The Reason Why Coffee Machines Are So Noisy

Noisy coffee machines

There’s no denying that a good cup of coffee as your morning starts can be the best way to provide you with a good wake-up call. However some times it might wake you up in a way you didn’t intend, as your coffee machine roars into working and startles you awake.

Traditional coffee machines aren’t exactly quiet, and that does bring an interesting question to the fold, why are coffee machines so noisy in the first place? Usually, when most electronics make excessive noise it’s an early warning that something is going wrong, but with coffee machines, it’s just the way they are.

The main noise factor is generally the grinder, and that’s something we can do very little about. Coffee machines do need to grind a lot of beans in a matter of seconds which is, in general, the main source of noise when it comes to making coffee. See, the thing is that even if someone manufactured the perfect coffee grinder which itself made no noise… It’d still be noisy once you add the beans to the mix.

Coffee bean grinder

Noise is just a natural side effect of any action, the stronger or faster something is the more noise it’ll make. And coffee beans are pretty sturdy despite the size. So grinding them would always generate noise even if it were done in a hypothetical perfect grinder, that’s just physics and ultimately not the fault of your coffee machine.

The other main source of noise in coffee machines is the boiler. Heat is a major part of coffee making as well, and while heat itself isn’t necessarily noisy, the process to generate it is. Admittedly it’s nowhere near as noisy as the grinder, nothing in your machine should make as much noise as the grinder if it does chances are there’s a real issue with your machine.

But one way or another based on your model the circuit which handles the boiler can prove to be pretty noisy. There’s a lot of pieces and electricity involved in heating your machine up so similar to the grinder there’s no real way to completely avoid it. However, that doesn’t mean all boilers will make the same amount of noise. Usually, the better a model is, the more all the pieces will be finely tuned. This will mean that regular operation noise will notoriously decrease. However, the beans themselves will always make a sound when ground, so that’s something to keep in mind.

FAQ

Q1. Is there a way to reduce the noise my machine already makes?

Not really, as we mentioned the main contributing factor to noise are the beans themselves and not the coffee machine. So there’s nothing to fix as in the first place everything is working perfectly.

Q2. What should I do if my coffee machine is excessively nosy past the grinding?

If your coffee machine still makes an unnatural amount of noise in other steps of coffee making then it might be a good idea to look into warranty or repairs. Heat and grinding should be the main noise makers, and if there’s excessive noise past that there might be a mechanical fault.

Q3. Is there a noiseless coffee machine?

Sadly no. Filter coffee machines are by themselves some of the most silent in the market, but that’s because they don’t grind themselves. So ultimately you’d need a machine that doesn’t take ground coffee or use a separate grinder. Which ultimately would just cause the noise to be isolated to another appliance.