As per the forum guidelines, I have created a thread about the retention that owners are seeing in their Baratza Sette 270s. Currently, the discussion is going on the Baratza Sette - End User Reports mega thread, but it will soon be buried and I'm sure this topic will come up again so I'm making this thread to make it easier for others to find.

The Sette has a unique design where the inner cone burr is fixed and the outer ring burr rotates. This means that Baratza has been able to design a straight through setup where the discharge chutes it directly under the burr.



Here is a top-down photo of the cone burr, burr holder and discharge. You can see the slots in the discharge chute, from here the grinds fall directly into a portafilter (or container). It looks like the grinds would fall straight through and have almost zero retention. But what many are finding is that these slots are being blocked. So after doing some grinding the chute actually looks like this:



As you can see there is a fair amount of retained grinds there, measured it ranges from 0.7g to 1.8g.

I have spoken to Baratza about this, they say its normal, in their tests they see around .5g retention for coarse grinding and 1-1.5g retention for espresso. What is interesting though is they say they deliberately made the discharge slots small to improve the grind quality. Because of its design with the outer ring burr rotating this grinder works a bit like a pump, it sucks the beans into the grinder and forces them out the discharge chute. This is why it grinds so fast as they do not rely on a gravity feed like the majority of other grinders. They found by having the smaller slots on the discharge chute the grounds compress and are then forced through the slots before falling into the portafilter. This compression and rapid decompression reduce static and create a fluffier grind in the basket. Think of it like a watering hose, when you put your finger over the end the water sprays, the same thing is happening with the grinds. The downside is that when the grinder stops there is nothing forcing the remaining grinds through the holes and they sit in this chamber.

But the good news is that there is a simple solution to remove the stale grinds. Just do a ½ second purge, or set one of the presets to 1.5-2g and run it before doing the proper dose. This purge will force out the stale grinds and replace them with fresh and your actual does will be all fresh grinds.

great post mate, i've had mine for a couple of weeks and noticed the same thing, i take out 20.2g
and put it straight into the hopper, first time i got every thing out then kept getting 20g i guess the
extra .2g was getting stuck and every 7-10 shots i got a whole gram less, so i put abit more coffee in
and i got a extra 2 grams out ahaha, still a fantastic grinder though.

Good post! I experience the same issue and after lots of testing I have an average of about 1.5 grams retention. I created a preset that doses 1.5 grams that I run before my main dose.

bachampion wrote: ... But the good news is that there is a simple solution to remove the stale grinds. Just do a ½ second purge, or set one of the presets to 1.5-2g and run it before doing the proper dose.

Or alternatively make your spouse's cappuccino first

cmin wrote:First dose after setting up at 5E, 18g in, measured 17.6 out, not sure how some of you are using multiple grams in retention on a shot? I didn't RDT if that matters. That was also at a ridiculously fine setting where many were saying the grinds I guess compact more and retain more? Completely choked my machine not even a hint of any coffee coming through my basket. Redialed back, and been pulling shots all day, 18g, and measuring out about 18g each time, sometimes 17.8 etc but I would press stop and some grinds would come out as burrs slowed and then start again and rest seemed to come out, re-weigh... 18g out.

I suggest you drop the cone burr and have a look at the chute and let us know what you find there. You may just be lucky and not have any retention.

cmin wrote: 2nd issue though I could as it said I have to wait 4 hours lol... my portafilter forks, I can't fit my PF in, I moved the rubber around and no go, the spout holder thing is wonky too and just moves around. I've seen vids where people easily slid theirs in and pulled out no prob, wtf lol.... attached pics of what mine does <image>


guess not a big deal as I just swung the arms open and moved the basket holder thing out of the way since the grinder makes no mess and goes right in the basket.

Try twisting the fork pads 90* so the wide sides face up.

I've used mine on a wide variety of portafilters with pretty easy in/out.
My adjustment flow is:
loosen top retaining arm hex screw,
adjust rubber portafilter arm covers (more later support or more height or neither),
push down top retaining arm onto portafilter to where it's firm but I can still move it in and out,
tighten hex screw.

I'm not trying to insult your intelligence; I'm just hoping there is something in there that helps you.