One of the must-have appliances in a kitchen is a wet grinder. Powered by electricity, this appliance does a thorough job of mashing cereals and pulses into a batter that is used to prepare a variety of dishes. In the days gone by, women used to manually grind the batter. They would use two stones – a large cylindrical one with a hole at the center and another oval-shaped stone. They would put in the rice and dal in the hole and keep rotating the oval-shaped stone till the grains were mashed. It was a time-consuming process, which was very exhausting for the women. The designing of the kitchen grinder made it more convenient for women to prepare batter at home.
This modern innovation made use of the same set of stones, but reversed the technique. A motor was used to rotate the bottom cylindrical stone and keep the oval stone stationary, chained to a support. A cylindrical drum was placed atop the stone, so the batter would not fly out during the grinding process. The steel drum also made it easy to scoop out the batter after the grinding was done. Initially, this conventional grinder was heavy and required a lot of floor space.
With technological advances, this kitchen appliance too saw a sea change. The heavy parts were replaced with lightweight counterparts. The single stone at the center was replaced by three smaller stones to give better grinding performance. Overall, the weight of the wet grinder was reduced and size made so small that this kitchen appliance could be placed atop a counter or a table. Thus, emerged the table top wet grinder.
In the earlier versions, one had to scoop out all the batter. This process was not only messy, but also took a lot of time. In the table top grinder, one can simply remove the stone and then tilt the drum to drain the batter into a vessel. This made it easier to clean and maintain the grinder.
With most Indian households having idlis, dosas, and vadas for breakfast, this kitchen appliance is sure to be used every week. Apart from these batters, other types of grinding tasks can also be done using the tilting wet grinder.
There are plenty of brands offering tabletop wet grinders. Some of the popular brands of wet grinders are Lakshmi, Sowbaghya, Butterfly, Elgii Ultra and Prestige.
