Salt & Pepper Mills: The Do's and Don'ts Every Cook Should Know

This week is a short one for me, as I’m off to see my little brother, Jim in Liverpool, Thursday lunch time and so I’m trying to squeeze five days’ work into three and half. I’m slow at the best of times so this really isn’t possible.

On top of that we have a managers meeting this Wednesday just gone (normally held every three weeks) in which we are going to try to work out how to measure the qualitative performance of the business, which is a hard thing to do compared to quantitative measures such as sales figures, profit, margins etc. which are relatively easily recorded and compared. 

So, a lot on our collective plates, and I’m afraid for me the casualty is going to be this email.

We had planned for me to talk about mills this week, so that is what I shall do, in the pithiest and briefest of brief ways that I can muster.

Salt and Pepper Mills. The Do’s and Don’ts

Mills, both for salt and pepper have improved hugely over the last 15 to 20 years, with the happy demise of nylon movements for salt (these were bloody awful, lasting 5 minutes on a good day) and, conversely, with the introduction of ceramic movements (which are usually pretty good). The result is, that you are now far less likely to have a real dud on your hands than previously would have been the case.

However, they are not completely problem free, so if you like to know more, please read on!

I asked Em and Jeanne what the common problems are and they came up with some examples, as follows.

• Overtightening the knob at the top. This can, at worst, damage the mechanism, and will certainly reduce the flow and, with most mills, make the grind extremely fine. Remedy. Don’t over tighten.
• Type of Salt used. Malvern salt may be sexy stuff, but it’s not right for a salt mill. Use sea salt that is dry, not the wet stuff ( although if you can dry it then it may well be suitable).
• Mixed Peppercorns. These are too sticky and soft to work well in a mill and tend to bung it up.
• Where to keep your Mills? For salt in particular, make sure that you keep your mills in a completely dry place. Salt absorbs water for a pastime and when this happens it can clog up the mechanism, sometimes completely. Keep away from damp areas such as steaming saucepans kettles etc.
• Salting food whilst cooking. DON’T use your mill, directly over the pan. Either have a Salt Pig or pinch pot and use salt from that. Or grind into the palm of your hand.
• Maintenance. Every so often empty the mills and give them a good clean. Shove some kitchen paper up its chuff to clear out caked on salt (less likely to happen with pepper). Tap the mill gently on a chopping board to encourage loose bits to fall out. Some mills you can take apart, which will enable you to get to the fluting on the mechanism, just above the grinding teeth, and of course the teeth themselves. Both these areas can get clogged.

Direction of grind; Turn the mill in a clockwise direction only. This is because the flutes that carry the salt or pepper down to the grinding teeth, need to work in a clockwise direction to do their job.   Turning it backwards and forwards arrests this process and then you only have gravity on your side to get the material to the grinding surface.   Turn it clockwise and all’s well with the world.

• NEVER put salt in a pepper mill. If it’s a steel movement it will corrode very swiftly. End of mill.
• Filling: Use either your hand formed into a funnel, or buy one of our mini funnels made especially for the job
• Mess: if you’re concerned about mills making a mess where they stand, we sell mill trays in either acrylic or wood, footling things in my opinion, but we sell loads of them, so I must be wrong. Alternatively, we sell upside down mills that don’t make a mess because they live upside down with their mechanisms facing the sky!

Here are a selection of the mills we stock.

Peugeot are a favourite of mine, partly because my parents had a Peugeot all their married life and it never faltered.

And partly because they have been using the same mechanism for the last 150 odd years, and they just don’t seem to wear out.

They unusually use Stainless Steel for their salt mills, and these also work faultlessly (accepting what I say above about not using over a steaming saucepan).

Cole & Mason Mills were, at one point 20 years ago, or so, a pretty hopeless lot and we stopped stocking them for years. But then, in the earlyish 2000’s they decided to redesign their mech’s and came up with a really brilliant design that is up there with the best.

These are otherwise pretty conventional mills, that use carbon steel for pepper, and ceramic for salt.

The mechanism is adjusted by loosening or tightening the top knob, or on their more expensive models there’s an adjustment ring to go from fine to coarse. 

Le Creuset now do a huge range of colours in their plastic bodied mills.

They use ceramic for both salt and pepper, and the mechanism has some degree of adjustment.

AdHoc, make a lovely range of unusually designed mills.

They have very good ceramic movements, that have a wide range of adjustment, and are accessible from underneath the mill.

For this weekend and until Friday next week (30/05/25), if you are in the market for of mills, then you can have 20% off when you buy any two.

Please tell us who you are if coming into Cobham or Reigate or use code MILLS25 if shopping on the website.

That’s it for this week.

I trust that you have a pleasant and peaceful weekend.

Warm regards,

Andrew