Can You Clean A Coffee Grinder With Rice? Yes, You Can!

[@1943vermork]

The coffee shop I used to go did clean their grinders with rice every day. Nice presentation!

[@danielecorwin]

Very well done video, really appreciated you taking it to the next level of testing home cooked and dried rice. Thanks.

[@brewinghabits]

I'm glad you liked the video ! You know it, just had to take the extra unnecessary step of making my own dried rice for science haha :D

[@chicle97news]

So excited you put all of this to the test for us! Appreciate it and can’t wait to spend money on good coffee not cleaning products!!! ☕️✨☕️cheers!

[@brewinghabits]

Cheers, glad you liked the experimentations! Totally agree and that really is the name of the game. Allocate and optimize your coffee budget to achieve the best possible cup, now hopefully a small sliver has officially moved from our "cleaning" category to "coffee beans" :D Let me know if you end up trying it, would love to hear people's experiences with pre-cooked rice!

[@RightTouchMatters]

Very sophisticated, methodical experiment and tutorial. Your delivery is good and clear. Thanks for this help.

[@brewinghabits]

Thank you, glad you liked the process of exploration and video :D

[@trashdumpster]

Thank you, thank you!!! Awesome, well done. Time to save some money. Worked so well no more stale oily flavors in my DBM-8.

[@stephengonzales1649]

Nice thorough method for testing. Really appreciate the video. Thanks!

[@brewinghabits]

Thanks, I appreciate the comment! Glad you liked the video, approach and rice tests done :D Cheers!

[@esha9000]

You did an amazing job. Thank you.

[@flowerchild777]

YAYYY!🤗 Thank you. We eat a LOT OF RICE, and my husband doesn't particularly care for leftover rice (unless the dish calls for it). I make horchata with it pretty regularly but don't always want it. Now I can dry it out and clean my grinders👍👍👍

[@brewinghabits]

Let me know how it goes :D Also, make sure you can squish the dried cooked rice with your fingers before you put it through the grinder! That is probably the litmus test I would do before using your own dried cooked rice!

[@jonrutherford6852]

Thanks for this engaging demo of your experiments with rice as a grinder cleaner. There's a lot of controversy about this method, but I suspect your findings are valid, especially for ceramic burrs. Very well presented -- I'd have enjoyed this even if I wasn't looking for a substitute for the expensive tablets. Best wishes!

[@johnrancourt7076]

Wow. A video that does tldr up front. Thanks!

[@hawkeyeted]

My recommendation is to set your grinder to it's coarsest setting when doing this. It's to knock out residue and absorb coffee bean oils, not make rice espresso. 😁😁

[@drawthatout]

Thanks for the video! Super useful!

[@garygardens]

Interesting, I'll have to give it a try. I only use Grindz maybe once a year. Otherwise, I just take the grinder apart and clean with a stiff brush and shop vac. Then again, I'm only grinding about twenty-four grams of coffee per day, so the grinder isn't overworked by any means. Cheers!

[@brewinghabits]

When working at a cafe, we used it pretty much everyday but I totally agree that the frequency of usage is totally different with home brewers. I try to use it every 1-3 months, however with this rice method, I might just ramp that up to once a month!

[@anthony_barba]

Will try this out!

[@br0k3nbl4nk3t]

Using pre-cooked rice can be an industry game-changer :O

[@brewinghabits]

Totally agree, having clean grinders is vital and Grindz is great and all but its also super expensive +_+ Just did some quick math and pre-cooked rice is ~7 times cheaper than Grindz!

[@othmanskn]

Thank you so much for such thorough research. However, rice noodles may be good alternatives. It is more common in Malaysia than instant pre-cooked rice.

[@lauwe54]

Thanks so much for your time great video i need to get rice tomorrow

[@brewinghabits]

Niceee, make sure its pre-cooked!!

[@danhester4408]

Excellent video and super helpful. I am going to give this a try with my newish Hario Skerton... One question I have is about the grind size setting. I am assuming it needs to be set to really fine? I'm still super new to grinding my own coffee, and I have been dreading taking the grinder apart and having to clean it lol. This should be an easy method to keep it clean as long as I stay on top of it.

