Baratza Sette Single Dosing

Grinders are one of the keys to exceptional espresso. Discuss them here.
bwstahnke
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#1: Post by bwstahnke »

I wanted to have a localized place where we can bounce some ideas around about single dosing on a Sette 270/270W.

I received my Sette 270 yesterday and see there is a lot of potential with the grinder. It is a massive upgrade as far as consistency over my modded Rocky. I haven't used it much yet, but have observed some things already. The first being, it was not designed as a single dose grinder (obviously). I would love to use it that way personally, so how can I best go about that?

I noticed that when attempting a single dose, there is some grind retention - somewhere between 0.5g-1g, depending on fineness. My theory is that since there are no beans in the hopper, there is no weight pushing down on the beans that need to be ground, keeping some retention in the burr carrier. My initial thought was to remove the hopper and use a tamper as the weight pushing the beans down. Obviously this wont work because of the safety switch triggered by the hopper. I wonder if the hopper could be modified or a new design could be 3D printed to achieve this goal...? The potential problem with the tamper weight idea is that the opening into the burr chamber is quite a bit smaller than my 58mm tampers, so there would be a few grams of coffee that are gravity fed with out weight on them once they reach that level. Maybe something could be 3D printed to fit that chamber with room inside to place a cylindrical weight of some sort. Thinking like a lead weight or a scale calibration weight - something to that effect.

I'd love to hear your thoughts about this. I would bet there aren't many experiences regarding this with the Sette yet, but maybe you have other single dose mod experiences with other grinders that could translate over...

Thanks for your input!

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Spitz.me
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#2: Post by Spitz.me »

Sorry, I'm not here to offer any suggestions on how to make sure there is no grind retention. I believe you're trying to solve an issue that has no real impact on taste and quality of your shots. I'm living with and plan my shots around the consistent 0.5g of retention that could possibly become even less with burr break-in. The Sette works great so far as a single-doser - so far.

Turns out that I lied about not offering suggestions. Have you tried RDT? I haven't yet, and will do so when I get home.
LMWDP #670

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another_jim
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#3: Post by another_jim »

You'll get the same grind retention if you don't single dose; it's a function of the grind path after the burrs, not ahead of them. The least grind retention is the Vario/Forte, which is close to nil. The straight through grinders like the Monolith are close to this. The Sette is a lot better than most commercial espresso grinders, but does retain a little.

Also, the Sette is the only grinder I know where having beans in the hopper or single dosing makes no difference to the grind setting. I thinks it's because the outer burr spins, and that augurs in the beans.
Jim Schulman

CwD
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#4: Post by CwD »

bwstahnke wrote:Thinking like a lead weight or a scale calibration weight - something to that effect.
I don't know enough about the Sette to know what will work but I feel like I have to recommend against a lead weight. And don't do RDT with mercury.

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canuckcoffeeguy
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#5: Post by canuckcoffeeguy »

If single dosing, is it possible to blow the retention out from above? I remember seeing someone use something like this on a commercial grinder. It was some kind of bulbous plastic thing that you could squeeze and it would blow out air. Obviously you don't want to use compressed air for a number of reasons. But something to generate just enough force and airflow might work.

day
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#6: Post by day replying to canuckcoffeeguy »

I think they are called rocket blowers, I have one, they are for photography equipment.
Yes, i you per this on an iPhone

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Spitz.me
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#7: Post by Spitz.me »

The rocket blower works with loose grounds. If the grounds aren't falling out I imagine they're stuck and if the grounds are packed between burrs the Rocket won't work, but I'll test and report back.

/edit

I just tried the Rocket blower to see if I could blow out the missing 0.5g.

First test - just use the blower to see if any grounds fall out. Nothing happened.
Second test - Use the blower while running the burrs. The burrs sounded like they ground some beans and the 0.5g came out without me even using the blower. This is about 8 hours from when I last ran the grinder. So, it looks like what's happening is whole/partial beans are getting caught in the burr chamber somehow and don't dislodge at the time that you're single-dosing for your shot. They don't even make it into the shot after pulsing the grinder.

My machine is currently warming up. I'll use the Rocket blower at the end of grinding for my next shot as a test to see if I can dislodge the 0.5g. It's possible that I dislodged several beans/bean fragments with my first test.
LMWDP #670