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How can I grind whole nuts (walnuts, brazil nuts, macademia etc) into powder conveniently at home?

I have already tried:

  • mortar and pestle. I don't like it because the nut dust splashes everywhere, I have to add nuts in very small portions, it takes a very long time to go from 80%-100% powdered.
  • smoothie blender. I don't like it because the nuts nearest to the blades get turned into oil and gunk up the blades, then none of the other nuts inside get blended.

How can I improve my current methods, or what's a better method, to grind up nuts? I would like it to be so easy that I can watch a video while the nuts are grinding (mortar and pestle fails this because you have to be careful to avoid splashing)

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    Have you considered a small, hand cranked, counter top flour mill? They're not particularly cheap but they should do what you want.
    – Hollis Hurlbut
    Commented Aug 9 at 19:04
  • @HollisHurlbut I am interested in getting specialised equipment for this, but I wasn't sure what would be best. I looked up "nut grinders" and just found extremely expensive strange products. A flour mill would be good, but still seems pretty expensive.
    – user55537
    Commented Aug 9 at 19:59
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    @minesong I should just make it clear that my mention of a counter top mill for grinding nuts, wasn't an endorsement of that use case. They should do the job but I can't say for certain that they will. I did look into similar mills myself, with the intention of using them for grinding spices and dried chillies. The reason being is that for my use case, a mill wouldn't get as hot and degrade the spices as an electric grinder does. I would assume the same would be true for nuts, especially given that that's how I believe people make nut flour but again, I'm not speaking from direct experience.
    – Hollis Hurlbut
    Commented Aug 9 at 20:17
  • You might be trying to blend too many nuts at once, or the blender you are using simply isn't suited for processing dry ingredients like nuts. I've seen people have success at making nut meal/flour using a BlendTec blender which makes sense as the "blades" on a BlendTec aren't actually blades, just blunt arms that spin extremely fast to pulverize rather than slice.
    – Abion47
    Commented Aug 9 at 21:21

2 Answers 2

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When you grind nuts, you want to use what’s essentially a fine grater.

Everything that rubs or squeezes the nuts has a good chance to extract some of the oils, leading to clumping, generating a paste, or smearing on the mill, in short, brings you halfway to nut butter.

The tool I am most familiar with looks like a meat grinder, but with a drum insert that’s essentially a round grater. I remember my grandpa sitting at the table and grinding nuts for Christmas cookies.

hand grater

(Source)

If you have a food processor with a grating disk, it may be worth a try (before buying an extra tool), not sure how much the nuts would jump in the chute, though.

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  • These seem to often be called "rotary graters", and they were effective at turning macadamia and walnuts into powders, and quite fun to use. It's difficult to get one with small holes though, the one pictured would probably work well because there are 14 holes per row, most tabletop hand-crank ones I find only come with attachments that have at most 11 holes per row, which are each still quite big.
    – user55537
    Commented Sep 6 at 7:39
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For small amounts (like what you need for a dish you are about to prepare), you can use a coffee beans grinder. I use it to grind castor sugar when the recipe calls for powdered sugar. Electric coffee grinders do the job quite well, but sometimes you need to do it in batches. Since each grinding takes just a few seconds, it's no big deal. If you have a food processor, even better.

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    Ah, I think you are talking about a blade grinder, not a burr grinder? The latter is basically what makes nut butter if set tight enough. You may want to clarify.
    – Stephie ♦
    Commented Aug 13 at 8:55
  • Yes, a blade grinder - in both options. It works well if you use it wisely (not at the highest speed or too much force) and just for a few seconds at a time.
    – Suzana
    Commented Aug 14 at 10:29

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