I’ve given my 15 year old Peugeot grinder a clean since it seemed a bit gummed up, and I learned a few things that I thought I’d share, since these have been recommended a few times in this sub.

First, Grindz pellets seemed to work well to free up the mechanism. I use these on my Kinu manual coffee grinder and asked Urnex if Grindz work for pepper grinders as well. They said it’s not formulated for that and they hadn’t tested it, but shouldn’t do any harm. I ground about 20 g of Grindz and then a bunch of pepper through it and discarded all that. You have to chop the Grindz in half since the clearance is less than a coffee grinder (also means large peppercorns don’t work, which I didn’t realise!).

Second, this is an earlier Peugeot model with a gravity-driven burr adjustment (the adjuster on the top just allows the burr to fall). So the mechanism needs to be free enough to allow the burr to drop (and even then you might need to knock it to get it to move). Also, if you adjust it to grind finer, you might need to first grind a bit to allow the burr to move into the higher position.

Huh, TIL about Grindz...

TY

That's the BIFL version. The U'Select versions are not BIFL. You have a great one there. The non-U'Select 'gravity' versions are still available, but hard to source.

You’re welcome! And looking into this, some of the cheaper manual coffee grinders like Timemore or 1zpresso Q2 would probably make excellent pepper grinders. Their grind adjustment is much more robust and precise, they’re probably a lot more BIFL than most pepper grinders, and have come down in price so they’re starting to overlap some of the Peugeot ones.

Grindz are well known and loved in the barista world. Been a barista 5 years and that's what all the shops around me use to keep heavy use grinders up and running

I'm def excited to run through through my grinder. I usually take the whole thing apart to clean... can't believe I've been missing this shortcut for so long!

You can wipe down the outside of your mill with a soft, damp cloth.