1. Not already. You'd have to 'make' something.
2. Not really.
3. You can look at getting a grinder with a mechanical time grind function, or a mechanical On button; and then remotely activate it with a smart plug or timed plug. Something like the Baratza Virtuoso has a timer knob on the side, you could set that, leave the room, and activate the smart plug from your phone.
Grinders very rarely have a mechanical "on" button that would remain on indefinitely - base safety feature to prevent burning out the motor or fire risk due to overheating if you left it running and walked away. You're either finding that in a weird-brand grinder that doesn't care about your fire insurance, or in a grinder that's not supposed to work that way but has been damaged somehow - I have a Virtuoso that is stuck 'on' because the timer knob jammed, and I need to plug and unplug it when I'm using it.
I would only add that if you have the extra cash, The Baratza Virtuoso is also excellent. It has a couple quality of life features like a little light inside and an extended number of settings. But likewise, I dial it in when loading the coffee and don't touch it again unless I'm changing coffee brews. Just tap the button once every morning. And that little light btw, while seeming like an afterthought, is CLUTCH. It's so useful.
The M40 doesn't have external grind adjustment- no way I would ever get it. Copying an outdated grinder like the commandante is a weird business model.
I have used a K6 every day for the past 2.5 years. I also have a baratza Virtuoso+ that I've basically not touched since I got the K6.
Because it's absolute crap. It might break apart beans, but the "burrs" in it bash the beans apart and don't cut them. I owned this same grinder at one point a LONG time ago, and I can tell you it does an absolute miserable job of grinding coffee.
No one wants to believe how much of a difference the grinder makes, but it really makes a frigging huge difference in the quality of coffee. I switched from using a Baratza Virtuoso+ ($250) to a much cheaper handgrinder - the Kingrinder K6 ($100), because the burrs in the K6 are a LOT better.
I’ve owned a Baratza Virtuoso (barely adequate, if that), a Turin DF 64 V. 1, a Niche Zero, and the Eureka Mignon Zero. The Turin was more clarity/fruity forward, though not by much, but I sold that for a Niche Zero. I owned them both for a little while and decided to keep the Niche. The Niche was fine—super user friendly, and easy to clean—but for not-particularly-rational reasons I was drawn to the Eureka (for esthetics mainly), so I sold the Niche. The Niche and the Eureka are both quiet, and great for my preference of dark beans and classic Italian espresso—- really, between the two you can't go wrong. But unless you can find a used Niche there's a big price difference.
As I reread my post I sound like a person always after the next thing, but I did eventually stop questing something different!
I owned the Encore and the Virtuoso for many years and thought they were fines monsters with light roasts. Replacing them was when I stopped clogging filters on a semi-regular basis. I sometimes recommend them for people doing medium-to-dark. From a build quality standpoint I think they're fantastic and didn't hesitate to give them to friends who like darker coffees.
You're welcome. I think there are a lot of great alternative suggestions in other comments, but I do want to throw in my two cents in about one issue, which is the possibility of upgrading your current Virtuoso to the M2 burrs. I used the Virtuoso+ with M2s for many years (maybe 5?) as my primary grinder, and the original Encore before that – more than a decade combined between the two grinders. I did not find the M2 burrs to be a significant upgrade. I think both the original Encore burrs and the M2s are good for batch brew, and pretty bad for pourover at any roast level. I was always fighting between grinding coarser than I wanted, or grinding as fine as I wanted but dealing with the possibility of clogged filters/inconsistent brews. I brew medium to medium-dark for my wife's pourover every morning, and both of us think her coffee got better when I started using the Ode.
Anomander
