Recommended starting grind settings for 209 grinders across every brew method. Search your grinder to see its chart.
Electric grinder · 40mm conical burrs
Manual grinder · 39mm conical burrs
Manual grinder · 38mm conical burrs
Manual grinder · 48mm conical burrs
Manual grinder · 48mm conical burrs
Electric grinder · 64mm flat burrs · stepless
Every brew method targets a particle size. Open a method for its brew guide, or search your grinder above to see the exact setting to dial in.
Grind size is how coarse or fine your beans are ground, and it's the biggest lever you have over taste. Finer coffee gives water more surface area and extracts faster; coarser coffee extracts more slowly. We measure it in microns (µm) — a thousandth of a millimetre — so one scale works across every grinder and brew method.
The catch is that grinder dials are arbitrary. A “20” on a Baratza Encore is not a “20” on a Comandante or a Timemore, because burr shape, size and spacing all differ. That's why a setting you love on one grinder rarely transfers to another — and why this chart maps each grinder's own clicks to real micron ranges you can actually compare.
Use the ranges here as a starting point, then adjust to taste: if the cup is bitter or dry, grind coarser; if it's sour or weak, grind finer. Move one step at a time, and change only one variable per brew.
Nine bars of pressure through a compacted puck in 25–30 seconds needs a fine, slightly clumping grind — table salt heading toward powder. It's the tightest target on the chart, where a click or two swings a shot from sour to bitter. Under 20 seconds, go finer; choking past 35, go coarser.
A moka pot builds only 1–2 bars, so it wants a grind a step coarser than espresso — fine sand, gritty rather than powdery. Fill the basket level and never tamp; a compressed bed stalls the pot or scorches the brew. Pull it off the heat as soon as the flow turns pale.
The V60's open cone drains fast, so grind size is what really controls contact time. Medium-fine — about the texture of granulated sugar — usually lands a brew near 2:30–3:00. Draining in under two minutes and tasting thin? Go finer. Water pooling on top and tasting drying? Go coarser.
Chemex's thick bonded filter traps oils and fines and slows the flow, so the grind goes coarser than V60 — closer to coarse sea salt. Too fine and the paper clogs into a stalled, bitter bed. Aim for roughly 4–5 minutes on a full carafe.
The most forgiving method here, which is why its range is so wide. Fine with a one-minute steep gives something espresso-adjacent; coarser with a longer steep behaves like a clean immersion brew. If the plunger fights back, coarsen a step — pushing harder adds bitterness, not extraction.
Four minutes of full immersion behind a metal mesh means anything small enough to slip through ends up in your cup. Keep it coarse — rough sea salt. Too fine gives you bitterness and silt at once. Press slowly and decant immediately; coffee left on the bed keeps extracting.
Twelve to twenty-four hours of cold water needs the coarsest grind on the chart — chunky, closer to breadcrumbs than sand. Fine grounds over that long turn harsh and muddy, and make filtering miserable. If it tastes thin, steep longer or add coffee before reaching for a finer setting.
A drip machine's flow rate is fixed, so grind is your main lever. Medium suits most baskets: coarse enough not to overflow, fine enough to extract within a 4–6 minute cycle. Flat-bottom baskets want a touch coarser than cones. Weak and fast? Finer. Bitter or overflowing? Coarser.
The finest grind in coffee — flour, not sand. The grounds are never filtered out; they stay suspended in the cezve and settle in the cup, so they have to extract almost instantly. Most burr grinders can't reach this at all, which is why dedicated Turkish mills exist.
Full immersion near boiling, then a vacuum pulls the brew down through the filter. Medium — a touch coarser than V60 — keeps that drawdown moving; too fine and it stalls, holding coffee on the heat until it turns bitter. Cloth filters tolerate finer, metal wants coarser.
Grind size is how coarse or fine your coffee is ground, from powdery (Turkish) to chunky (cold brew). It sets how fast water extracts flavour — finer grinds extract faster, coarser grinds slower — so it's the main dial for balancing a brew.
Every grinder's scale is arbitrary — “15” on one model isn't “15” on another, because burr shape, size and spacing all differ. The only thing that transfers is the actual particle size in microns, which is why this chart maps each grinder's clicks to real micron ranges.
Espresso needs a fine grind, roughly 200–400 microns. Start fine and adjust by taste and shot time: if it pours too fast and tastes sour, go finer; if it's slow and bitter, go coarser.
A medium grind, around 400–700 microns — close to table salt. If the brew drains too quickly and tastes thin, go a little finer; if it stalls and turns bitter, go coarser.
A micron (µm) is a thousandth of a millimetre. Ground coffee runs from about 200 µm for espresso to 1400 µm for cold brew. Microns are grinder-independent, so they're the fairest way to compare settings across machines.
Bitter or dry usually means over-extraction — grind coarser. Sour or weak usually means under-extraction — grind finer. Change one step at a time so you can taste the effect of each adjustment.
No — treat them as starting points. Beans, roast level, freshness and your own taste all shift the ideal setting, so dial in from the recommended range rather than expecting one number to be perfect.
Static grind size charts for all 209 grinders in our catalogue, grouped by brand.
Every grinder's number scale is arbitrary, so a setting on one model won't match the same number on another. Treat these as dial-in starting points: grind finer if the cup tastes sour or weak, coarser if it tastes bitter or dry.