Sarah (she/her) is a deputy editor for the Good Housekeeping Institute, where she tests products and covers the best picks across kitchen, tech, health and food. Other pepper mills have preset settings: This ensures you’ll get the same grind results each time, but it lacks nuance. We also considered the ease of operation — whether the model was difficult to turn, if applicable, or slippery — and whether the grind sizes were preset or manually selected. An electric grinder can be a good choice for those with dexterity or hand-strength issues, as the repetitive motion of grinding can get tiring with manual models. She has been cooking professionally since 2017 and has tested kitchen appliances and gear for Family Circle as well as developed recipes and food content for Simply Recipes, Martha Stewart Omnimedia, Oxo and Food52.

Some modern designs proved easier to use if you have oily hands from cooking and there was also a big difference with how easy the coarseness setting is to adjust. Electric grinders may also have preset settings or a dial that lets you swing between coarse and fine. We like how easy it is to change pods — press down to release the current pod, then press the empty handle onto the next pod.When creating meals for your family and friends, it’s a good idea to go easy on the salt and pepper and simply allow each individual to add as much or as little of the spices as they prefer to their meal. Sets with a grinder on the bottom can be used as-is, but often leak out a little bit of the spices in between use. It's somewhat slippery since it's all metal, so it's not the most ergonomic, but the tradeoff is that you won't need to produce as many turns to get the pepper you need.

There are even grinders that have built-in non-slip grips to prevent accidentally dropping the grinders. We were surprised just how difficult it was to refill some of the salt and pepper mill sets we bought. It has six fixed grinding settings that are easy to select and clearly labeled on the base of the mill.

It includes a one-teaspoon cap to make grinding to measure easier, but in our tests, we found that the slow grinding meant it took a fair amount of time to hit a teaspoon. electric: To use a manual pepper mill, you'll fill a chamber and then turn a portion of the mill to grind the pepper.