Making the Timemore Chestnut C3 Pro Stepless without Mods

Making the Timemore Chestnut C3 Pro Stepless without Mods

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10 Minutes With Helena Oliviero: Part One

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Making the Timemore Chestnut C3 Pro Stepless without Mods

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Making the Timemore Chestnut C3 Pro Stepless without Mods

Know Your Sweeteners: Agave: Part Two—Environmental Concerns

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Understanding the Process: Carbonic Maceration

Continuing our series on coffee processing, we learn about carbonic maceration—a unique, newer processing method. BY TANYA NANETTISENIOR ONLINE CORRESPONDENT Photos courtesy of Cafe Imports Editor’s note: Check out more entries in our “Understanding the Process“ series here. The rise of the specialty-coffee scene has helped many people understand that talking about coffee as something […]


Florencia y Fortunata: A Café Empowering Women in Peru

The Cusco café, founded by Carolina Peralta Minaya, sells coffee from women producers and features women demonstrating their skills behind the bar. BY JORDAN BUCHANANBARISTA MAGAZINE ONLINE Photos courtesy of Carolina Peralta Minaya Traceability, sustainability, and conscientiousness are key values pervading the specialty-coffee trade. For many consumers and traders, these values inform their decision to […]

Making the Timemore Chestnut C3 Pro Stepless without Mods

Making the Timemore Chestnut C3 Pro Stepless without Mods

minimum dose size?

Jan 31, 2024 |

I use the Hario switch to brew my coffee and am trying to reduce my caffeine consumption. Hence I would like to brew smaller cups of coffee. I am currently using 10g of coffee with 160g of water. (1:16 Ratio) I am wondering if there is a minimum amount of coffee...

Making the Timemore Chestnut C3 Pro Stepless without Mods

A couple of weeks ago I got the Timemore Chestnut C3 Pro, which has been my first real enthusiast grinder (I had a Hario ceramic burr grinder before, which was kind of a PITA). I've been playing around a lot with different grind settings and really dialing in some great V60 as well as Switch recipes. The grinder steps (of which there are 20~ really usable ones) are generally quite good and I don't feel like stepless adjustments are really necessary for anything other than (probably) espresso. That being said, the design of the grinder got me thinking that there's no reason you couldn't make it "stepless". After an afternoon's worth of experimentation, I figured out that you indeed can use it as a stepless grinder pretty reliably without any modifications and the results you get are just as good as when you use the steps. Because of the solid tension in the spring it will hold its setting even when it isn't in a groove.

For anyone who wants to get a really high quality hand grinder with fine adjustment capabilities, I'd argue that this grinder is pretty tough to beat at around 100€.

TLDR: To get a "half step" (or really any step in between two grooves), you go two steps above your desired grind size. For example, if you want to hit 7.5 (which is in between the recommended 7-8 clicks for espresso), you would actually set it to 9.5.

The test results:

Stepless Espresso grinds mixed with stepped ones, sorted by my estimate of smallest to biggest grind

Video of the same grinds, espresso-ish sizes only

Video showing some more dramatic differences

Based on my estimate that stepless settings need to be +2 to be equivalent to stepped, I compared 15.75 to 14. They seem pretty close, with 15.75 being ever so slightly smaller.

Why it works that way:

It's pretty simple, really. From top to bottom of the shaft, the grinder works as follows:

  1. lid / handle
  2. main part of the shaft
  3. washer
  4. spring
  5. burr
  6. another washer that is designed to align the burr and make sure it doesn't move
  7. the nut which also serves as the grind step adjuster

If you ignore the grind steps, there's absolutely no reason the nut shouldn't be stepless. It's no different than any other nut/bolt combo. That being said, due to the fact that the locking into a grind step results in a slight depression (=coarser), any stepless adjustment in between two steps is going to push the two burrs together ever so slightly which makes a great deal of difference for the end result. Video demonstration. That's why you have to compensate a little bit to really catch those in-between settings.

Disclaimers:

  • I would not recommend doing any in-between steps lower than 8. At that point you're getting dangerously close to having the burrs come into contact with each other which is probably bad. It's a free world though, so if you want that cronchy sound and the blissful feeling of destroying your valuable possessions then go for it I guess.

  • Adding on to that last point, before grinding at any half steps I would recommend testing the setting without any beans and listening for any signs of contact. You shouldn't hear anything.

  • From grind to grind, the stepless adjustments held in place supremely well. As far as I could tell it never once shifted on its own. If you were to set it and forget it though it might slip over time. This isn't really limited to quarter step increments either, I was able to cover basically the entire spectrum and even get very close to a step before it would lock in place. But showing 10.2, 10.3, 10.4, 10.5, etc. doesn't make for much excitement.

  • I have only tested this for the C3 Pro and I can't say whether this works on other Timemore grinders. The burrs on my grinder are very well lined up and have basically no wobble/give which makes this possible. YMMV.

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Making the Timemore Chestnut C3 Pro Stepless without Mods

Perfect Little Beans

Chinmey Hill Coffee uses specialty-grade beans with zero primary defects (such as black beans or sour beans) and less than five secondary defects (such as broken beans). This is important because primary defects will greatly affect the taste of the coffee. Having zero defects allows the coffee to be the most optimal flavor.

Window for Optimal Flavor

Chimney Hill Coffee ships our coffee the same day it was roasted, so you will receive it before it enters the window of optimal flavor.  This means you’ll never miss the opportunity to enjoy the coffee’s peak flavor.

Coffee Ratings

Coffee undergoes many scoring processes by professionals who achieved their Q Grader certification. Coffee is first graded when it’s green. If there are defects the coffee is determined to be “not-specialty grade”. For those coffees that pass green grading, they are sample roasted and cupped. (Cupping is the official term for critically tasting and scoring coffees. The official cupping form is standard worldwide, and where the 100-point scoring system comes from.) A coffee’s dry fragrance, wet aroma, flavor, aftertaste, body, acidity, balance, and overall impression are taken into consideration while uniformity issues and defects, will lower the overall score.

Specialty Coffee

Specialty coffee, coined by Erna Knutsen in 1974, refers to a coffee that receives a quality grading score of 80 percent or higher. While “premium” or “gourmet” seem like they’re synonymous with “specialty,” they simply are marketing terms with no defined standards. Specialty coffees are grown in specific and ideal micro-climates, and have distinctive and unique flavor profiles, with little to no defects.

Third-Wave Coffee

We’re currently in the third wave of coffee. The first wave of American coffee put pre-ground, vacuum-sealed cans in kitchens across America. The second wave started with the late ‘60s introduction of Peet’s coffee (by Alfred Peet) through the proliferation of Starbucks. The third wave of coffee focuses on origin transparency, nuanced flavors, and artisan roasting. The term “third wave” is synonymous with specialty coffee.

Making the Timemore Chestnut C3 Pro Stepless without Mods

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