Norpro Nut and Hard Spice Grinder for Nutmeg Ginger Rock Salt and Peppercorn White 3.5″ x 3″ x 3″

Essential for nutmeg lovers
Using a microplane or other small grater to grate your whole nutmeg always left small pieces behind and ended up being more of hassle than it was worth. This little device changes all that! You can store your 5-6 pieces of whole nutmeg in the container, and refill the middle loading area when one gets low. The best part is that all of the nutmeg gets used (and grated) because of the spring-loaded crank, without you risking your fingertips! It’s SO easy to use; the crank works very well and relatively smoothly. Makes for easy storage, too. And nothing beats freshly grated nutmeg! Makes the powder you get from a supermarket taste like old sawdust in comparison.

Works well, but you’ll have to be a bit clever
This works very well to grind the nutmegs, but loading it can be a little challenging. I love the way extra nutmegs sit under the plastic lid, making your spices decorative until they are used.The problem is that this needs to be a little bit bigger. I’ve often had to cut a whole nutmeg in half to fit in into the grinding chamber, and that usually means it will go sailing through the air to be lost behind the refrigerator. Wasteful! And these are not cheap. But the pieces won’t fit together unless I do. If it were just a LITTLE bit bigger, it would fit.The same goes for the storage area — sometimes the nutmegs won’t fit, and I struggle to get the top to screw on because of this. Only a little bit bigger, and there would be no problem.The grinding part works very well. If the surface gets too smooth, just open the grinder, move that piece around or turn it over, and close the grinder. It works fine after that. If there’s a piece at the end that won’t grind, throw it into a stew.

Grate in the beginning…
I use nutmeg a lot. For baking. Making spaghetti sauces and casseroles. Fondues. I grated it using a microplane and while the results were snowy fine and desirable, the scrapes on my fingers were not. So I purchased this nutmeg grater based on the reviews.The grater holds 5-6 whole nutmegs. You put 1-2 in the center where the action takes place, close the two halves and grind away.The results were outstanding — at first. Comparable to the microplane but without the pain. I was thrilled. I merrily grated away as I cooked my large pots of spaghetti sauce.However, like a relationship with a flawed person, you can’t expect it to last. When the flaws are discovered, it’s all you can do to fix the relationship. Not gonna happen.For example, closing it (within a few months) soon became an exercise in sheer strength and will. This is because the nuts in the middle tube are held in place by a spring that is on the hefty gauge side that pushes them into the grating blade. You have to fight pushing the spring down to get the two halves to match then twist them to engage two miniscule pieces that get it to stay closed. It stood up to it but that’s about its only good feature. It’s a PITA to use.The nutmeg in the center needs constant adjustment in order to get it to grate at all, and when one nut starts to get a little flat, it doggedly refuses to grate at all. You need more than one nut in the center for it to grate because the spring in the center only goes down so far to out pressure on the nut. So I found myself constantly adjusting the nuts. But the grater nowo crushes the nutmeg as opposed to grating it, and instead of the nutmeg snow I wanted for my pies, spaghetti sauces and lasagna, I found myself fishing small chunks out of my red sauce and pies.I’m the kind of person whose glass is always half full. I clung to the hope that if I just tried this or adjusted that, it would return to producing snowy piles of nutmeg for my cooking. I gave the thing innumerable chances to get straight and fly right. I tried different positioning of the nuts, different numbers of nuts in the middle and filling in the sides with the remnants of nuts it grated before. No dice.Now it is taking up space in my gadget drawer acting as a holder for my whole nutmeg, which is comical. I take a nut out, grate it on the microplane and put the unused portion back in the grater, fighting to twist it closed. And because it is about 4”x3” with a rotating handle on top, it is taking up a lot of space. Silly.Summary: don’t waste your money. Get a better quality grater or use a microplane. And buy some bandaids.

Better than previous grator – UPDATE 3 stars
Still experimenting; will report back.Update: the grater has difficulty grinding a nutmeg longer than an inch. What happens is the metal teeth sink into nutmeg and cracks it but nut is not shaved; the handle turns freely without friction. Unable to keep nutmeg standing vertical so it hits and makes contact with the sharp edges.