Home-Barista.com

Feeling lazy to open your grinder to clean it inside?
Yeah, me too.

So, I started using some uncooked rice to remove the old grinds. So, I would load about 10-15 g of rice, grind it away, and then polish everything off with a vacuum cleaner. And all went happy, for a while.

Until one day I opened the grinder, and saw some rice grinds that stuck to the burrs. That was the leftovers of the rice that I cleaned the grinder with a couple of weeks ago!




So, the conclusions here:

1. Rice (or any commercial product for that matter) really cannot remove all the old grinds.
2. What's worse, it looks like the rice grinds cannot be completely pushed out by the new coffee after such "cleaning" either.
3. The best was to go with the cleaning is to vacuum the grinder from time to time (I tend to do it weekly), and then once in a while to open it, and clean with a brush.

Rice even par-boiled less dense rice is too hard vs coffee beans and can easily jam a grinder and place strain on the motor.

A better alternative if you don't want to use a commercial product such as Urnex Grindz would be steel cut oats. I've thought of experimenting by adding some corn grits to the mix to add some substance but have yet to try it.

I tried Grindz one time with a Baratza grinder, and it mostly just made a mess. I still had to open the grinder, remove the top burr, and clean with a brush and toothpick. After that, I skipped the Grindz.

Rocky

Rice and grindz only do one thing, emptying your pockets, it has a very limited effect on the grinds found in all the nooks and crannies, on top it does a horrible job at cleaning the burrs. As seen in the picture it is getting mixed with or stay put in those places and won't get out unless you remove it my hand.

I stopped using it after I took a grinder apart for the first time after using it.

malling wrote:Rice and grindz only do one thing, emptying your pockets

Exactly

redbone wrote:Rice even par-boiled less dense rice is too hard vs coffee beans and can easily jam a grinder and place strain on the motor.

At the time when I was experimenting with rice, I did not notice any problems with jamming - Mazzer cut through rice just fine.
However, I doubt that steel cut oats/corn grits will be a better option. Their residue will still be caught inside, and you still will need to open the grinder to clean them out of there with a brush/vacuum cleaner.

RockyIII wrote:I still had to open the grinder, remove the top burr, and clean with a brush and toothpick.

I came to the same conclusion. There is no substitute for brush/vacuum.

redbone wrote:Rice even par-boiled less dense rice is too hard vs coffee beans and can easily jam a grinder and place strain on the motor.

A better alternative if you don't want to use a commercial product such as Urnex Grindz would be steel cut oats. I've thought of experimenting by adding some corn grits to the mix to add some substance but have yet to try it.

Might not clean your grinder, but you could probably make some killer biscuits with what comes out the chute.