We have an electrical burr grinder too. The electrically charged coffee drives me nuts. When I wave my hand near the fresh coffee grounds, they fly all over the place, and I can feel (as when you hold your hand to a charged balloon) that they’re charged the opposite of whatever freakish charge I carry. I’m also one who regularly gets shocks from everything and everyone I touch. Maybe I just need one of those wristband things.
Instead of grinding coffee, try grinding black currant tea.
Because when you run a currant through a magnetic field…
Are you sure it’s static and not humidity/dampness, Try relocating your grinder and beans away from sources of moisture, be careful taking beans out of the fridge or freezer as condensation will form if not allowed to warm up to room temp in a (totally) sealed container.
I’ve never tried it, and it’s a little bit pricey, but would zapping the grounds container with an anti-static gun work?
The Left Hand Rule for grasping for bad jokes. :dubious:
It is definitely static electricity. In fact, moisture will reduce or eliminate the effect. One of the recommended resolutions is to spray a little water on the beans before you grind them. I prefer not to in case I have a little left over.
I’ll try grounding the container or adding some foil or wire tomorrow. Carnivorousplant, it’s a three-prong grounded 110V plug, so electrocuting myself by grounding the container isn’t a risk.
The anti-static gun is probably more than I want to spend for this, but I am tempted just so I can shoot positively charged ions at people.
Will you leave me your DVDs in your will?
I’d try touching it to the sink. If the guys who made the grinder didn’t ground it, when they easily could have, I wouldn’t do it.
Carnivorousplant@isp.com for a copy of the will. Thanks!
:dubious:
It’s a plastic receptacle with some charged coffee grounds. What do you think is going to happen if I ground it? 
(Not that I think grounding the bin is going to help much. I suspect the wire or foil will have to be in contact with the grounds themselves to do anything.)
Nothing. I thought it was metal. Plastic may be the reason for the static electricity, like the famous rubber comb. Thales of Miletus and all that.
Try using a stainless steel bowl to dump your grounds into, and scoop from that. When I was a barista, we had grinders that just dumped into the filter directly with a couple pulls of a lever. But the filter still ended up with grounds all over it. We just wiped the top where it sealed with a hand to clear it, and grounds that clung to it stayed clung until we disconnected it and dumped the grounds and rinsed the whole thing off.
Soooo… am I the first person that’s going to say that a faraday cage won’t help with static electricity?
I have no problem getting all of the coffee from the grinder to my single-cup pourover filter using the brush. It might be a problem if you’re trying to get the coffee into a significantly smaller space.
Just the first person to comment on my sad attempt at a joke. Yes, I know a Faraday cage won’t help. But I do like the image.
That was what I was thinking. I have no idea how electricity actually behaves but in my mind, if the issue is that the ground coffee is staticky, it has enough electrons to be somewhat negatively charged. If I stick a coil of aluminum or copper in there so that as the grounds are pushed into the plastic bin they fall against the metal, wouldn’t the excess electrons move to the metal because it’s a more conductive material than coffee? Or is this way too simplistic an understanding?
Have you tried a different bean variety? I’ve ground a number of types of beans and I have never noticed my coffee being staticky.
OK, I have some testing results.
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Brush: it helped somewhat with getting the grounds off the sides of the container, but it didn’t seem to reduce the charge and the grounds still flew around a little. It was better than nothing, but still didn’t result in easy pouring or scooping.
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Coil of foil in the container: this seemed to help a lot. I put the foil in the grinder receptacle, ground the beans on top of it, then lifted the foil out when done. Instead of grounds coating the sides of the container, there were only a few strays. Given the simplicity and general effectiveness, I think this will be my go-to method.
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Dumping grounds into a stainless steel container: surprisingly, this didn’t seem to help. I now had grounds clinging to the sides of both the plastic grinder receptacle and the stainless steel.
I didn’t attempt a ground wire running to my pipes, and given success of the foil, it probably isn’t worth the effort. But maybe I’ll try anyway for the sake of science.
After reading about this in the last couple days, it evidently doesn’t depend on bean variety or quality, but does depend on the roast: dark roasts are much more prone to static electricity because of their lower water content. This does match what I’ve seen - my dark roast for espresso clings more than my lighter-roast french press beans.
Bumping an old thread of mine with some new science. The suggestion I read years ago to add a little water to the grinder was evidently correct. I also learned that the acquisition of an electrical charge during grinding is triboelectrification. If you really want to nerd out, the full article is here.
When coffee is ground, the friction between the beans creates electricity, causing particles to lump together in the grinder. The research found that adding water to this process reduces the electricity produced, resulting in less coffee waste and stronger flavours.
Christopher Hendon, an associate professor of chemistry at University of Oregon, said: “Water not only reduces static electricity and therefore reduces mess as you’re grinding, but it can also make a major impact on the intensity of the beverage and, potentially, the ability to access higher concentrations of favourable flavours.”