Baratza Vario Grinder - First Look - Page 2

by **TUS172** on Sat Jan 24, 2009 1:21 pm

another_jim wrote:Am I the only one thinking this? The burrs look surprisingly low grade. If it produces a high quality grind, the conventional wisdom on burr design, that is, a long grinding path is better than a short one, needs to be rethought.

Excellent eye and Great observation...
I have taken on faith that if these burrs were specifically design and built by Mahlkönig for this unit... they must be quality and well tested... I hope that my faith pays off... It sometimes does.
I have already commited to buy one of these units and now I am more than interested than ever to see what outcomes and judgments are made on this thread. I have read the CG thread on it but am always interested to see 2nd, 3rd or 4th opinions...
I am hopeful... hopeful.

by **another_jim** on Sat Jan 24, 2009 2:30 pm

RapidCoffee wrote:This grinder has generated an astonishing amount of buzz for a 54mm flat burr grinder. But I'm doing my best to withhold judgment until the preliminary reviews are complete.

I'm not surprised.

Expensive consumer products are often the cheapest gimcrack tarted up with a stainless steel case, a microprocessor, and a name with "professional" in it. Baratza never has had this contemptuous attitude and has always designed honest products. Unfortunately, their grinders, while excellent for brewed coffee, were never targeted to work well with high end commercial espresso machines. Mahlkoenig has been top of the line for commercial brewing grinders.

Now both have teamed up; and for a high end consumer espresso grinder, they may be the dream team. That deserves a lot of buzz.

by **ddr** on Sat Jan 24, 2009 4:03 pm

I googled around to find pictures of the K30 burrs and I think these are the original:

( from Too Much Coffee http://www.toomuchcoffee.com/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=5410 )

And these are the newer ones:

( from Coffeed http://forum.coffeed.com/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=582 )

There are also Ditting burrs, which may be the same as the "new" ones. If I find them I will update.

by **shadowfax** on Sat Jan 24, 2009 7:05 pm

Thanks, Dan. I saw those pictures, but they weren't exactly what I remembered. That's my own mistake--what I actually had in mind was another ceramic burr set, the La Marzocco Swift's:

The initial bean breaking surfaces on the Swift are rather sparse as well.

Perhaps it's more difficult to make the same fine cuts/molds into ceramic? Or perhaps it's just been experimentally determined to work better with this format? In any case, we'll be examining that for ourselves as best we can.

by **Endo** on Sat Jan 24, 2009 9:26 pm

Just a theory:

I suspect it has to do with the ceramic material. Ceramics have low fracture strength if notched. The "breaking surface" teeth must need to be shorter (less peaked) to avoid chipping.

by **networkcrasher** on Sun Jan 25, 2009 1:03 am

these are the new burrs from my K30. I took this picture awhile ago. The burrs say 'K30" on them and they are each different - one has the German word for "stationary" on it, while the other has German for "moving" on it.

by **TUS172** on Sun Jan 25, 2009 1:17 pm

Yesterday on the live video feed from the WRBC I saw the K30 in action... WOW! :mrgreen:

by **mhoy** on Sun Jan 25, 2009 2:26 pm

Monday seems like a year away (well it is in the Chinese calender).

I'm really hoping this grinder works as well as other espresso grinders in the same price range, (the Compak K3 Touch comes to mind). If so, I could easily live with the plastic so that I had a multi-purpose grinder. Yeah, I know, multipurpose usually means compromised at each purpose, but perhaps we'll be pleasantly surprised by the Vario. I know that my wife wouldn't mind a quieter grinder and I'm pretty sure it can beat my current KitchenAid Proline.

Let us know how well it works with your Elektra.

Mark

by **TUS172** on Mon Jan 26, 2009 5:09 pm

Okay, it is Monday and I am here awaiting the 1st... 1st impression... :lol:

by **dsc** on Mon Jan 26, 2009 5:55 pm

Hi guys,

well Nicholas, what's up with the review, as Bob said, it's Monday already!;)

Are you going to disassemble the grinder partially to check the insides? I'm very curious how the sliders affect the setting, ie. how the setting changes. Is it mechanical, via a small stepped motor or something else. That's pretty much the only concern I see here, the grinder will be useless if this vital mechanism breaks.

Regards,
dsc.


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