So, I've backed a BUNCH of coffee kickstarters. Thus far:

Fellow Duo Coffee steeper
Fellow Stagg EKG
Fellow Ode
Storr
The Better Coffee Filter
Pure Over
FinalPress
VSSL JAVA
Delter Cold Drip Coffee Maker
The Flair Neo
Pakt Coffee Kit
Voyager Kettle
The Rite Press (I know, I know)
de Palo Handmade from real coffee wood
Simpli Press
Kruve Coffee sifter
The COFFEEJACK

OK, that's a little embarrassing.

But I also own the Lido2, Knock's Feld2 and Aerspeed, two Porlexes, and the Handground, and couple of other hand grinders that I've gotten rid of (I'll probably get rid of the Porlexes and the Handground). I've done a lot of reading, and I have a a pretty good feel for what goes into a good grinder - having used exclusively hand grinders for my coffee for over 10 years. I'm certainly no expert, but I do have more experience with grinders than the average Joe.

So when I came across the Männkitchen Pepper Cannon on kickstarter, and it looked like something that might be nice to have. Pepper grinders are normally kind of annoying to use - they dispense so slowly and most are ... well inconsistent. And mortar and pestles are a hassle. I showed the campaign it to my husband and he said something like "$150 is kind of a lot for a pepper grinder. I'm not interested." (normally it retails for $200). I read up again, and because good grinders using durable materials usually are pretty expensive, decided what the hell, and backed it. Both of us LOVE it.

Has anyone else found that their coffee knowledge helped outside of coffee-making?

I watched the promo video on the KS page and it seems like typical higher end focused manual grinder that you see for coffee. it makes me wonder what is the fundimental difference between this pepper mill and a coffee grinder? the language mannkitchen uses is interesting saying male and female burrs rather than inner and outer burrs which just shows you outside the coffee world the same things may be going on but they are described differently. The burr set doesn't look all that large and I wonder if it's just a Italmill generic burr set that you see in so many coffee grinders on the market like on the timemore. Timemore is an interesting company as it makes farily cheap grinders that appear to be with tigher tolerances that you see on higher end hand grinders. it's a bit of a flooded market right now with everyone making their own hand grinder so it makes sense it spills over into something like a pepper mill as it should make it cheaper to manufacture.

I just wonder what is the demand in having a high uniform grinder with pepper? I've always liked the variable grind of pepper mills and it seems this would would be far more uniform and take away from that classic irregular and variable grind of pepper mills. I would grab my porlex or hario with those ceremic burr sets and slight wobble to get that variable pepper grind over a high uniform grinder. but I'm not much of a chef so maybe someone with more expereince can comment on the benifits of a more uniform grinder with pepper.

I would probably just get a coffee grinder to do pepper to be honest but there are some usablity differences. with coffee you grind larger doses so you get a hand crack to get that moving quicker plus when it grinds it you want to capture the grinds in a little bin. with pepper you want something you can grab quickly or leave on the table without attaching a hand crank to it first to use it and a knob that turns at the top would probably be better. If you remove the colletion bin on a coffee grinder of course the grinds just fall like a pepper mill but I would suspect using a hand crank it would be more difficult to keep it centered over a target vs using a knob which would probably have no issue centering over a target. dosing can work differently too as you may use 5 turns of the grinder vs weighting out the peppercorns and grinding the entire amount which is more typical with coffee. so I can see if you want a high quality pepper mill a coffee grinder would do it but since it's not designed for pepper it may get annyoing to use. with that said I still would probably use a coffee grinder if I wanted a better pepper mill but only because I have a load of them I don't use. But for a professional/hobby chef this grinder probably is a welcomed addition to your work flow, but for that brisket the promo video talks about alleging 373 turns I think a hand crank grinder is probably better than this one.

I just use a Lido II for grinding pepper, hard to imagine it could get better than that. I like it a lot better as a pepper grinder than a coffee grinder.

Ira

I think my coffee knowledge helped me get into and appreciate good chocolate. Otherwise, there hasn't been much transfer to other life interests. In fact, I think usually it's the reverse for me personally, i.e. I tap into my research background when I'm getting analytical about coffee.

Re: pepper, for several months we've been using a Knock Aergrind that was sitting idle in the gear stash. By "we" I mean myself, my wife, and my mother-in-law. No complaints aside from the fact that it grinds too fast--we usually have more than enough after a quarter-turn. Sometimes we overshoot and leave the extra ground pepper in the catch cup for later.

harrisonpatm wrote:... using a spinny blade Krups grinder for both coffee and pepper. Hopefully not the same one for both...

We have a Mr. Coffee blade grinder dedicated to grinding spices. It works great.

I've found that while brewing coffee, primarily on an espresso machine, I've again become very interested in photography and videography. Having closeted my camera equipment for the most part, I find myself looking for multiple cameras, along with tripods to hold up said cameras, as I document the coffee brew. I find video close ups of espresso extractions just mesmerizing. Even if the shot doesn't go wonderfully, watching the video, I'm filled with hope that my analysis of what went wrong, will aid in my future espresso experience.

I recently bought a Weber Pepper mill, after a failed attempt to buy a pepper cannon (no fault of Mannkitchen) and I must say I LOVE the thing and how it cranks out pepper, in fact all of the family loves the Weber.

Love the pepper cannon, especially for tri tips or ribs. I just wish that someone was able to come out with a handled version versus the traditional knob for when the arthritis kicks in. I will say it's the best pepper grinder I've used but the old cheaply one from Amazon with the handle is the most useful, when the arthritis kicks in

I did almost buy one of the handheld coffee grinders for pepper but I like the output of the pepper cannon.