will the baratza virtuoso, properly calibrated, grind well enough for a silvio? thanks

while i was going back and forth with grind and tamping, i am finding i can get a 25 sec pull with tamping less, and keeping the grind a consistent setting. ugh, my grinds have the look of powdered sugar, also, i have a 58 mm tamper on the way as the plastic piece of crap silvia sends you is not at all accurate size. sorry this is some venting, but also explaining where i am with this machine, which i love btw. we had a solis 70 for 20 years before it pooped out. chime in, thanks for the tips, great site!

Hi Curt,

So you're already using it with your Silvia? If so, I'm curious about how many seconds are added to an extraction with one click of the adjustment ring.

I'm making a Virtuoso do with my La Pavoni, and find that I can get a good shot on a couple notches, but then my arm adjusts my pull pressure as I watch the shot.

P.S.
I have my lower burr shimmed up so that it grinds pretty fine, typically use a setting of 14-18. Before I shimmed it I was down between 1 and 5.

hi homeb, i moved one click up, to coarser grind, and tamped less and gained 15 sec on the shot. i am setting at a 6 setting on the grinder. i still would like to see it not blonde, or lighten so quick. if i go finer with the grinder it chokes the machine. so i backed off and started messin with the tamp pressure. less tamp, finer grinds, i make americanos, the coffee taste good, we roast our own as well.

sorry, that answer did not answer your question. when i went coarser, it, of course made my pull last shorter, the timing was perfect, about 26 sec. but i seems to go blond too soon, so i am concentrating on an even tamp. i love how this machine and grinder combo test me to get an awesome espresso.

Thanks Curt, that answers what I was curious about. Looks like each click is more of a jump than I thought.

I just got a Silvia but have had a Virtuoso for a year and a half. I had been losing grind fineness on my Virtuoso...it didn't grind as fine as when it was new. With the Silvia at first it was not fine enough. Then I saw that Baratza now offers a burr upgrade for the Virtuoso - you can buy and install the Preciso burrs (and now new Virtuosos come with these new burrs). I've upgraded to these burrs and I can definitely grind fine enough and can make a very nice espresso on my Silvia with it. There aren't a lot of options though, it's only been a couple weeks and so far I choose between 2 or 3 clicks on the Virtuoso. At the moment I feel satisfied with this because it's giving the results I had hoped for, plus I could make micro adjustments with tamp or dose if I needed to go beyond that.

My replacement is pushing it on running out of room (on 3 and still not fine enough), however, you can actually open it up and adjust it if you are running out of room on one end of the spectrum. The docs are on their website.

If your calibration screw is already over on the fine side you can make a bigger adjustment with the shims. There should be shims of varying thickness above and below the lower burr. You can shift them so that all but the thinnest are below the burr and you will be set up for fine grinding (may lose your coarse grind.) Baratza will send you more shims if you need them. I believe their site has instructions on the shims as well as the calibration screw.