decide whether you want your grinder to weigh out the coffee grinds or if you want to do so manually.
• The rate at which the grinder grinds coffee. 
• Decide on what size drip holes you’d like the grinder to have. The larger the holes, the quicker the coffee will be ready.

Espresso Coffee Grinder

An espresso coffee grinder grinds coffee into smaller particles than a filter grinder. It takes water that’s nearly boiling and uses high pressure to push it through the fine coffee grinds. Doing so is important to draw out espresso’s dense, concentrated flavor.

Industrial Coffee Grinder

Below are some things you should consider before purchasing an industrial coffee grinder:

• The amount of space you have for the grinder
• Whether or not you want a mobile grinder
• How many pounds of coffee per minute you need the grinder to produce
• What size hopper you’d like for storing the coffee before grinding
• The grinding style you prefer (burr is the most popular time for industrial coffee grinders)

Verdict

The proof is in the coffee—according to a study run by the National Institutes of Health, people who drank at least six cups of coffee per day had up to a 15% lower mortality rate than those who didn’t. If that doesn't convince you to start drinking coffee then we don't know what will!

Whether you run a local coffee shop or own a business that mass produces ground coffee, these commercial coffee grinders on our list offer a wide range of options to fit different needs and budgets. Between the espresso grinder or just a drip coffee grinder, we highly recommend sticking with Mahlkonig.

What are you waiting for? Get out there and start grinding your perfect cup of coffee.

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Sources:

(1):National Coffee Association