When it comes to coffee, sometimes you just are not satisfied until you have full control over every aspect of your coffee.
One huge part of the coffee experience is getting your beans ground to the proper consistency. Too coarse or too fine could make the coffee taste different depending on what kind of coffee you are trying to brew.
Electric grinders can be expensive, so you should consider picking one of the best manual coffee grinder choices from our list below.
Manual hand crank grinders come in varying levels of quality, so be careful before you buy! In the interest of being thorough, I’ve listed the highest quality grinders as well as extreme budget grinders so you have a wide variety to choose from.
In case you’re in a hurry, look no further than the Timemore Chestnut C2: it’s hands-down the best hand grinder I’ve ever used.
Best Manual Coffee Grinder: Top Picks
1. Timemore Chestnut C2
The Timemore Chestnut C2 is the grinder I personally use and I feel that I’ve finally gotten to a good grinder after months of trial and error and going through about 3-4 other grinders.
The Timemore Chestnut C2 combines all the good things about coffee grinders into a single grinder – any shortcoming found in other grinders is thoughtfully overcome in this design.
Timemore is a relatively newer brand on the coffee brewing scene but they’ve exploded in with a large variety of products.
The Chestnut C2 grinder has a knurled aluminum finish and feels really solid in your hand. It’s made up of 3 components: the bottom chamber where the grounds collect, the top chamber where you put the coffee beans, and the lid and handle assembly.
Let’s start from the top:
The handle is quite long and is shaped to put less strain on your arm as you grind. I’ve experienced this firsthand compared to other grinders that have straight handles: the Timemore is significantly easier to turn, and I actually manage to grind 15 grams of coffee in less turns than I do with other grinders.
The top chamber has stainless steel burrs which are incredibly sharp and produce very fast and consistent coffee grinds.
On the bottom of the top chamber is an adjustment knob with two arrows: one marked coarse and one marked fine. As you turn the knob, you’ll hear it click, and you can count the clicks to know how far you’ve gotten in the grind.
A word of warning: the instruction manual says not to grind at anything below 8 clicks, as this can cause the burrs to scrape against one another. If you want to do a very fine espresso grind, start at 8 clicks!
Go for 12-14 clicks for pour over, 15-16 for drip, 22-24 for french press, and 26+ for cold brew.
The bottom chamber screws into the top chamber and catches the grounds.
This is the fastest manual coffee grinder I’ve used
The biggest advantage of the Timemore Chestnut C2 is the speed and ease at which you can grind coffee. I’ve used cheapo Chinese grinders and the Hario Smart G, and none were as fast as the Timemore. French press grinds can be ready in less than 20 seconds by turning at normal speeds!
Obviously, the finer the coffee, the more turns it will require, but the Timemore has to be the most pleasant manual coffee grinding experience I have ever had.
Normally, it’s quite a bit of effort to grind for 2 people, but the Timemore makes it very easy as there’s literally no effort involved.
Pros
- Incredibly tough and elegant
- Very quick and consistent grinds
- Easy to turn
- Lots of fine adjustment settings
Cons
- Expensive: you can get a cheap electrical grinder for the same price
- The max capacity is around 20 grams of coffee beans, so you’d have to grind twice for two people
- The bottom plate of the grounds chamber can get loose at times: just screw it back in
2. JavaPresse Manual Coffee Grinder
Next up is the JavaPresse coffee grinder. This is our top pick for the budget steel cylinder design – there are literally hundreds of similar products out there on Amazon right now, but JavaPresse takes the cake(or coffee, in this case) because of their phenomenal customer service.
The grinder itself is incredibly functional. The hand crank on the top is easy to turn and produces coffee grains to nearly perfect specifications.
It has 18 click settings to give you direct control over how coarse you want your grinds to – so no matter if you are drinking Pour Over, Drip, Chemex, Cold Brew, French Press, Percolator, AeroPress, Turkish, Espresso, Keurig K Cup, Herb, or Spice grind, this little grinder has you covered.
The grinding mechanism is a ceramic conical burr, with one stationary grinder and one that moves – JavaPresse claims this is the result of rigorous research, and they seem to be on the right track, since most people that use the JavaPresse manual grinder are very satisfied.
You simply remove the top, put in your coffee beans, and start grinding – the grounds will fall into the little container at the bottom, which you can then unscrew and empty into your favorite brewing machine.
The JavaPresse manual coffee grinder is easy to clean and can grind enough beans to make 1-2 cups of coffee at a time.
One complaint that people did have was that the bottom part was a little tough to unscrew.
3. Hario Skerton Ceramic Coffee Mill
The Hario Skerton ceramic coffee mill is the hourglass form factor I told you about above. It’s incredibly well built, and just holding it in your hand gives you a sense of the quality. The jug at the bottom is made from high quality glass, and the machine as a whole is fairly portable and durable.
Note: There are two types of these grinders available – one with a white burr mechanism, which is a FAKE – and one with a black mechanism, which is genuine. When you order from Amazon, make sure to buy from a Fulfilled by Amazon seller.
The really neat thing about the Hario Skerton mill is that the grinder will fit right on to a normal sized mason jar, so if you manage to break the bottom part of the grinder, you can just replace it with any mason jar you have lying around at home.
The Hario Skerton grinder is easy to use and easy to clean.
Many people did have a bit of a complaint regarding the fact that the grounds are not 100% uniform – they are a little inconsistent, but they still bring out decent flavor in a french press.
With an upgrade kit, you can make consistently perfect french press grounds – but the additional cost may be a put off for you, and you may as well get the JavaPresse machine!
This machine has enough room for 100g of grounds, which is plenty of space, even for multiple cups. Though you may want to reconsider making more than 2 cups, as it will take you that much longer to grind them!
Pros
- Huge 100g capacity
- Easy maintenance
Cons
- Glass is delicate
- Wide design means it’s tougher to grip and grind