Timemore S3 Hand Grinder Review

I’ve had the Timemore S3 for a few months now and I thought it would be a good time to give a review for it. Maybe someone is looking for a hand grinder and this can help them out.

The S3 is an all-metal build (with the exception of a couple pieces of rubber to prevent damage from regular use), and you can really tell. It’s got a nice heft to it. Not so much that it’s uncomfortably heavy, but as soon as you pick it up it feels like quality. The texture where you hold it is a really nice touch, too.

On the inside are their proprietary S2C burrs, which stand for spike-to-cut. These have a really unique design, and will spike/puncture the beans before cutting them, leading to a more uniform grind. The fines production is relatively small for a conical burr at this price point. This gives it a really nice clarity of flavour, more than you’d expect for these types of burrs typically.

To use it, remove the lid/handle on the top and load the beans in. The adjustment dial is the top band just below the lid. This is a stepped grinder, ranging from 0.0 to 9.0. Note there is no way to properly zero the burrs unfortunately. Once you have everything set up, grind like any other hand grinder. It grinds quite nice, and feels great to use. The aforementioned textured body makes it easy to grip when grinding. The only thing to note while grinding is if you like to hold your grinders really high up the body, it’s possible to adjust your grind size mid-grind, but that’s pretty easy to avoid by just moving your hand down slightly.

The lid attaches to a standard hex key, so if you want you can connect a drill to it to make your life a bit easier. I’ve done it a couple times and it works quite well, but I’m cautious to go at full speed. I’m not sure if it would cause any issues but I don’t want to risk any damage.

To do a deep clean, there’s a piece on the bottom where the grinds come out that can be loosened, and then all the internals can come out pretty easily. It takes hardly any time to do. For daily maintenance, just take the included brush and brush any grinds you see on the bottom.

This grinder is technically rated for espresso, but I’ve found it to only just barely work for some beans, and not work at all for others. One bag I have now, even at a 0.0, just gushes out. So if you’re primarily doing espresso, maybe pass on this one. If you do use it for espresso though, even though it’s a hand grinder it still does generate some static at those fine grind settings, so either spray your beans (RDT) or give the grinder a few good bangs. Or both.

Overall I’m quite happy with this grinder for everything but espresso. I wish I could adjust the zero point, or at least have it designed to do espresso too, but it’s not the end of the world. I originally bought it for moka pot and V60, and it does those grind settings beautifully.

If you don’t do espresso (or exclusively like turbo shots and soup), and you’re looking for great quality at a low price, I’d highly recommend this grinder. If you need something capable of espresso though, I’d look at other options.