[@brewinghabits]

I would not have it super tight, closer to like 3-5 clicks from the tightest Skerton setting. Too tight and it will take forever for not really any benefit. Too coarse and the rice won't be ground. Lean a bit on the tighter side to make sure that the rice gets ground. As for dismantling the grinder, do it! The Skerton is a pretty simplistic grinder with few pieces. No tools are required and its as easy to re-assemble. If you want, watch a Hario Skerton dismantling YT video to build up your confidence before dismantling it! Pretty sure it will boost your dismantling confidence :D

[@johnmitchelljr]

Thank you. Well done.

[@toddd7444]

thats great to hear

[@CaveyMoth]

Wow, that is so handy! Rice is so cheap and easy to obtain. Hmm..I wonder if something could be done with the ground rice. Maybe you could make some kind of rice porridge. Nahh, that would be weird, especially with the old coffee grounds in it.

[@brewinghabits]

There are many things that can be reused, I think this is one of those cases where the old and maybe rancid coffee oils together with the rice wishes to be put straight to the trash xD

[@SpiritintheSky.]

Really good. Thank you.

[@naraius7271]

Nice video. However the one thing that wasn’t really addressed is how effective it was. Does rice do as good, better, or worse job of cleaning your grinder than commercial products? If it doesn’t work as well then kinda what’s the point of risking damage to your grinder?

[@Cenot4ph]

It's about cleaning the oils from the grinder which is why we do this in the first place

[@ljz1988]

Anyone try this with a superauto? Should i cancel the puck as soon as it's made? Or should i let it run, and use the gluten to pass through any gunk on the brew unit?

[@fabiolaherrera2100]

Muchas Gracias, thank you very interesting

[@Johanlob1]

Thanks, im a new owner and will not be buying grindz, i thought it seemed ludacris, i use citric acid for descaling but i did however use cafiza cause i dont know a good substitute for it. I guess its a pretty specific mix of detergent 😄

[@brewinghabits]

I know it's designed specifically for coffee but dayum it's an arm and a leg for Grindz if you use it consistently! I still use this rice technique and have had no issues with my grinder from it.

[@Alina-kz2sn]

A bit off-topic, but do you have a link to where I can I buy Skyhawk coffee beans?

[@brewinghabits]

It's from Propeller Coffee so just Google "Propeller Coffee Skyhawk"!

[@peterginger]

I once read steel cut oats were good for cleaning grinders

[@brewinghabits]

Ohhh interesting, after posting this I've heard a few people talk about steel cut oats! I will have to give it a whirl :D

[@needmorebeans]

@@brewinghabits 1zpresso's instruction manual recommends cleaning with oats

[@mondrich3404]

Genuis!

[@boveyhomemaking]

You bake the dry rice, will make rice brittle

[@TransConBrilliance]

I would never ever use something like grindz. Think about it. If coffee bean residue remains in the grinder to the point you need to clean it wouldn't you expect grindz to also leave behind residue? And then it ends up in your next coffee ground. Then not only do you end up ingesting it but you mix it in hot water as well so it goes through a chemical reaction before you ingest it.

[@kubilaytuncer3723]

It's not chemical, it's literally just compressed corn starch. Corn starch absorbs the leftover coffee oils. Also because the pellets are hard, it's abrasive and removes the coffee residue. That saying, rice probably does the same and is more affordable. I wouldn't buy grindz. Just not for the reason you mentioned.

[@InFltSvc]

DO NOT DO THIS. This KID doesn’t know what he’s telling you … this is a stupid Internet misconception rice is a hard grain and it will destroy the bars do not do this

[@brewinghabits]

I recommend you actually watching the video because I agree with you. Rice is hard and I wouldn't use it raw in a coffee grinder. Pre-boiled rice is brittle enought to be crushed with your fingers and it is that specific rice state that I recommend you use. So either store-bought minute rice or boiling your own rice, then drying it out is the two solutions I provide for using rice in your coffee grinder.