It was a blend. I contacted the roaster and he said he thought it was probably the Guatemalan component. Although he did later mention finding a stone in his Sumatra. I got a pebble or two among greens back in my home roasting days and while apprenticing for a pro I found plenty (although that wasn't exactly a high-end roasting company). Anyway I know these things happen, and though it's never happened to me from a pro roast finished product before, I still don't hold it against them. I will, however, try to be a bit more vigilant while dosing.

Thanks for posting the pics, SpromoSapiens. It is educational. When you think about it, it's a nice design feature to have the teeth on the belt strip out before a pebble damages the burrs. Ideally, the first part to fail will be the least expensive part to replace.

SpromoSapiens wrote:I ordered a new belt and pulley set, as well as new burrs, just for the sake of showing this old beast some love. I didn't know there was a metal pulley available, I guess I will think of that next time.

I'm not sure when Baratza made the change, but my impression is that they have universally replaced the plastic pulley with a metal one. If so, you will receive a metal pulley as a replacement part. I'm sure the metal outperforms the plastic in many scenarios, including situations like this one. The belt would likely break before it could burn up the teeth on a metal pulley.

Smart idea to order new burrs after 5 years. Might as well start fresh. (I wonder if you'll notice a difference.)

I hadn't thought of the cheap part failing first as a clever design feature, but indeed it certainly is! I was also actually commenting to my partner today just how pleased I am with how quick and easy it is to disassemble the Vario. Most of the machines I've tinkered with have been old and abused, and always stuck or broken in some challenging way. With 3 screwdrivers and some pliers, this came right apart, no problem. Even the burrs came off their carriers without a fuss, after 5 years of chewing beans. It's not perfect and it may not be the best, but I maintain that for the money (used or refurbed), it can't be beat, and I love the Vario more than ever, now. I can't afford separate grinders for brew and for spro, and as long as that's true, I hope the Vario keeps on keepin' on.

I look forward to carefully comparing the burrs new & old with some studied rubs of a fingertip. If I see and feel no difference, I might at some point swap new and old back and forth to see if I can detect a difference in the grind. If I can't, I guess I'll keep the old ones around just in case a diamond or something falls in there next.

The new parts arrived today, I put them in with ease, reassembled, and the Vario is back on the counter, no prob.

At first inspection, I was satisfied to find that the new burrs are almost indistinguishable from the old. To my eyes, there was no visual difference. I ran my fingers over them all, and could scarcely detect a difference. I insisted on finding a difference, though, and in the end I had to admit that the brand new, never used burrs do feel a bit "edgier," particularly around the holes and edges of the larger inner ridges. So I put the new in and will hang onto the old. I will compare again in a few months just to see how they measure up after breaking in the new ones a bit.

Pics below. The only difference I could find was in the under side; the new burrs are clean and flat, the old had a scrappier looking construction.

New pulley is indeed metal. So my new parts are better than the old ones. I'm really quite pleased and look forward to dialing it back into the espresso zone tomorrow. For today I just did an Aeropress. Retention was .5g, which is not as bad as I thought it would be, considering I cleaned every grain out of all the nooks and crannies. I expect retention to go down after a week or so of re-"seasoning". I reset the zero point after reassembly, and then after a single mere 20g session I checked again and the zero got finer. So I do believe that after a month, whatever difference there is today between the 5-year-old set and the new set will be gone.