This paper presents experimental investigations on the impact of a pulsed electric current and a travelling magnetic field on the solidification of unalloyed aluminium with different purity grades. Pure aluminium (99.997 and 99.9999 wt% Al) has been solidified under the influence of both electric current pulses and a travelling magnetic field for electromagnetic melt stirring. The electric current was applied by means of two parallel electrodes immersed into the melt through the free surface. In contradistinction to well-known investigations in solute-rich alloys or recently published studies for pure aluminium in our experiments, we did not observe a grain refinement effect which can be attributed to the melt treatment applied. It becomes obvious that a slight contamination of the basic raw material by an impure processing during melt preparation has a more pronounced influence on the grain structure as the melt agitation provided by applying electric currents or magnetic fields.