What’s that? I asked.
I hadn’t heard of it – before project vvlgar I had zero experience with any home barista equipment, even the most basic tools of home espresso were pretty foreign to me. I’d always either worked in shops where I had access to commercial equipment, or I would just go to shops and pay for espresso. Making high quality coffee at home is my new sojourn.
It’s a hand grinder, Peter. It’s pretty much the best burr grinder under $100 that you’ll find.
Made sense to me, since the Hario Skerton grinder is a hand grinder it is a lot more cost effective. Great way to get a ceramic burr grinder for $50. Major steal, actually.
So I ordered it. As a serious coffee geek who is only now beginning the sojourn into home coffee barista madness, it’s easy to get really excited over really simple things. But the Hario Skerton hand-crank coffee mill, for being a really simple thing, truly is amazing.
The First Few Uses and Good Things to Know
I wasted a lot of Intelligentsia’s kick ass House Blend trying to get this little thing adjusted properly. It’s my fault for thinking I should start by brewing in a drip pot – but I really wanted to get a solid pot of Intelligentsia brewed the ‘old fashioned way’. Or is that the ‘newfangled way’? I suppose hand grinding and then using a press pot would have been more ‘old fashioned’.
It should go without saying that the first few times that you use this grinder you will inevitably waste some grounds. The project vvlgar philosophy on this is to buy ‘throw away beans’ whenever we are playing with a new coffee gadget – no matter what. We have wasted tons of good coffee on our Chemex, our Hario v60, our moka pot et al. So whenever venturing into uncharted territory – do so with Starbucks or another expendable bean.
Every time I ground for the drip pot I was grinding too course and making coffee that couldn’t pass as tea. It took us many attempts before we were able to get a suitable grind and coffee ratio to make drip coffee with the Skerton. But, of course, we managed to do it – so that you too can drink good drip coffee that you ground with your own hands. Check it out: Hario Skerton Meets Drip Pot: The Final Round.
Why would a home coffee barista mad hatter and his cat waste so much time getting a hand grinder adjusted for drip coffee?
Because a lot of people use drip pots – and while we highly recommend trying out other kick ass methods of brewing coffee, we understand. We were there once. We want to know if it can be done, and how, so that if you are drinking coffee via drip you can enjoy the Skerton’s mad grinding capabilities as well.
So grind it quite finely, probably around one and a half rotations away from closed. Be slightly generous in your coffee to water ratio – push whatever normal ratio you use a little beyond.
One and a half heaping tablespoons per cup of coffee is our most colloquial recommendation. Don’t try to brew more than six cups either, or you’ll end up with seriously goopy goop in the filter, and possibly residual goop in the pot.
Never a good thing.
Adjusting the Hand Grinder
It is important to take the time to get to know your adjustments on the Hario Skerton, especially since it doesn’t have any markings to help you set it up properly. Even though the screw mechanism will let you loosen the grind pretty far, it’s never a good idea.
When we are adjusting the mechanism for different grinds we always start by tightening the mechanism until it is completely shut (don’t push it in though, just spin it until it won’t move any more), and then we make rotations outward until it reaches where we want it. This seems tedious, but since there are no markings you need to have a system to make sure you are consistent.
And if you have a different method of finding the right position on your Hario Skerton do not hesitate to let us know in the comments.
On Nuclear Fallouts, Madness, and Hand Crank Coffee Mills
My Favorite Coffee Grinder...Works Great In Nuclear Fallout As Well
We love our Hario Skerton – it gets more play in the kitchen than knives and forks. Really. My biceps have grown four inches since the day I bought this little gadget, and I can grind something like 50 grams of whole bean coffee in it without spilling a single bean.
This is especially useful when trying to brew for the Chemex, because I like my Chemex coffee righteously strong, requiring 50 grams of coffee to produce 24 ounces. A generous ratio, I know, but the Chemex doesn’t make coffee bitter whatsoever so it turns out fabulously every time.
One of the best things about our Skerton is that it really does work wonderfully during a nuclear fallout, on the road whilst couch surfing or staying in a hotel, or in the back of your car on the side of a lonely highway at three in the morning when you want real coffee from a pour over instead of junk coffee from a gas station. Really.
Investing in a means of heating water without electricity can be priceless. Expect this guide to get updated and linked when we finally review water heating devices that work on the side of dead highways and during a nuclear fallout.
