We typically use pepper mills for only a few seconds at a time, but a poorly designed mill can make a few seconds feel like a lifetime. And if you take on a pepper-heavy recipe such as steak au poivre, which calls for a whole tablespoon of crushed peppercorns, any design flaws become even more apparent. Whether you use a mill for big jobs or small, a good one should be easy to load (no one wants peppercorns rolling all over the kitchen), have accurate grind sizes that don’t require guesswork to adjust, and be easy to operate.
Since the last time we tested pepper mills, our winning mill has been redesigned and we’ve noticed new models on the market. So we selected seven models, priced from about $25 to about $50, including the updated version of our previous winner, and got grinding. We examined how easy it was to load peppercorns into each mill, measured their capacities, and used each mill to produce fine-, medium-, and coarse-ground pepper. We also recruited colleagues to try the mills and give feedback, and we checked durability, too. One mill topped the rest, thanks to its user-friendly design and accurate output.
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