Nerding out black pepper

[blackdogbbq21]

I've always used Monterey Bay 16 mesh pepper. I just ordered some 16 mesh from Spiceology. The Spiceology pepper is way bigger than the Monterey. Looking at reviews of both of them I see other people saying the Monterey is too small to be 16 mesh and other people saying Spiceology is too big to be 16 mesh.
Realistically both of them will work but it just made me curious if either of them are really 16 mesh. Has anyone tried either of these brands and know if either of them are truly 16 mesh? Understood that no matter what there will be a little variation in the pepper size but clearly at least one of these shouldn't be labeled as 16 mesh. Might have to try a third brand to see how it shows up lol.

 

[Hamdrew]

I have not, so this whole post might be moot, but...


I buy black, green, and pink peppercorns and have an old hand-grinder that puts out very coarse and consistent grinds, I'm assuming 16 mesh+. I use a cheap Krups coffee grinder from Target with a spinning metal "blade" for a finer grind:

For a coarser grind, nothing beats a mortar and pestle IMO. I always recommend to shell out the extra money for a larger one, as a wider bottom makes the process 100x easier.


Lastly, using black pepper entirely for roughness/surface area, I would be more inclined to use pre-ground stuff. I put a lot of pepper on everything from sandwiches to pizza, and of course salads, and grinding it as needed is absolutely worth it. The coffee grinder is awesome for convenience there. Green peppercorns are when they are at their most aromatic, and I do prefer some of the different ones (pink). Spice Islands has a "Peppercorn Melange" that is a good mix, and Aldi has a cheap few oz "rainbow peppercorn grinder"

 

[sandro]

I set my wooden crank pepper mill to a reasonable approximation of 16# and attach a drill to it, then pass the grains through a sieve—anything the sieve catches I'll call rub pepper, everything else gets used elsewhere

 

[robertm]

Don't recommend using a mill or grinding fresh pepper if your recipe calls for 16 mesh. The freshly ground stuff will be WAY more potent. Potent and fresh aren't a bad thing unless of course the recipe is based on milder pre-ground stuff like monterey.

 

[sandro]

Don't recommend using a mill or grinding fresh pepper if your recipe calls for 16 mesh. The freshly ground stuff will be WAY more potent. Potent and fresh aren't a bad thing unless of course the recipe is based on milder pre-ground stuff like monterey.

Oh absolutely, I do it in batches beforehand. Though, cooking that pepper for 12 hours will pretty much annihilate most of it

 

[Springram]

The Spiceology is not 16 mesh. I have no idea what it is so I pitched it. I can get 16 mesh locally, from the Spice House in Chicago swell as from Monterey Bay. Heck, the Kirkland Brand of Coarse Ground Pepper is pretty dang close.

 

[blackdogbbq21]

Thanks for the replies. I do grind pepper for alot of my cooking. For my long cook bbq rubs the coarse pre ground stuff works great. It just seemed odd to me that two brands are saying the pepper is 16 mesh and the sizes were so obviously different.