Pepper Mill vs. Coffee Grinder?

It's a very rainy and quite chilly day today here in Maine.  I'm afraid my aim and shoot camera is way too fast to show all the downpour outside but trust me it's pouring.  I have a Nikon D80 but I would have to  go find it and I'm just too lazy so these photos will have to do.  

 View out one of my windows in my family room.

View out a slider to one of my decks.

I was cleaning up my kitchen last night, refilling my pepper grinders and I got to thinking about something others might find useful.....pepper mills vs. coffee grinders.  Below is a hand crank coffee grinder I've had for 37 years but I've used it for grinding pepper - never coffee!

 Because it's a coffee grinder, not intended to leave peppercorns in the top, of course there is no cover.  To fix this problem of no lid I tear off some foil, shape it to fit (after it is filled with peppercorns of course) and cover over the well to keep the dust  out.  Now why would I go to that trouble.....very simply put, when I bought it I intended to use it for grinding pepper and it was a lot less money than some of the fancy pepper mills on the market.  Seems things haven't changed much in all these years!  I keep the above mill by my stove, couple of turns and I have all the fresh ground pepper I need.  Having this mill by the stove also eliminates me having to constantly be refilling a regular pepper mill that is always running out.  I love this mill and it has been used constantly, is heavy duty - after all is was intended to grind coffee beans - and if it broke I would run out - nah, I'd probably order one off Amazon and replace it pronto!

Here are a couple of inexpensive coffee mills I looked up on Amazon.com and as I mentioned above, they are way less money than the numerous other top brand pepper mills.  One of these even has adjustments for the type of grind you want - what could be better or easier than that?

Yes, I do own several of the other pepper mills and here is just one set I keep on my breakfast table - salt and pepper both.  As you can see, I keep them in a small terra-cotta pot that used to hold vinegar and oil.  This pot keeps all that nasty stuff from getting all over my lazy susan.

  

 Hope your world is sunshiny where you are today....enjoy!