Which is the Best Manual Coffee Grinders? Our Review & Hand Crank Grinder Buyers Guide

The external ring is why this grinder costs what it does. You set a number, grind, change to a completely different brew method, and come back to the same number tomorrow and get the same coffee. The 48 mm stainless burr gets through a filter dose in about half a minute without much effort and stays even at espresso settings, where ceramic burrs start producing dust. The body is machined aluminium with a magnetic catch cup and it comes with a case. Nothing else here does this much, and nothing else here costs this much either.

This is the grinder that made the ceramic hand grinders look obsolete. The S2C stainless burr produces a noticeably cleaner particle distribution than the Hario and Porlex it replaced, the aluminium body is properly machined, and the whole thing costs under a hundred dollars. Adjustment is internal and stepped, so changing methods means unscrewing the handle and counting clicks, which is fine if you brew one way and tedious if you do not. For pour over, AeroPress and press it is all the grinder most people will ever need.

On paper the K6 is a 1Zpresso at half the money: same 48 mm stainless burr diameter, same external adjustment principle, 240 numbered clicks at about 16 microns each. In the hand it feels a step behind, the crank has more play and the finish is plainer, and the coffee it produces is close enough that the price difference is hard to argue with. If you want to dial in espresso by number without spending 1Zpresso money, this is the grinder, and our <a href="https://timtalkscoffee.com/best-espresso-grinders/">espresso grinder guide</a> puts it in the same company.

Timemore's argument here is that most people never make espresso, so they should not pay for the range that supports it. The C2S keeps the S2C stainless burr and the machined body, loses some of the C3S Pro's refinement and a chunk of the price, and grinds filter coffee just as well. Internal stepped adjustment again, which is a non-issue if you use one method. As a first upgrade away from a blade grinder or a supermarket pre-ground bag it is close to unbeatable at seventy-five dollars.

Japanese, narrow and genuinely well made. The body is stainless rather than plastic or aluminium, the ceramic burr is stepped and holds its setting, and the whole grinder fits inside an AeroPress chamber so the two travel as one object. Twenty grams is about the capacity and it takes real effort to grind, because the burr is small and the handle is short. As a home grinder it is beaten by the Timemores. As a travel grinder there is still nothing packing quite this neatly, and our <a href="https://timtalkscoffee.com/best-filters-for-aeropress/">AeroPress filter guide</a> covers the rest of that kit.

The original Skerton had a burr that could rock in its housing, which put a bell curve where you wanted a spike. The Pro adds a bearing that holds the burr steady, and at coarse settings the result is genuinely even. The wide glass jar catches a large dose and does not tip over, and the whole thing costs about fifty dollars. Push it toward fine and the ceramic burr does what ceramic burrs do: fines, and a lot of them. Grind coarse for a <a href="https://timtalkscoffee.com/best-french-press-coffee-maker/">French press</a> and it is very good value.

The point of this grinder is what it is not: a blade grinder. Blades smash beans into random fragments and there is no setting that fixes it; a burr, even a cheap ceramic one, cuts to a size. Eighteen settings is not many and the steps are wide, the body flexes a little under load, and it grinds slowly. It also costs forty dollars and has by far the deepest owner record on this page, because it is the grinder that gets people out of pre-ground coffee. For press and drip it does the job.