How to Adjust the Grind Setting on the Commander Hand Coffee Grinder? Is the Commander's Hand Grinder Good to Use?

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FrontStreet Coffee Discusses Commander Coffee Grinder Grind Settings Today

When we purchase manual grinders, we find they tend to be relatively inconsistent. This is mainly due to grinder design issues. Most manual grinders use conical burrs, which are characterized by speed but lack uniformity. Relatively uniform burrs are flat burrs, but flat burrs have another characteristic: they are slow. This means grinding the same amount of coffee takes 3-5 times longer, so manual grinders basically don't use flat burrs.

Using the Commander as an Example

Liz from Sunflower uses the Commander as an example to explain manual grinder settings.

The grinding burrs are the Commander's core selling point. They use conical burrs made of high-nitrogen stainless steel. Nitrogen is added to stainless steel (typically an iron-chromium-nickel alloy), significantly improving the hardness and corrosion resistance of the stainless steel. However, refining high-nitrogen stainless steel is also relatively difficult. This high-nitrogen burr is one of the Commander's winning features and one of the reasons it commands its price point.

The grind size adjustment relies on the engagement of three small ball bearings on the three-pronged knob with grooves on the conical burr. Each rotation is 12 degrees, supporting approximately 35 degrees maximum. Thanks to the gear pattern on the knob and the pattern on the conical burr, you can accurately know what setting you're on. This design is much better than Porlex - when using Porlex, obsessive-compulsive tendencies often drive people crazy because they can't remember how many degrees they've turned (even counting during adjustment isn't very convenient).

The Commander has now been upgraded to the third generation MK3. After reading some comparison reports written by foreign netizens, the MK3 has made some fine adjustments to the burrs and overall structure compared to the previous two generations. Relatively speaking, both stability and precision have been further improved.

Grind Size Testing

This is the official recommendation for grind settings. I conducted my own grind size test, measuring 12 settings from 3 to 36 degrees. Each setting used one coffee bean, with table salt, white sugar, a dime coin, and a one-yuan coin as reference objects.

Settings 3 to 9 don't show much difference at first glance, but careful observation of the small particles scattered around can roughly indicate the particle fineness.

Above setting 10, the particles gradually become distinct, slowly reaching the size of salt granules. You can see that the comparison between upper and lower settings (for example, settings 3 and 12) shows a very obvious difference.

Above setting 20, it gradually reaches the fineness of sugar granules. I usually adjust to around 25 degrees for pour-over coffee. With the naked eye and a magnifying glass, you can see that between 15 and 30 degrees, the particles are quite beautifully uniform, though without a higher-powered magnifying glass, it's impossible to see the situation with finer settings.

Now at home, I basically use this manual grinder instead of my original Small Flying Eagle electric grinder for pour-over coffee. I feel there are fewer fine powders, and I no longer need to do the sieving step. However, without high-precision powder sieves and scales, I can't make more precise comparisons.

Between 30 and 35 degrees is suitable for Kono pour-over, but above 30 degrees, you can clearly see the particle inconsistency, with some overly large and some extremely small particles. Above 36 degrees, it becomes less usable.

During the testing process, except for the finest few settings which were somewhat strenuous to grind, settings above 10 were all very easy to grind. For pour-over grind sizes, grinding 15g of coffee beans takes about 30 seconds.

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