Best Manual Coffee Grinder | Top 5 Hand Coffee Grinder Reviews *
For a lot of people, manual grinding coffee is an enjoyable part of the morning routine, and the best hand coffee grinders are a lot quieter to use than electric grinders and many people say that they produce better tasting coffee as well.
Of course, there are some disadvantages to using manual coffee grinders as well, so in this review of manual coffee grinders, we look at five of the best manual coffee grinders on the market and we look at both the advantages and disadvantages of using hand coffee grinders.
If you were looking specifically for the best coffee grinders for making French press coffee; visit our best coffee grinder for french press buyer's guide.
At A Glance: Our Top 5 Picks for Manual Coffee Grinders
I. Best High-End Manual Coffee Grinder: ROK Aluminum Coffee Grinder
If you’re a coffee purist insistent on a totally involved grinding experience, there’s no substitute for a manual grinder. How about if you want to enjoy both espresso and French press coffee, though? Is it possible to get one grinder capable of delivering the grounds you need for both types of drink?
With the ROK, it’s not just possible but an absolute cinch to achieve.
To fine-tune the grind settings, you simply twist the stepless wheel through the 12 available gradations. This allows you an incredible flexibility not possible on many inferior grinders. If you want to convert the ROK to a step grinder, just remove a small piece on the wheel and make use of the detents. For the sake of versatility, we recommend leaving it as it is.
You can manipulate the settings to give you the perfect fine grounds you need for the optimum espresso and really tweak things through experimenting.
If you want to enjoy French press coffee which demands a coarser grind, ratchet the wheel up and you’ll get the more robust grounds essential for this type of coffee making.
Read More: How to Select Coffee Ground Size
The free range of motion you’ll benefit from with the ROK means grinding is so easy you can do it not just one-handed but using just a couple of fingers. Whether it’s espresso or French press coffee you’re after, this manual grinder is our high-end pick if money is no object and you demand an uncompromising, adaptable manual grinder.
II. Best Overall Coffee Grinder: Handground Ceramic Burr Mill
If the upscale ROK is a little pricey for your budget, our best choice overall is this manual ceramic burr mill from the industry heavyweight Handground.
For any coffee lover who wants a highly portable grinder without the questionable quality often associated with smaller models, this precision manual grinder packs the punch of a Rancilio without the eye-popping price tag or the physical bulk.
With 8 steps but 15 settings overall – there’s a secondary demarcation between each of the main steps - you’ll get a phenomenal consistency with this ceramic burr mill. From a super-fine grind tailor-made for a rich espresso through to the far coarser grounds necessary for an effective coffee in your French press, the Handground is a versatile piece of kit.
One issue common to ceramic burr grinders is a shocking lack of consistency with coarse grounds due to the wobble on the burrs. The introduction of 3 bushes in place of the standard single bush practically eliminates this bugbear, great news if you’re a French press fiend.
The other key selling point of this grinder is its extremely diminutive footprint. If you love to travel but miss having freshly ground coffee on tap, the Handground is small enough to pop in your luggage without eating up too much room.
Taking price, performance and multi-purpose grinding into account, the Handground wins out for us overall. Cheaper than the ROK without a significant drop in the end result of your ground, the Handground is a complete winner for travelers wanting both espresso and French press on the road.
III. Best Budget Grinder: JavePresse Conical Burr Mill
With inexpensive coffee grinders, there’s always some degree of compromise involved. This is to be expected and you need to keep your expectations reasonable when searching for the best budget coffee grinder.
The leading drawback of this manual conical burr mill is the physical effort you’ll need to put in. Forget grinding with 2 fingers, you’ll need 2 hands!
If you set aside this requirement for a little elbow grease, the JavePresse is a rock solid manual grinder with a price tag you’ll love.
The wide range of 18 click settings allow you to enjoy the finely ground coffee crucial for your morning espresso right through to a coarse grind when you’re in the mood for breaking out the cafetière and sipping some French press.
Much quieter than an electric grind and eminently portable, the JavePresse is a fantastic budget coffee grinder suitable for all your caffeinated favorites.
IV. Table of Best Manual Coffee Grinders
Products Name | Image |
|---|---|
ROK Aluminium Coffee Grinder This is a very high quality, manual burr grinder that looks great and that will give you a consistency of coarseness on a par with a much more expensive electric grinder. It will give you enough ground coffee for a double espresso in just 30 seconds! |  Editor's Rating: 5.0 The High-End Manual Coffee Grinder |
JavaPresse Manual Coffee Grinder Designed for precision brewing, this manual coffee grinder from JavaPress is a neat and nifty manual conical burr mill that has 18 coarseness settings to give you total control over your style of coffee. It looks great and it makes a great cup of coffee. It’s one of the best hand coffee grinders on the market. |  Editor's Rating: 4.8 Best Budget Manual Coffee Grinder |
Handground Precision Coffee Grinder Designed by coffee lovers, for coffee lovers, the Handgroundprecision coffee grinder is a superb little hand coffee grinder with 15 different grind settings that will give you a consistent grind every time. Check this one out for some great hand coffee grinding innovations! |  Editor's Rating: 4.8 |
HarioSkerton Ceramic Coffee Mill The perfect hand coffee grinder for the coffee connoisseur who loves to travel, the HarioSkerton manual ceramic coffee mill is small, lightweight and portable and it will give you a consistent grind wherever your travels take you. |  Editor's Rating: 4.8 |
Hario Small Coffee Grinder The Hario small coffee grinder is a great looking wood and metal manual coffee grinder that will make coffee grinding fun. This model is neat and compact, but it will still grind enough coffee beans for an average size pot of perfect coffee. |  Editor's Rating: 4.7 |
Read More: 10 Best Coffee Grinders
V. Top 5 Reviews
1. ROK Aluminium Coffee Grinder
The ROK aluminium hand coffee grinder is a manual burr grinder that can be used to make all types of coffee. The grinder is made from die-cast aluminium, which makes it durable, easy to keep clean and it looks great too.
One of the things that makes the ROK manual coffee grinder one of the best hand coffee grinders, is the ease at which it grinds coffee beans. It uses 48mm stainless steel conical burrs to do the grinding, which produces excellent quality coffee grounds, and you can produce enough ground coffee for a double shot of espresso, with minimal effort, in just 30 seconds.
The ROK aluminium manual coffee grinder gives a consistency that you would expect from an electric coffee grinder, but without, of course, the noise.
It also has some very nice features, such as non-slip ring, which stops the grinder slipping and wobbling while you are using it.
The coarseness of the grind is set by a wheel, and finding the coarseness that you want is not difficult. There is also a “step-less” adjustment available which means you can fine-tune the coarseness as much as you like.
The ROK aluminium coffee grinder is well-made and a lovely looking kitchen appliance. You can get a build-up of static with this hand coffee grinder, but then it is a problem with most hand grinders. When you are grinding coffee, you do get a little bit of spillage over the sides and the beans can pop out of the grinder, but not enough that it would be a major issue for most people.
Overall, we felt that the ROK aluminium coffee grinder is a well-made coffee grinder that makes manually grinding coffee a pretty easy job to do. It grinds coffee beans fast and it doesn’t take too much effort to do the grinding. It’s just what you want from one of the best hand coffee grinders on the market.
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Pros
- Well-made and great looking
- Grinds coffee beans fast
- Adjusting coarseness is easy
- Easy to use & clean
Cons
- Static builds up during use
- We did get some spillage of coffee
- Nonslip ring left a mark on the counter top, but it wiped off easily
The JavaPresse manual coffee grinder is a really neat little hand coffee grinder and it’s one of our favouritesof all hand operated grinders that we reviewed.