Probably not going to be worth it but I still really want one.
Yeah itās way overpriced on coffee alone and only up to 4 bags guaranteed.
No real difference with the steel burrs so far though I might do the hyper align this weekend and run a bunch of lesser beans through to break them in better.
What HAS made a big difference though is the filters. I bought a bunch of sibarist fast papers and it makes a world of difference. My fines donāt clog things anymore. I knew the new hario filters werenāt s good as the originals but the difference is huge. These new ones suck.
Did you season the burrs?
Clarification- the new hario filters with tabs suck. Highly recommend avoiding them because they clog so easy.
No I havenāt done seasoning/break-in. Iāve probably only run something like 200g or coffee through so far. I have almost a pound of beans I didnāt care for that Iāll run through there soon. Probably after the hyper alignment though.
New burrs are fine. I only measured with the first dose I ran through but ratio of fines was only a little lower than with the ceramic burrs
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So Iām determined to pull the trigger on a new grinder. The Vario+ seems to check all my boxes. Of course, āsupply chainā issues mean that itās probably going to take a year to get one.
The regular Vario+ has ceramic burrs and includes a portafilter holder, while the Vario W+ has steel burrs and weighs the grinds as they shoot out (you set your desired dose and it cuts off at that weight). Neither of those features are particularly important to me, since I donāt make espresso and I donāt just leave beans in the hopper (I weigh out the beans then grind it all).
Price seems roughly the same thought hard to tell what actual street prices will be when theyāre actually available since some retailers are only offering pre-order on one or the other.
Iām leaning towards getting the W+ since ā¦ Iād prefer steel burrs?
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Yeah you want the W+ even though the weighing feature isnāt really useful for single dosing. If you buy the ceramic model then steel burrs cost $60 extra (might have to buy the grinds bin too to replace the portafilter holder, not sure). Do you have any idea if Fellow ever fixed the Ode? Might be better value if so although Iām partial to just paying up for known quality.
Anecdote: So I have several hundred of each type and have been comparing them recently, and I have to say that clogging hasnāt been an issue for me at all with the tabbed on the Vario. They used to give me fits on the modded Encore but this is the first time Iāve used them since getting the Vario, and I suspect it may be due to the alignment and minimizing the fines. However, I havenāt ruled out the possibility of my technique being very low agitation.
PS: I laughed when the Prima coffee guys were like āoh they arenāt that much slower, just a few seconds on average.ā Yeah cool story youāre using an aligned EK43.
Which Kruve set did you get? The standard one with 300 / 500 / 800 /1100 / 1400? I might pick one up so we can compare. That sizing doesnāt really make sense to me (1400?) but itās still more cost effective than real test sieves.
I got the standard one. I figure if I ever need to in between sizes I can shell out for em later
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Sounds like I need to do the hyper align and seasoning this weekend and see how it goes after
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Which method are you gonna use? I can post details if you need them.
Going to go with the foil shims. Shimming between the bottom burr and its housing
You wanna shim the upper burr (the removable piece). I ended up making a sheet to record the orientation of the burr carrier into the machine in addition to the orientation of the burr into the carrier. Had to make a small mark to keep track of these and it was somewhat tedious, but I managed to align it with a single piece of foil in one location. Iāll see if I can find the sheet.
Hereās the original thread on the Alicorn method. Thereās some talk of shimming i n there IIRC but canāt remember exactly what they came up with.
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Why prefer the top burr? That certainly would be easier though.
Didnāt end up doing it this weekend but I may try to do it today or tomorrow
The theory behind why this procedure works for this grinder is that the bottom burr carrier (the rotating one) has world class runout tolerance. An engineer on HB put several of these on a dial gauge and measured single digit runouts, meaning that it spins close to perfectly true to its axis of rotation (no wobble). So if the bottom burr is spinning as close to perfect as we could reasonably expect for something at this price point, all we really need to do from there is make sure that the face of both burrs are parallel. The easiest method to achieve that by far is shimming the removable top burr.
My recommendation would be to try it with the top burr and see if you can get a clean wipe pattern. If you can, then grind some beans and check your grind distribution with the Kruve to see if anything improved. Might take you less than an hour and one little piece of foil to get a huge improvement. If not, then you can try the more advanced techniques.
If youāre actually gonna go through the trouble of opening your grinder, Iād recommend going for the Alicorn method described in that thread as it may be a bit more robust than shimming. Iām not sure what this new C-clamp method is theyāre talking about so you may have to investigate.
Start here and read my next several posts up until I get a clean wipe:
This is good reading as well:
I think their advice for testing the wipe patterns in every position is good because you want to use as few pieces of foil possible to reduce the possibility of warping your burrs. I tried all of the different combos and finally got it to wipe clean using a single piece of foil in one spot.
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been trying this v60 method:
this has done a pretty good job. Iām still using the old conical burr grinder with obvious alignment issues, and this method has reduced the high and dry coarse pieces, reduced the visible āmudā on the top of the bed (i.e. super fines - they all end up on the side of the filter) and the resulting cups have had a noticeable increase in sharpness/clarity - not earth-shattering, but noticeable.
I recently purchased a $30 1liter french press, a 6 setting kettle with a 200degree french press setting, and still have a cheap $20 blade grinder. Found a method in my youtube recomendations somehow where you pour the water over medium ground coffee in the glass, let it sit 4 minutes uncovered, fish out the grounds that are sitting on top, let the coffee sit an additional 5 minutes so all the sediment sticks to the bottom of the french press container, then plunge down only to the level of the liquid, then pour.
After 20 atttempts following the original instructions of coarse grind, 4 minutes after pouring the water plunge down all the way and pourā¦my first attempt with this new method produced a clean solid cup that i prefer over the standard method
hereās the vid.
Does anyone have any recommendations for someone who wants to branch out a little bit and purchase some more specialty coffee or perhaps upgrade the setup for a few hundred dollars?