If you’re looking to grind your coffee beans, having a burr grinder is probably the best way to do it. But if you’re in a new town or don’t want to deal with a grinder at home, then it is perfectly fine to ask the question.
Do grocery stores have coffee grinders? Yes, popular grocery stores almost always have coffee grinders with them. You can buy fresh coffee beans from grocery stores like Walmart, Costco, Whole Foods, and other big outlets and grind them right there to your taste whether it’s coarse or fine or anywhere in between. If you’re going to look at small grocery stores for coffee grinders, then you might not be as lucky.
Why Grind Your Coffee Beans At Grocery Stores?
Fresh coffee is guaranteed when you buy fresh coffee bean and then grind it yourself. Pre ground coffee can also be good but it won’t match freshly ground coffee.
When you want freshly ground coffee, you should grind them yourself at home or at grocery stores.
Why grocery stores are a good option for many people is because they usually will have a conical burr grinder that can give you far better results than the blade grinder people have at home.
Also, people grinding your coffee beans at grocery stores will do a more professional job when it comes to the grinding so you will end with a coarse grind if you’re looking for a coarse one.
To get the perfect coffee grind, make sure you know what method of coffee making you prefer and what’s the right consistent grind for it. You’re not going to make a good french press coffee with a fine grind.
Also, having burr grinders at home means you will also have to maintain. If you have no interest or no idea on how to do that, you are better off grinding your beans at the grocery store.
Is Grinding Coffee Beans At Grocery Stores Better Than Grinding At Home?
Grinding coffee at home and grinding them at grocery stores is one and the same, but which is better? Well, that will depend on the type of grinder we are talking about. It will also depend on hygiene. Let us explain these points further.
If you have a very good and efficient grinder at home, you can enjoy your grinding in comfort, so a grocery grinder will not matter to you.
However, if you don’t have a grinder or your grinder is of low quality, using a grocery grinder is the best option. In addition to that, you have to consider hygiene.
One of the biggest criticisms against coffee grinders in stores is that many of them are not properly maintained. So if you make the mistake of using them, you will end up ruining your coffee.
In fact, there are cases of stores that stopped offering after-sale coffee grinding services to customers because they couldn’t vouch for the hygienic standards of their grinders.
So if hygiene is of importance to you and you cannot trust the standards of the grocery store you shop at, then grinding your coffee at home is better.
In some cases, you don’t even need to have a burr grinder. A simple hand grinder or a manual grinder will get the job done.
Problems When Grinding Coffee Beans At Home
Despite the comfort you stand to enjoy when you grind coffee at home, this act is still fraught with certain problems.
For starters, when you grind the coffee, you are basically degassing the beans because carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere. And carbon dioxide creates carbonic acid.
So in many cases, grinding coffee at home, especially when you have a large volume of beans to process, kind of forces you to expose the coffee to open air.
Exposure to open air will cause the coffee to lose its aroma and flavors and what you get is a flat cup of not-so-tasty coffee.
However, when you use a coffee grinder at a grocery store, you protect your beans from exposure because you can afford to grind them at once since most stores have large-scale grinders that will accommodate all your coffee beans at once.
How Much Quantity Can You Grind In Grocery Stores?
The number of beans you can grind at a store will depend on their in-house policy.
Different stores have different operational models.
So if you visit a store for the first time, enquire from any of the storekeepers what their policy is before you use their grinders.
Can You Ask Coffee Shops To Grind Coffee?
Yes, you can ask coffee shops whether you can grind coffee.
Shops with in-store coffee grinders will let you grind your coffee beans as long as it meets their business policy.
Today, many big brands offer shoppers this service for free.
Also, you have some local coffee shops that allow you to grind freshly roasted beans that you buy from them. But if you want to take advantage of their service, you will need to be a frequent shopper; otherwise, they may charge you a small fee to let you use their machine.
Can I Grind my Coffee Beans at Safeway?
Safeway is one of the largest family-owned Roastery in the state of Colorado, and they have been selling bill and fresh coffee blends since 2011.
This Roastery partnered with another company called Boyer’s coffee in 2016 to offer customers slow roasted coffee beans for bulk purchase. As part of their customer care service model, they included coffee grinders as part of the mix.
