Feb 27, 2014 3 min read

One of the secrets to restaurant quality dishes at home is freshly ground spices. Pre-ground spices from the supermarket sit for an indefinable amount of time on the shelf before you buy it, and then it can sit for months unused in your pantry.

By the time you’re ready to use your ground spices they can have lost much of their original flavor.

By grinding your own spices, however, you can keep them whole in the pantry where they’ll stay fresh for far longer.

Just grind as much as you need, when you need it. Professional chefs don’t use fancy spice grinders, they use coffee grinders. Here’s how to use a coffee grinder for spices. Not all coffee bean grinders are equal when it comes to grinding spices. Many spices are much smaller than the average coffee bean, and you’re likely to be grinding fewer spices than beans at any given time.

So choose a small coffee grinder with a 1/2 to 1 cup capacity; any larger and you risk being unable to grind the spices.

Also look for a grinder that has a sharp blade that is positioned close to the bottom of the grinder. When grinding hard spices like peppercorns you need a sharp blade.

Seeds like celery seed or poppy seeds are so tiny and fine that a blade close to the bottom of the grinder will grind them nicely. If the blade is too high off the bottom of the grinder it won’t reach the tiny seeds at the bottom.

Spices are aromatic and flavorful. In order to prevent the contamination of your spices from previous grindings, always dust out your grinder when finished and store it with the lid off. Removing any residual spices will help the grinder air out and the air flow will dry out any oils left from herbs and spices.

If you plan on roasting your spices prior to grinding them be sure to let them cool so they don’t melt or warp the grinder. Letting them cool is also safer for handling them as well.

Be sure to have separate grinder for spices and coffee. Oils from coffee beans can contaminate your herbs and spices, putting a coffee flavor into everything you cook. They are pretty inexpensive usually about 20 bucks. So it’s not a big deal to keep two.

One last tip is spices and herbs start to lose flavor and aromatics with heat so be sure and pulse your grinder so you don’t conduct heat from the blades rotating constantly in the on position. I hope this was informal. You are sure to be pleasantly surprised if you try this.

Eric Durst is the executive chef of The Firehouse Restaurant & Pub in Dunbar Township.