hi Everybody,

I've noticed a weird behavior with the Baratza Vario grinder. I've been using it with 2A setting and decided to grind a little bit finer. So I changed the setting to 1W. I thought that it would be the next fine settings. But i was wrong. The resulting ground settings was much coarser. The extraction was very quick and watery.

It is expected behavior or something is wrong with the grinder?

Thanks,
Ruben

That's kind of a mystery. Did you move both levers up and down the full range with the motor running before you changed the setting?

That is expected behavior of the Baratza Vario. The full range of micro adjustments is wider than one step of Macro, so 2A comes out finer than 1W.

See: Baratza Vario tighter in 3A than 2W

The Vario and Forte have overlapping settings. So not every setting is distinct. Going from the top of a macro range to the lower end of the next range will result in what you experienced.

Yup, Pat is correct; expected. Please RTFM.

Actually, the manual says that the full range of micro clicks equals one macro click:

http://www.baratza.com/wp-content/uploa ... llSize.pdf

This is the "expected" behavior, logically. What we actually get, though, is function as you describe it. Frustrating. Further, I could swear that the range between the two is not linear with macro position. At larger macro settings, it seems closer to all-micro = 1 macro, but at lower macro settings, the micro range seems to expand. Could be my imagination, but there you go.

homeburrero wrote:That is expected behavior of the Baratza Vario. The full range of micro adjustments is wider than one step of Macro, so 2A comes out finer than 1W.

See: Baratza Vario tighter in 3A than 2W

canuckcoffeeguy wrote:The Vario and Forte have overlapping settings. So not every setting is distinct. Going from the top of a macro range to the lower end of the next range will result in what you experienced.

borisblank wrote:Actually, the manual says that the full range of micro clicks equals one macro click:

http://www.baratza.com/wp-content/uploa ... llSize.pdf

This is the "expected" behavior, logically. What we actually get, though, is function as you describe it. Frustrating. Further, I could swear that the range between the two is not linear with macro position. At larger macro settings, it seems closer to all-micro = 1 macro, but at lower macro settings, the micro range seems to expand. Could be my imagination, but there you go.

Thanks folks, that helped a lot.

I have a follow up question. My burrs are touching at around 1C. How important is it to calibrate the grinder so that burrs will touch on 2Q? Anyways the grinding should happen on coarser setting, is that correct? I guess unless grinding for turkish coffee.

NightFlight wrote:Yup, Pat is correct; expected. Please RTFM.

Can you reference the exact sentence from the manual that describes this behavior? Here is the link to the manual in case you would need it: http://www.baratza.com/wp-content/uploa ... llSize.pdf

Not sure why Joe (NightFlight) said that. Maybe he intended to say please don't RTFM, because the operator manuals for Vario and Forte grinders don't tell you about the overlap, and instead say that the full micro scale is "equal to" one click of the macro scale, which is not exactly true.

Rubenhak wrote:My burrs are touching at around 1C. How important is it to calibrate the grinder so that burrs will touch on 2Q? Anyways the grinding should happen on coarser setting, is that correct?

I don't think the exact point is all that critical. If you never need to go finer than your finest settings I don't see any reason to calibrate tighter. I used to adjust my calibration a little if my current beans were needing a setting near the end of the micro range so that I had room to tweak finer and coarser without changing the macro lever. I think that 'beginning to touch at 2Q' is the factory setting, which I suspect they settled on as something that will do Turkish at the 1-2 macro settings and French press at the coarsest.

homeburrero wrote:I don't think the exact point is all that critical. If you never need to go finer than your finest settings I don't see any reason to calibrate tighter. I used to adjust my calibration a little if my current beans were needing a setting near the end of the micro range so that I had room to tweak finer and coarser without changing the macro lever. I think that 'beginning to touch at 2Q' is the factory setting, which I suspect they settled on as something that will do Turkish at the 1-2 macro settings and French press at the coarsest.

That makes sense. I will leave it as is for now.