Customers who buy their coffee can grind them at selected stores in Wyoming, South Dakota, and across Colorado under their Fresh Grind Program.
Will Starbucks Grind my Coffee Beans?
Starbucks is an American household company that has made a name for itself down the years. When you hear Starbucks these days, one of the first things that come to mind is coffee, and theirs is one of the best in the business, from freshly brewed to roasted coffee.
Starbucks operates a very strict coffee grinding policy and will let you grind your coffee only if it is in line with their policy.
Firstly, the staff at Starbucks will not let you grind your coffee beans if you did not buy them from them. They only allow coffee beans that they sell to customers.
Secondly, the coffee bag has to be unopened, so they will refuse beans in bags that have already been exposed to air. So yes, Starbucks will grind your coffee only if it meets these two conditions.
The company has grinders that offer four friend settings: Pour-over, Coffee Brewer, Coffee Press, and Espresso. They also offer Universal and Turkish settings at request by the customer.
Also Read: Will Starbucks Grind My Coffee Beans?
Does Weis have a coffee grinder?
This remains unclear because some customers have complained that the Weiss stores they visited didn’t have coffee grinders.
However, Weis already has a Five Star ground coffee program where they offer customers pre-ground and grounded coffee at competitive prices. Therefore, if you would like to grind your coffee at a Weis store, you will have to ask a store representative on your next visit.
Can you grind your coffee beans at Whole Foods?
The answer to this question is yes.
Whole Foods is a popular grocery chain store with installed coffee grinders at most of its outlets. Their grinders can be used by anyone but only under the condition that the coffee in question is bought at their store and not elsewhere. Beans purchased from other stores will not be allowed.
The good news is that the grinders you will find at Whole Foods outlets are of very good quality, and they haven’t different grind settings like medium, coarse and fine grind settings. So you are at liberty to grind your coffee beans the way you want.
Can you grind your coffee beans at Costco?
Costco is another major store that allows customers to grind their coffee beans free of charge. If you buy a bag of ground coffee from a Costco store, you can grind it there. Some of the grinders you will find here are high-quality machines with different grind settings, such as
- Cone filter
- Percolator
- Turkish
- French Press
- Basket Filter
But there is a caveat when it comes to using Costco in-store grinders. First, their usage is hardly regulated by their staff which brings the issue of personal hygiene into question.
Also, using their grinders to regrind your beans a second or third time can lead to clogging.
The fact that the grinders are not cleaned regularly is a problem for many people. Having the same grinders process different coffee blends from single to double origin roasted coffee is a big problem. While it will be unfair to conclude that Costco grinders are not maintained, we can agree that their maintenance policy could be better.
Can you grind your coffee beans at Publix?
Publix used to offer customers after-sale grinding services, but this was discontinued at some point because they couldn’t maintain hygienic standards. So while grinder ls were a common feature back in the day, you will hardly find one in any of their outlets these days.
Tips For Grind Coffee Beans At Grocery Stores
To conclude this article, let us furnish you with some tips to grind your coffee beans at grocery stores.
To begin, when you walk into a grocery store, the polite thing to do is to approach one of the attendants and ask if you could use their grinder.
Once you are given a pass, go to the grinding section and read the instructions written and pinned on the grinder or close to it if this is your first time in the store.
Follow the instructions provided for best results.
Most coffee grinders at grocery stores have levers by the side. Once you pour the coffee into the machine, pull the lever up and bring it down as many times as your can to remove coffee deposits from a previous grind.
Then, depending on your preference, pick the grind setting you want, then activate the device to start the grind. If you’re looking for a medium grind, pick the relevant setting and let the grinder do its job.
That brings us to the end of this post.
Do grocery stores have coffee grinders? The answer is yes.
If you’re looking at big grocery stores, they will almost always have coffee grinders to make things easier for you. The smaller stores don’t have the same reputation in this regard.
Though you can get the job done at home with a manual coffee grinder, the grinders at grocery stores are perfect for the job. They can handle larger quantities and you can select the grind size that’s perfect for your method of brewing coffee.
Whether you’re grinding your coffee at grocery stores or at home, make sure you grind them fresh for the best coffee experience.