Because, as you probably know, we update our existing content relentlessly so that if we learn something new, so do you.
I just got the Skerton to use with a new Aeropress. It all seems to work very well, and I didn’t have to spend much time adjusting the grinder. I have just been turning the crank in the ‘fine’ direction and producing grounds that in turn yield tasty coffee when put through the Aeropress.
Milan, I’m curious how fine you grind it for your Aeropress. If you have any estimates for how many rotations away from the screw mechanism, I would love to hear it.
I haven’t used the Skerton on an Aeropress yet, which is partly why I’m so curious about it – but I plan on ordering one soon to add to our coffee lab.
Anyway, glad to hear you’re getting solid results.
Hi Peter. First of all, thanks for this fabulous blog! I spent the better part of the morning reading your reviews and love them. Here is my question (well, eventually). I am a “sometimes” coffee drinker…what I really want is espresso or really strong coffee to make iced mochas. After being disappointed with my espresso maker and sending my little Keurig to the office with my husband, I have just purchased a Bialetti 6 cup moka pot. Now, the question. Should I buy the Hario Skerton grinder or the Cuisinart burr grinder? I know you gave Cuisinart a pretty solid review, and I like the fact that it does the work for you and can store a decent amount…meaning I could get out of the house faster in the morning. I don’t like that it is made in China. The Hario Skerton is made in Japan, but I both love and hate the hand crank feature. (I am also fairly clumsy, and in the mornings there is a good chance it and the coffee beans could end up all over the floor.) What do you recommend?
Bronwen, welcome to project vvlgar, I’m glad to hear you like it. I had to pull my ‘get involved’ button off the sidebar temporarily, so I’ll link to it here, that way you can get on the newsletter etc. if you want to.
http://www.vvlgar.com/get-involved will get you there, hope you stay in touch.
Okay, on to your questions…
You got a Bialetti? Awesome. I’ve been using mine all weekend and can definitely attest to the Hario’s ability with it. It does a great job and, as you probably know, I’m a big fan of manual equipment – so I partly just enjoy knowing that I’m making very strong, well extracted coffee without electricity.
However – I’m also really clumsy first thing in the morning and I rarely use the Skerton then. So that’s a vote in the direction of the Cuisinart. Yeah, I like my Skerton, but it’s more of an afternoon/evening type of device because it takes a little more time and a bit of hand-eye coordination. When I’m brewing up coffee in the morning I typically opt for something simpler.
I think the Cuisinart is a great grinder for its price range and will do well in conjunction with the Bialetti, and if you don’t want to manually crank out a bunch of coffee in the morning it is the choice to make.
One other thing to consider though: the Bialetti requires fewer grounds than a Chemex or a v60, since it makes a more concentrated and smaller quantity of coffee, and so you wouldn’t be doing as much hand-cranking as you would for other methods.
Honestly, you’re in great shape either way. Two excellent grinders to choose from, you’ve already got one of the coolest brewing methods known to mankind, and you’ve found my blog so you can hit me up with any questions you have. Ha.
Let me know which one you end up deciding on.
Peter, after much agonizing and review-reading (especially after seeing your review of the DeLonghi burr grinder) I decided to go with the Hario Skerton grinder. Some of the reviews on sites selling the others discussed breakdown issues after pretty short time frames, and I am in Florida so we may have power outages during hurricane season. That plus the whole “Japan versus China” and “manual versus electric” won me over. And your reviews! Thanks!
Thanks for the thorough explanation. As usual when buying Hario, I’m excited by the product but always a bit frustrated when I open the box and find only Japanese instructions. A couple pictures of the adjustment process might help here, and a chart that shows number of rotations from closed for espresso, v60, siphon, chemex, etc. would be great. I know these would just be starting positions and it would need to be tweaked, but at least we’d have some idea of where to begin
Thanks for the excellent coffe blog.
Lee, those are great suggestions. I have often wondered how to communicate what kind of grind settings I use with my Skerton and I agree that no matter what it takes some practice to figure out what works. A full blown, non-Japanese, pictures included post on getting started with the Hario is a great idea – and something I will get the ball rolling on.
I’m not sure how I would go about creating a chart for the grind settings, but I agree, we need something here at project vvlgar that can be referred to for various brew methods. At the very least I could just publish an article with exactly how many rotations from closed I use and people can chime in with their opinions and we can (hopefully) come to some kind of consensus.
Thanks again for your input.