Coffee Grinder Static Electricity: 2 Tests

 My Mom gave me some birthday money.  She always gives me the number of years old I am.  So this year, I had a whopping $46.  I like to treat that money as a gift and not use it for bills or other practical things.  This year, I've had my eye on a very impractical manual coffee grinder (manufacturer is Heihox).

I was excited to buy this little dude.  It's manual, so it's super quiet.  It is small, and just perfect for a single serving.  It takes about 30 seconds to grind a dose.  It had pretty decent ratings on Amazon, so I bought it.

First use was an absolute mess.  Coffee grounds everywhere.  Static electricity was the culprit.  In fact, when I turned the little cup upside down, nothing fell out!  It's winter, and our house is pretty dry, but the static was off the charts!  The picture below is just a small portion of my mess.  I had grounds covering multiple square feet of my countertop.

There are 2 suggested fixes to help static:

1.  Wait a few minutes after grinding to allow the static to dissipate.  This sounds like a good solution.

2.  Wet a chopstick, and stir your unground beans to inject a little moisture to the beans.  This sounds a bit kookie.  

I wanted to test both methodologies, so I did.  First picture here is a freshly cleaned grinder with freshly cleaned catch-cup.  This is as clean as it gets:

First up is my control batch:  grinding beans without any of these static-control suggestions.  Let's see just how bad the static can be!  And yes, it's pretty bad as you see below.  Ground coffee is stuck on the bottom of the grinder, and it's coating the interior of the cup.

I cleaned all this up, and ground another batch of beans.  This time, I waited a full 3 minutes before I inspected the results.  I was surprised to see that the static did not dissipate at all.  In fact, I think it looks just as bad as not waiting.  See below:

Last test, and I'm skeptical about this one:  stir the unground beans with a wet chopstick.  I don't quite understand how this will fix things, but I was quite impressed with the results.  Not just impressed, but I was a bit shocked.  See below:

So there you have it.  Stir your beans with a wet chopstick prior to grinding to fix all your static electricity problems.  Who woulda' thought?