One pot at a time, fresh ground.

Mrs. Plinth got a robotic burr grinder/coffee maker and has been pretty damn happy. One pot (10-12 cups) is close to a single serving for her.

You can grind spices in it. But only if you're not also using it to grind coffee.

We use our coffee grinder to grind both coffee and spices. We are bad people.

We rinse it out really really well in between!

Those 15 seconds of grind time every morning really help to drown out the voices.

A serious answer - I think it's gonna depend on how fast you drink your coffee. I usually get free coffee at work, so my at-home coffee consumption is limited to a cup or two on the weekends, in a french press. We go through one packet (I think it's a lb?) a month. In general, ground coffee starts to lose its freshness, flavor, and texture in only 2-3 days, while unground coffee stays fresh for 2-3 weeks after roasting.

I guess if you haven't noticed the difference between the first cup of pre-ground and the last cup, there's no reason to start grinding your own. Similarly, I don't throw out my unground coffee at the 3-week mark.

What Meatbomb said. It's much better tasting IMO.

On average, I probably go through a pound a week or so (I don't drink it all myself, but that's beside the point).

I do notice a difference between the first and last pot, but I'm not sure it's a big enough difference to justify buying another gadget (or even two--one for work and one for home). And I'm kinda trying to resist becoming any snobbier about coffee than I already am--I'm already a big nerd about beer and a small nerd about tea, so I'm not sure I need another one of those. If I don't nip this thing in the bud, I'm afraid I'll wind up roasting my own beans.

I dunno, I guess I don't consider "coffee grinder" to be snobbish gadgety - is a cheese grater "cheese snob gadgetry"? I could buy it pre-grated, or have my fromager grate it, but I may as well do it at home. I mean, I guess there are expensive grinders, but we bought ours at the grocery store for, like, $5 and it's lasted us a few years already.

Since we use a French Press, we just grind the coffee while the water is heating up. I suppose it's different for drip systems, maybe? Where grinding the coffee would be an extra step?

I have a grinder, but haven't been using it much since we started buying Peet's coffee, which only comes pre-ground at the store.

The advantages I see to grinding my own beans aren't to do with freshness. We go through a pound of coffee every 5 days, so like box, I don't find the difference between fresh and slightly-less-fresh enough to fuss about. The real advantage, to my mind, is that home grinders allow you to really customize your grind to get the extraction you want. I find I like coffee best when it's ground a little bit finer than pre-ground coffee usually is. The flavor seems fuller to me, and I expect that's actually due to the greater surface area of the grinds as they're exposed to the hot water.

All that said, even though I love coffee and am a coffeeholic, I don't miss using the grinder all that much. It's neither a fuss and bother nor a necessity of life, for me. If I find a local source for good beans, I might go back to grinding whole again - either way, you can still make good coffee happen in your kitchen.

Upon reflection, and after reading your comment, muddgirl, 'snobbish' can have a negative connotation than I didn't intend at all.

I don't mind extra steps--part of the appeal of a lot of this kind of stuff comes from the ritual. But I think I'm trying to be more of a satisficer, less an optimizer--that's probably where a lot of the reluctance comes from. Well, that and that I feel like I have too many kitchen gadgets. I bought an old apple peeler because I thought the design was so beautiful (and then I had a good time sharpening the blade and oiling the gears and stuff), but I've hardly ever used the thing. But I guess a coffee grinder wouldn't be like that. This is probably more about my psyche than you're really looking for.

Since I got this espresso machine, seven months ago, I have been as happy as a sandgirl in the morning. (If you knew my normal grumpy self, you'd see why this is an advantage). I already had an old burr grinder, which I bought in the days of planning-for-an-espresso machine (10 years ago). Hadn't used it for several years, but rolled it out now as espresso coffee really needs to be fresh. When I contrasted this with the pre-ground from Starbucks, there was really no contest. Like muddgirl, we only go through about a 1 Lb bag each month. I now grind some at the beginning of the week and it lasts until the next week. So it is always fresh(ish) and also I can play with the grind to see what effect this has on the espresso. Immense fun!

I have a Cuisinart burr grinder which makes a hellish noise but grinds much better than a blade grinder (which is now used for spices only). Freshly ground coffee definitely tastes better than pre-ground.

more of a satisficer, less an optimizer

That's an excellent way to put it - I'm right there with you. There are things that I care to optimize, but this isn't really one of them.

I'm already a big nerd about beer and a small nerd about tea, so I'm not sure I need another one of those.

This makes perfect sense to me. I laughed far too hard and far too long when I saw the Onion article Man on Internet Almost Falls into World of DIY Mustard Enthusiasts, because it so aptly describes my tendency to nerd out over small aspects of life. There's a lot of pleasure in that, but for me it's okay to keep in reined in to just a few aspects and to let everything else be good enough, not highly controlled and studied and optimized.

Muddgirl, there definitely are differences in grinder type and quality, and some people find the differences very noticeable. When I used a French press, my blade grinder (bought brand-new in the box for $1 at a jumble sale) was perfect, and I think that overall a French press is maybe a little more forgiving than other methods, both in timing (as you note) and in extraction and quality.

This has really been very helpful thread for me, reminding me to let go of perfection sometimes. I was starting to obsess every so slightly over my new espresso machine and whether I needed a burr grinder and blahblahblah.

Box, I am so with you on the beauty of kitchen implements. I have five, count 'em, five vintage egg beaters with gorgeous painted wooden handles. They hang on a rack in my overcrowded kitchen. How do I beat eggs? By hand. With a fork.

Egg beaters do crack me up. Of course, I grew up with one and we even used it sometimes. But then the 80s came (era of the whisk), and finally I devolved to a fork. The fork works fine! I wonder what it was that made it seem the egg beater did such a better job? Was it just Industrial Revolution fever, where everything suddenly needed to have cogs and levers and interlocking moving parts?

The main thing we used it for was actually whipping cream. It was pretty good at that. I suppose it whipped egg whites well, too, from what I remember the few times we made lemon meringue pie -- and maybe that, rather than beating whole eggs as for scrambled eggs, was its original central purpose.

I usually whip cream or egg whites by hand, too, with a big fat whisk. It doesn't take long, and I feel so powerful and virtuous. Then I dump the egg whites into a mass of butter, chocolate, and egg yolks and bake it into flourless chocolate cake and eat a great wodge of it topped with barely sweetened whipped cream. Mmm, great wodge of cake.

I might have to make flourless chocolate cake this week. And eat a great wodge of it.

I usually whip cream or egg whites by hand, too, with a big fat whisk.

I usually do it this way, too. The last restaurant I worked at prided itself on making everything from scratch, including the whipped cream for desserts. We would make a big 2-quart batch in the stand mixer at the beginning of the night, but over the course of the evening it would go slack, and we'd whip it back up before using it. Sometimes dozens of times a night. I haven't had biceps like that since.