I don't think it's the time it takes to grind espresso manually that leads people to go electric. It's the effort when it's 7 AM, your eyes are bloodshot and you wanted the coffee to already be ready fifteen minutes before you started grinding. Time wise it's relatively quick for espresso. A big four cup pot of brew or pourover is another matter.

I disagree. Pourover grinding is super easy mode especially with the C40, which I don't currently own but owned for 2+ years and did everything from espresso grinding to uber coarse grinding for immersion brews. It's not grinding the first espresso shot that gets bothersome, it's the second or third one in quick succession while trying to dial in that was tedious at best and led me to look into getting an electric grinder.

J-max owner.
Medium through med-light roasts, espresso grind for my VBM, 20-30s. 20g dose.
Filter roast (light), espresso grind, electric drill. seconds. 20g dose.
Light roast, v60 grind, 17g, so little time I don't notice. 10 seconds maybe. I did a 40g batch grind for 2x v60-02 today in under 10s but that was with me throttling the drill instead of hand grinding.

It's a great hand grinder, nice adjustment for dialing in. As expected, better mouthfeel but less clarity than my 64mm Mazzer. Easier to dial in than the Mazzer.
The case it comes with is solid. I've taken my J-max camping ('tough' 4wd tracks during the day, camp at night) multiple times and it's been well protected. Flown with it. etc.
The Jx-pro you'd have to buy the case separately.

LewBK wrote:I don't think it's the time it takes to grind espresso manually that leads people to go electric. It's the effort when it's 7 AM, your eyes are bloodshot and you wanted the coffee to already be ready fifteen minutes before you started grinding. Time wise it's relatively quick for espresso. A big four cup pot of brew or pourover is another matter.

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I ran out of espresso beans and cbf driving to the roaster and did a big online order which will be shipped after roasting on Monday. I'm normally a 2x 20g dose espresso before my v60 in the morning kinda person...

Agree, electric for espresso is nice first thing in the morning.

In the absence of espresso, I've been doing 700-800ml pour-overs which require a decent manual grind (because why would I dial in that empty mazzer when my J-max is already dialed for v60 ).

It's easily done, my electric drill is currently sitting on the coffee bench with a 1/4" socket attached with the torque and speed settings adjusted for grinding.

1zpresso mention the correct socket size to use with a drill in their FAQs. Whilst not pretty, it's nice to know that it's an option from time to time.

I use a KINU M47 at work. About 60rev for 19 grams.

h663rst wrote:I'm planning to enter the world of espresso coffee as I've been a drip/filter coffee guy all these years. From research, I've learned that grinders are very important especially when it comes to espresso.

I currently own a hand grinder but its only made for coarser grinds which I use for my Aeropress and tried to grind finer just to check if it can somehow do finer grinds. It does somehow work but it took me around 5-7 mins for a 14g coffee, which is a lot.

I don't really have the budget for electric ones as I think the cheapest decent model that is available in my country (PH) would be the DF64 ($400 USD), but that is almost twice as expensive as what I'm aiming for.

Currently I'm eyeing on 1zpresso J-MAX ($200) which fits my budget and have read good reviews about it. Grind time is not something being discussed based on the videos/articles that I saw, so if anyone here could share their grind times with espresso hand grinding it would help me a lot. Thanks!

I have a JMAX, I read this in the morning and decided before I posted I would count how long it takes to grind for espresso. I'm traveling right now and my travel setup is the JMAX and the picopresso so I've been grinding about 18gr every morning for espresso. This morning it was 18.5gr in which took roughly 80 turns in about 40-45 seconds. It wasn't aggressive but a comfortable speed. so broadly speaking about 2 turns everything second and if you picked up the pace half a gram per second. it was a darker roast so a lighter roast would probably take longer but I don't know how it would affect the number of turns. another factor is the density of the bean and generally speaking, higher elevation coffee is denser so every coffee will be a bit different. For me when the coffee is dialed it's not a chore but dialing it in and having to grind 3 or more back to back is when it no longer is enjoyable. Once I get it dialed in day to day I keep notes and adjust on the fly based on the trend of the previous days.

I received my J-Max earlier this week and I've done just 4 or 5 16gm puck/32gm shots so far. Grinding a rather dark roast at several different click settings bracketing the midpoint of the J-Max's espresso range ran pretty consistently between 45 and 50 seconds at a moderate but not exceptionally fast grinding speed - about 55 - 60 turns each. I was surprised how relatively effortless it was.

My well seasoned first generation HG1 takes about 14 revolutions to grind 18.5 gm of Redbird espresso. I don't think time is the variable as we are all of different strengths.

Revolutions would be the variable, but counting that would slow me down

Helor 106 uses 4:1 gear down, so it is super easy to grind hard beans compared to the 47mm conical burr hand grinders. It takes 72 revolutions for 18g beans. My average speed is 2.5 revolutions per second, so it takes about 30 seconds for espresso.