For some time I've felt that my Baratza has been grinding more and more inconsistent, so today I tried to open the casing, re-calibrate it and take a look at the things inside.

The first thing I noticed after calibrating to fine (as picture shows) is that when I dial the grinder to where the burrs meet, there is a small gap in one side while they touch each other in the other. Please see picture.

Could this be the cause of the (perceived) uneven grind or is the difference too small to matter?

Small gap between burrs:


Calibration setting:

For espresso it surely does matter, because particle size is in range 0.2-0.3 mm. If the inner burr is touching on the one side, it means you will be getting considerable more fines from the part where burrs are touching or are very close, and considerably bigger particles on the opposite side, neither being good for the taste of the coffee

The same amount of misalignment will for instance affect the taste from the press pot much less, because grind is much coarser

It could also just be the angle is off dead center for the photo. Unless your saying that you can clearly see only one sided gap with close inspection, but don't go off the photo alone.

T

vit wrote:For espresso it surely does matter, because particle size is in range 0.2-0.3 mm. If the inner burr is touching on the one side, it means you will be getting considerable more fines from the part where burrs are touching or are very close, and considerably bigger particles on the opposite side, neither being good for the taste of the coffee

The same amount of misalignment will for instance affect the taste from the press pot much less, because grind is much coarser

I'm primarily using it for aeropress and filter (the latter is set to around 10.5 and gives some fairly inconsistent chunks).

But it would be strange if that gap would contribute to that I can imagine. Therefore it's probably just the quality at that price range I guess.

TomC wrote:It could also just be the angle is off dead center for the photo. Unless your saying that you can clearly see only one sided gap with close inspection, but don't go off the photo alone.

It's not just the picture, I've examined it from all angles, and at different settings, the inner burr in one side always appear to be farther from the outer burr compared to the opposite.