I just received a "refurbished" Vario W that I purchased from the Baratza website and can't seem to get it to grind properly. I can get nothing but spritzers going every direction for the first few seconds and then a quickly blonding fast flow from the center of my bottomless portafilter.

The first 4-5 shots were pulled in the upper "2" settings. I then checked the calibration and it was in the 2-C range and I adjusted it to 2-Q per Baratza's youtube support video. Follow on shots in the 2-W setting got the same exact results.

Any ideas if It's user error or a machine issue?

I also noticed that none of the lights on the front panel light up except for the light next to the "Start/Stop" button. At least I assume they are lights next to the Tare and 1-2-3 presets.

BTW, I have a K30 sitting next to it pulling great shots from the same beans so the coffee isn't the issue. I bought the Vario for decaf since the K30 is difficult/wasteful to switch beans.

Thanks

How are you dosing and tamping?

Same as always. Never had issues with the K30. Dump 18G from the Vario hopper into my bottomless portafilter, distribute, tamp and pull.

This is not a minor spritzer issue. I've got coffee going everywhere and coating the face of my machine (LMLM).

Thanks

I've read from some posts that people still need to WDT with the Vario. How are you distributing? Are you tamping hard enough?

Any static issues? Any clumps?

I would try grinding finer. And take extra care in a perfectly even distribution as it's likely less forgiving than the k30.

While some people have said they need to WDT with the Vario , I haven't had the need to do that and get nice fluffy grinds with no spritzer issues.

The panel on my refurbished Vario-W behaves the same way as yours. Only get a light when I push Start. Dunno if there are LEDs behind the other openings in the faceplate, but no light comes from them.

I've never used my Vario-W for espresso, but back when I had a regular Vario I got excellent espresso extractions. WDT made them a little prettier, but wasn't required.

If the burrs start making noise (touching) at 2Q, then you should get a good espresso grind between there and 2W.

What you've described sounds like worn burrs or misaligned burrs. I would think they'd replace the burrs when refurbishing, but maybe that step was skipped or maybe they didn't notice a particularly worn spot. Which burrs do you have? Metal or ceramic?

It could be belt slippage. Maybe the person who did the refurb forgot to tighten the screws or tension the belt. Or maybe it got loose in transport. Does the grinder sound smooth or is there a groaning sound? My Vario-W had that sound and it turned out to be a loose set screw in the pulley mechanism. Easy to check and fix, and also easy to properly tension the belt. There's a video showing the procedure on Bratza's site.

I believe you have to change the grind setting with the grinder running, but I'm not sure. If you've been changing it while the grinder is off, you'll have to purge some beans for the grind setting to catch up.

There have been some reports of the grind settings slipping on the Vario model, but I never had that experience so I don't know the issues or the fix.

The only issue I had with the Vario was consistency when less than a couple of doses were left in the hopper. The grinder likes 2"-3" of beans minimum, and you'll probably have to adjust the setting as the level drops.

I talked to Baratza a couple of times this week and they are not sure what's going on. They said that they usually don't replace the burrs on the refurb units but they have no idea how long the unit has been used. There's even a chance that the unit may have been returned with no use at all if there was a problem in the electronics.

So I've been getting somewhat better, albeit inconsistent results. I had to go all the way to 1-C to get a decent result. The next day that grind (same coffee -decaf Verve) setting choked the machine and I backed out to 1-H. That seems to give me a decent shot but it blonds very quickly (5-8 seconds in) and I get 30G in about 23-24 seconds.

Since I don't have a lot of experience with the Verve decaf I will try to run the same coffee through the K30 and Vario this weekend to compare results.

Thanks for the inputs