Our old pepper mill gave out on us a month ago. It had been steadily going down hill for some time as it got progressively harder to produce any pepper. One day a screw fell out of it and into our food. Fearing for our safety, we decided it was time to get another one. It was a cheap Chinese made one from Farberware. It lasted for about five years so we saluted it goodbye and searched for another pepper grinder. Normally I’d just get another cheap grinder, but fresh ground black pepper is used a lot in our kitchen, almost at every meal. We’re big fresh ground pepper fans, and for a tool you use everyday, it’s best to find something that’s good and will last. Well I had a gift card to Williams and Sonoma and we set out to get the best pepper grinder ever.
Everything at W-S is expensive and generally overpriced la-dee-dah stuff. $30 for an All-Clad Food Turner? Seriously? They had a $110 dollar Peugeot pepper grinder, a ridiculous price for a ridiculous object d’art. Finally I saw this model from Kuhn Rikon for $40. After a few weeks of use, I really find it to be worth the extra cash. Here’s what I like about it.
- The grinding element is ceramic instead of steel. Ceramics are much harder than steel and the shape of this grinding bezel makes short work of those pepper corns, and the pepper flakes are consist in size.
- The large diameter of the spice vase gives you plenty of torque for grinding, so it’s easy to use.
- What’s super awesome is that the grinding end stands up instead of down like other grinders. This keeps your counters and tabletops from getting dirty with pepper. I don’t understand why every pepper grinder doesn’t do this
- Another interesting feature is that it has interchangeable spice canisters that you can load into the grinder. I don’t think I’ll use this, but if I wanted to switch from black pepper to sichuan pepper, interchanging the canisters would be a snap.
- It’s really well made and comes with a 25 year warranty.