The Timemore Chestnut Nano Grinder is a professional grade manual hand grinder which packs a punch. Its small size is deceiving as it is a really powerful grinder by its own standards. Its price tag is a little on the high side, but still costs only half of the price of the Comandante manual hand grinder. The functionality and performance of the Timemore Nano Grinder justifies its price tag and you will be very impressed when you get your hands on it.
In this comprehensive review, we will be going through 3 aspects of the Timemore Nano Grinder: 1) The Build, 2) The Use, 3) The Design. Based on these 3 aspects, we will identify how the Timemore Nano Grinder will / will not be a good addition to your current lineup of coffee equipment.
The Build
The Timemore Nano Grinder is small but weighty. It can be held comfortably in one hand and the weight makes it feel premium. Here are some technical specifications of the Timemore Nano Grinder:
Body and Container: Alumnium Alloy 6063
Handle and Central Axle: Austenitic stainless steel 17Cr18Ni9
Burrs: Martensitic stainless steel 20Cr13
The grinder comes in a nicely packaged box. Within the box it comes with a brush, the grinder, and a drawstring pouch for portability.
The Timemore Nano Grinder features an extendable handle that folds 90° down, reducing its footprint for easy storage into small spaces. This makes the grinder a great option for travel.
There are 8 loose parts in the grinder. Be careful when you open the grinder as the loose parts may come off easily and you forget how to assemble them back!
The Use
The Timemore Nano Grinder is built to grind 15g of coffee beans at any one time. This is sufficient for one person’s cup of coffee. Due to its sharp stainless steel burrs, grinding requires little effort compared to hand grinders with ceramic burrs.
The grind size is quantified by the number of “clicks” we count when adjusting the nut clockwise. As the number of clicks increases as you turn clockwise, the burrs get looser and the coffee grinds coarser; on the contrary, as the number of clicks increases as you turn anti-clockwise, the burrs get tighter and the coffee grinds finer.
The manual recommends not to use grind size 0 to 6. For this review, we tested various grind sizes from 7 to 28.
At grind size 7, it will take forever to grind 15g of coffee beans. I stopped halfway, seeing that less than half of my coffee beans were ground. Grind size 10 works fine. It does take some time and effort to grind for espresso use, and you need to do this more than once to get 18g of espresso-grind coffee for the usual shot.
It feels surprisingly easy to grind the coffee beans and it feels faster to complete the grind than grinders with ceramic burrs. But this should come with no surprise as stainless steel burrs are sharper and therefore cuts the coffee beans more easily.
For a cup of filter coffee on the Hario V60, a grind size of 14 gave me a brew time of 3 minutes 8 seconds for 15g of coffee. Depending on how much coffee you are using, grind sizes up to 18 generally work well.
The Design
The Timemore Nano Grinder is a work of art itself and there are small details which delight me when using the grinder.
I like the wooden knob handle for the Timemore Nano Grinder. It adds a classy and natural feel to this otherwise metallic product. This wooden knob is detachable from the axle and is magnetic to the end of the extension tube. There is also a small rubber stop at the bottom of the axle where it meets the body of the grinder to prevent scratches.
The grind size indicator uses circles to visually represent the grind size. This makes it easy to understand without the need for words (not everyone may understand English, for example).
One small detail which I dislike is the material of the screwing nut. The stainless steel material makes it feel sharp on my fingers when turning the nut to change the grind size. There is also some resistance when turning the nut.
Overall
The Timemore Chestnut Nano Grinder is built to last and is a great travel companion due to its portability. Its maximum dose is 15g each time, which requires you to grind a second time if you are intending to make a bigger cup of coffee or pulling an espresso shot. This grinder is fully metallic with no plastic parts which make it feels premium. The detachable wooden knob at the end of the axle gives a nice natural finishing touch that is both stylish and functional.
Get your Timemore Chestnut Nano Grinder here!
