I attempted the procedure and in my case, not a very successful story. I spent 12 hours over the last 2 days trying to align my Forte and after 9 attempts, my marker tests were always one sided (towards the motor). Read through both threads multiple times and tried every belt tension I could get to, but the marker pattern was a failure every single time. I am not sure where I went wrong but I am exhausted and out of ideas. I ended up just shimming the top burr with aluminum foil for 2 hours until the pattern seems to be pretty even.

Has someone/can someone shoot a video of this process?

There seems to be a bit of feel/judgement surrounding tightening of the belt and I for one am having trouble orienting myself with the photos as they are a bit tightly cropped to get perspective as to what I'm looking at.

I think a video would clear up a lot of things (at least for me) and probably allow many more people to have the confidence to successfully align their grinders. It's an exciting prospect that a sub $1000 grinder could be this good but I don't want to end up with a non functional unit due to my own incompetence.

Many thanks to those who have developed this idea/proceedure. I feel this technique is inches away from the goal line.

Can this be done with a new (2019) stock Vario without any additional parts or do I still need to order something? It isn't clear to me if the replacement parts that are talked about are for older Vario's only.

Same here, would really appreciate a video as well.

Folks, let me first begin by saying what an inspiration you guys are, I've been a long time lurker, first time poster.

I recently upgraded to a baratza vario (bought used, original owner bought in 2014), and while it led to a big improvement in my coffee life, I do notice (even after a somewhat chickened out calibration back to the stock "2Q" level of burrs touching) some boulders, etc, and nowhere near do my grinds look like the ones posted on this (or the other thread?) of the post Alicorn aligned Varios/fortes.

I would LOVE to do this adjustment, but I have so many questions, very little knowledge about terms, even less in terms of equipment on hand, but it seems you need none of either of those things to succeed. I would be eternally grateful if one of the Baratza Jedis on this thread could help me!

Situation notes:
1) I have no shims installed
2) my "fine" adjustment knob thingy has the tendency to move around a bit while grinding, I control this the caveman way: by holding my thumb beneath it so it does not slip downwards (coarser) while grinding
3) grinds are great but some boulders, do not look like the grinds post Alicorn forte/varios produce per photos
4) I did the stock calibration to 2Q but do not trust it deeply becuase its based on sound changing, my sound change was NOT similar to the sound change from burrs touching in the baratza official video on youtube, so I am a bit skeptical of the current calibration
5) I am using ceramic burrs (stock)
6) for reference: on a light roast (B&W "the Natural") ground on 2E is the current dial-in

Questions
1) Do I need shims to complete the alignment given my situation?
2) Do I need to do the marker test? I dont have the battery unit to run the motor once I have the unit disassembled, can the marker test be done by hand somehow?
3) If there is no marker test, is there any other way to measure success pre/post alignment?
4) If stock ceramic burrs have been running misaligned for years (all home use) - would the alignment lead to improvement? any way to check this?
5) for my situation, other than screw drivers and hex keys, is there ANY other equipment (shims, foil, etc.) that is needed to complete the alignment?
6) MAIN QUESTION: It seems that once you removed the motor and burr assembly from the unit, you loosen four screws around the burrs and use the levers to align the top and bottom burrs. Does this mean you basically loosen the screws, hold the burrs tightly together, and just roughly move the two levers to a "2Q"-ish position where the burrs are touching (theoretically) then tighten the screws? How do you know the alignment is complete, if you cant do an ink test or a micron test (whatever that is)? is there a "feeling" to shoot for, and if so can someone describe it? I'm trying to determine what the "success point" of successful alignment looks or feels like to know the DIY mission succeeded.

Would be greatful for some help here and I'm sure it will be beneficial to others as well - this is the highest priority DIY project I have in mind!

sheedapistawl wrote: 2) my "fine" adjustment knob thingy has the tendency to move around a bit while grinding, I control this the caveman way: by holding my thumb beneath it so it does not slip downwards (coarser) while grinding

You should not have to put up with this, and it's a SUPER easy fix:

sheedapistawl wrote: 1) Do I need shims to complete the alignment given my situation?

You should know by now from the youtube video that there are lever arm shims, that are completely unrelated to the kind of shims that you place under the burrs. In general, you do not need any shims for underneath the burrs. Everyone should have shims for the lever arms though. That should be standard on every Vario.

My Vario is 11 years old now, (summer 2009). It does not have letters and numbers, just hash marks, so I can't help you there. But it sure grinds nicely with the hyper-alignment. Really amazingly nicely.

-Peter

@jonk I am using purely for espresso, so I suspect ceramic is the way forward

@peter: what material do I use to fashion a "lever shim"? Kudos to you for keeping your 2009 vario running! Are your lever shims homemade and if so how? If ordered online please let me know!

I am told that the first step is to do an ink test on the burrs which I plan to do, and perhaps folks here can guide me. Over on reddit r/coffee we are also discussing this approach, and in the next days (weeks?) we are trying to put together an easy guide for newbies like me to follow that can allow folks to understand the ink test and then run the Alicorn.

When one does the ink test, I imagine it's to top and bottom burrs separately ?

sheedapistawl wrote:@jonk I am using purely for espresso, so I suspect ceramic is the way forward

Ceramic is more versatile for a wider variety of coffees, and tolerant of misalignment. Steel tends to need better alignment and makes a more focused and uniform grind that seems to bring out the better in lighter roasts.

sheedapistawl wrote:@peter: what material do I use to fashion a "lever shim"? Kudos to you for keeping your 2009 vario running! Are your lever shims homemade and if so how? If ordered online please let me know!

There was really nothing to it. Other than making sure the lever shims were in place every couple of years, I never really did anything else. Didn't even take the top burr off for cleaning but a couple of times or so. As for the lever shims, you can buy them off Baratza. But they told me a dirty little secret (after I bought a spare set), that you can use any elastomeric material. There is nothing special about theirs. Next time I need new shim material, I'll probably cut a couple of pieces of insulation off of some Romex household wire and see if that works. A bicycle inner tube would probably work, but rubber degrades in the presence of electric motors over time. So something else that is softish but not rubber.

A word about burr shimming... If you can get alignment using Jake's method, without shimming, that's the way to go. Because if you shim ceramic burrs, since they are essentially like glass, the bending moments put into them by shimming could cause them to break.

-Peter

Peter thanks for your response! Attempt happening later today.

Two questions:
1) would you (or others) take a peak at the attached top and bottom burr photos? Any obvious signs of systemic misalignment that I've read would make the Alicorn alignment pointless ?

2) without the top burr the bottom burr spinning has a lil bit of play when observed on slow mo video - From another thread I presume this is normal/expected? (Ie the bottom burr does not spin perfectly vertically and moves around slightly in the radial plane, when it is spinning with the top burr removed)

Burr photos - checking for problems before ink test and alicorn attempt:

Since I haven't done this alignment myself, you're getting into Jake-territory with your latest questions.

You should also know that there is a more Vario-centric thread, also dealing with Jake's hyper-alignment method that you should read and participate in as necessary: Baratza Vario Super Alignment owner experience

-Peter