Cookaholics Bulletin Board

"the wrong places" being William-Sonoma, of course. What can I say? I have $70 in credit with them, I had hopes.

Anyway, our "Marvin the Martian" peppermill is dead; the central shaft stripped out and it won't grind reliably anymore. So I want to replace it, preferably with a "crank" type mill rather than a "knob" type mill, since this is the one I use for cooking and I need to be able to grind a fair amount of pepper quickly.

On the other hand, I was just looking at some of the Unicorn mills. While I'm not keen on the ABS plastic, they come highly recommended and affordable compared to other high-end mills.

So, advice?

I've used the Unicorn for about 10 years and have never had a problem. I've given 5 as presents and each person still uses it as the preferred. Quick shipping. Holds a LOT! It doesn't keep it size of grind for me but I've developed the habit of always giving the set screw a quick tightening as I like a finer grind.

My unicorn keeps the grind, but I use a fairly rough grind. On another grinder I have (Peugot), I put some purple lock-tite on it, never moved since. If the knob is dual purpose (eg filling), that won't work so well of course. Should work on the Unicorn though.

I went looking for a crank and was all excited to find one, only to find out the crank was geared, in the wrong direction of course. Good for people with hand strength issues, not so good for speed. I ended up, after reading a zillion reviews, with the magnum plus in all its plastic glory and it has been amazing; fast, consistent, holds a ton. I'm with wino, it is fantastic.

I have a Peugot and a Unicorn. The Peugot is a pain to fill and won't consistently hold a griind. The Unicorn is easy to fill, holds a lot, and gets a workout every day. I like them both. If I were only going to have one it would be the Unicorn.
fitzie

I had a Peugot and when that one finally died I bought a Unicorn and love it. Holds alot more peppercorns too.
Nance

Another vote for Unicorn

Wow, that's a pretty strong recommend for unicorn. However ... I am now being tempted by Atlas brass peppermills from Greece. You can now get them for around 50 on amazon ...

http://www.amazon.com/Pepper-Mill-Impor ... B000H4QEZE

Very pretty, no?

You cannot beat the Unicorn in terms of performance. Trust me, I've tried! All of us LOVE fresh black pepper and I've been collecting pepper mills for years. The Unicorn is definitely the best-performing grinder that I've ever tried and I agree it is simple and quick to refill it.

That being said, the brass "turkish coffee mill" style also performs reasonably well. I had one of those for years (sold by "The Frugal Gourmet" - remember him?). I would still have it except that we used it so much that we wore it out! The metal arm that operates the grinding mechanism literally disintegrated. But that was after 10+ years of heavy use, on a daily basis.

So I'd say that if you care only about performance, go for the Unicorn. But if you want something that is reasonably good at grinding pepper but also pretty enough for the table, then go with the "coffee mill" style.

Or you can talk yourself into "needing" both styles . . . .

PS So glad that I finally found this forum . . . I was wondering what happened to all the folks that used to hang out on the CI boards!!!

I'm about fed up with our Unicorn Magnum Plus (the tall one). Will. Not. Hold. A. Grind. Set it to fine, it works its way to coarse and then the burr gets off-center and it just spits out cracked peeper rather than ground. Very productive when it's working.

Maybe I need some loc-tite on the adjusting screw? Is loc-tite foodsafe?

Welcome! there's a lot of CI refugees here.


Fuzzy, I have a Trudeau pepper mill. It works fine (fine to coarse) although when I'm grinding a lot at once I do wish it had a larger output and it sometimes self adjusts. I deal with it. However I'm now lusting after that Atlas, since my kitchen accents are all copper.
Penzey's now sells pepper mills, I looked at them quickly in the store a few weeks ago but didn't get to test drive or talk to the sales folks about them. But maybe an option if you have a store nearby, I can't remember.