I travel a decent amount (or, rather, I did), so there are probably 100+ days/year that it’s not running at all up to march 2019.
TEACH US HOW TO TEA
I checked the analytics and you aren’t even close based on poundage. I’m not familiar with that grinder’s construction but could something minor be off? Mine “broke” right before pandemic when I got a bag of under-roasted rocks from a noob taking his first shot at city. This hotrodded Encore literally could not grind those beans. Nothing seemed off at first except the coffee being bland, but then the motor started to fail; I inspected every part for damage and realized one of the plastic flanges on the burr carrier had snapped which is a failsafe mechanism.
yeah I don’t have a lot of experience with burrs to compare them but they feel pretty sharp (both inner and outer).
It’s definitely possible something is off, I take the burrs out and brush them off and blow grinds out pretty good every once in a while and it’s more than possible that I’ve fucked something up in that process.
I have to imagine that feeling or eyeing them for sharpness is basically impossible. You could maybe inspect for damage like chips or nicks in the steel, specifically in the area where the particles exit into the grind chamber. But I would suspect something simpler like a failsafe plastic piece to be broken if there’s actually a problem.
I’m watching a teardown of that grinder. It seems to be well built and works similarly to the Baratza stuff. The grind adjustment mechanism is interesting: plastic gear drive. The problem this guy discovers is that the motor is burned and Breville doesn’t do replacement parts. That’s the thing that makes me nervous about them buying Baratza whose mantra is DIY replacement.
Surprised he didn’t pull the motor and try to identify it though. It’s almost certainly going to be marked and could potentially be traced to the supplier.
It’s hard to say. I also only drink French Press. But the grind is nice and consistent.
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This should be on the list of recommended grinders, assuming we have one. People swear by it as an alternative to the Comandante and it’s much cheaper.
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TIL that Turkish coffee is traditionally brewed in sand
Good stuff too
so… grinder talk again
Is there anything worth considering in the <$1k segment other than the vario and the ode? The niche zero is less than $1k but seems to be impossible to actually get? The vario is the only thing in this range that is easily (realizing that this is a relative term) alignable by the user? Not sure I see much positive about the ode other than it’s cheap (motor is reportedly underpowered and there are a lot of bad reviews though I guess that’s from the very first batch of units?)
- how often are people cleaning out their grinders? I usually pull the burrs out and brush them off and blow as much out as possible when I change bags but I’ve never really opened up my grinder to really get EVERYTHING out. The breville makes it very easy to get the outer burr out and relatively easy to get the inner burr, but it’s not really clear what the actual path from burrs to chute looks like.
The breville usually retains about 2 grams of grinds the first time I grind after cleaning it out, and after that it’s very, very rarely more than a 0.1g difference between beans in and grinds out. what I don’t understand, though is whether that 1.9 g that is “stuck” in the grinder is just the first 1.9g that went through that gets stuck in the nooks and crannies and then all the grinds after that just flow over them or if there’s 1.9 g in there that gets pushed out at the beginning of the next grind and 1.9 new grinds that get left behind each time, or (seems most likely) some combination of the two.
Forte BG is a Vario with better build quality. All metal parts, touchscreen, and I think it has the weighing feature as well. It’s $999 retail but refurb for $735 from them. People on HB said the Niche wasn’t as good as aligned Vario for brew. That monstrous OE Apex hand grinder is $495 but apparently produces grinds on par with the best brew grinders. Another option is a DIY Bunnzilla which sounds like a giant pain in the ass. Comandante should probably get a mention as the best hand grinder that doesn’t require being bolted to a table, but it’s harder to recommend now with the price increase.
oh yeah I should have mentioned aint no way I’m hand grinding, I only have so many years left on this miserable hell planet
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yeah I might as well go for the forte bg. as a bonus it looks similar enough to the breville that my wife might not notice (lol yeah right)
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I heard a great story about this guy who walked into a savile row tailor to pick up a batch of new bespoke shirts and then immediately crumpled them up and shoved them into a laundry bag so his wife would think they were old shirts.
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Forte BG should be an end game home grinder. If you can’t make elite coffee with it then you’ll know the grinder isn’t the problem. If you get the refurb you’ll be paying roughly double the amount that a (used) Vario w/ upgrades will cost, but it’s not an apples:apples comparison due to build quality. Whether that’s worth it to you is obviously only something you can determine, but I think the value is still there at twice the price. It might be capable of producing slightly better grinds than a modded Vario but I’ve seen no actual evidence confirming that.
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If you order the refurb, you might consider asking if they’ll swap the the normal hopper for the single dose hopper, and if they say no then consider buying it outright so you don’t pay shipping twice. The normal hopper is huge and will be annoying on your 15g dose.
I’ll also point out the differences in build quality won’t be completely obvious from just reading online. Having completely disassembled the Vario, one specific area where I think the Forte is clearly better is on the grind adjustment lever arms. In the Vario they are plastic and don’t really click and hold into place too firmly. There is a shim mod (10c part from Baratza) that fixes this, but even then the metal of the Forte is clearly better, especially the slider knob you actually touch which is delicate plastic on the Vario. I already snapped the prongs on one removing it during disassembly. I’ve read that they designed the Forte because cafes figured out that the Vario is amazing for brew but were running them ragged.
well, I know it’s not much to the true coffee aficionados but I’m getting an AeroPress delivered tomorrow.
I was hoping you were going to say you have unrestricted access to a mass spectrometer. Aeropress is quite popular here and there are enough brew variations with it to keep you busy for a long time.
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If I don’t agitate during the bloom I get these big divots in the bed
I assume this is like some sort of channeling that leaves an air bubble? Or maybe it’s just from degassing and is totally normal? In any case I think it’s fine, it doesn’t appear in the bed at the end of the last pour (I’m just swirling gently after each pour, no agitation at all)
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