Making a pepper mill more user friendly

Pepper Mill

ATK's Feed recently published some helpful tips on managing a pepper mill. Most cooks have learned the mantra that freshly ground pepper is much more flavorful than preground, but that still doesn't mean that pepper mills are especially user friendly. Here are some tricks to making them a bit more useful (check out the article, 3 Terrific Pepper Mill Tricks, for illustrations):

Premeasure the grind - know in advance how many grinds it takes to generate a 1/4 teaspoon of pepper (ATK suggests putting a tape with that info right on the mill).
Before you use it, cover it with plastic wrap (cheap sandwich bags work especially well) to keep it clean.
Don't leave the mill on the counter since it will drop excess grind - put it on a small plate or dish to keep the pepper from spreading out.

2 comments

ellabeeApril 15, 2013

That's why I'm so fond of the Unicorn pepper mill; it makes all three "tips" unnecessary: Many times more productive per grind than any other mill I've used, it produces measurable results quickly enough that you don't need to count grinds. It's made of plastic, therefore easily cleaned. [Covering items with plastic wrap? eeuw. Not to mention the waste involved.] Finally, it comes with its own little base plate to catch the after-grind (one that is sized for the mill, so doesn't take up extra room on the counter the way an actual plate would, however small).

veronicafranceApril 23, 2013

um -- what? Measuring pepper? Grind, taste, grind some more ... I can't recall ever measuring the amount of pepper I put in a dish!