Baratza Vario Super Alignment owner experience - Page 51

Grinders are one of the keys to exceptional espresso. Discuss them here.
pdx-climber
Posts: 76
Joined: 4 years ago

#501: Post by pdx-climber »

I'm curious about this burr touching on ceramic burrs.... which is what I have. Did the metal upgrades, and attempted to align. I think I have maybe an 80% swipe - but with the color of ceramic and my particular (EXPO) dry-erase markers I honestly have a hard time seeing what is wiped. This is turning the burrs by hand (no power). After resettting zero to 2Q I was probably around 2C for a proper timed shot... I didn't think this was right so I stopped playing around. I had a DF64 so just kept using that. But I'd like to get this "super"-Vario doing it's thing. How much finer than chirp should I need to go? I wouldn't expect to need to be at burr-touch...

Jonk
Posts: 2176
Joined: 4 years ago

#502: Post by Jonk »

j_bravo14 wrote:- running the motors at full speed will lift the lower burr and touch/wipe the upper burrs. Better to test the wipe using your fingers to turn the pulley part to avoid lifting the burrs
But you need to test it at full speed. Even with an 18V battery it just won't turn fast enough to know if the belt tension is low enough that it won't pull the lower burr out of alignment.
j_bravo14 wrote:Does this caked ring continue to build up and eventually affect the grind quality?
From what I can remember, the ring is basically all I saw in a Vario that hadn't been cleaned for many years.
pdx-climber wrote:How much finer than chirp should I need to go?
With ceramic burrs you shouldn't have to adjust finer than chirp if it's aligned well.

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pham
Posts: 85
Joined: 3 years ago

#503: Post by pham »

The reason that the ceramics go finer than touch is because the Varios adjustment system is slightly flexible, in that the burrs get pushed apart with coffee in between while grinding. The ceramics have much more aggressive feeding/pre-breaking teeth so they are pushing much more coffee in between the burrs than the steel burrs do, which effectively nibble at the beans. Thus, the ceramics get pushed further apart so their effective burr gap is much different than the steels. The softer the coffee (depending on roast profile and origin/processing) the coarser the grind setting for the ceramics can be for a given "effective burr gap". So, even if your vario is well aligned, if you're working with some pretty dense coffees you might still be going below touch point with the ceramics. Personally with the steels, I've never had to go below touch point and I think taste tends to suffer when grinding too fine

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EvanOz85
Posts: 716
Joined: 12 years ago

#504: Post by EvanOz85 »

Quick update on my earlier question: Just had a nice talk with Ross at Baratza. Sent him a video of the noises that grinder makes when I grind fine enough for espresso, and he said that it's completely safe to run the grinder at those settings (chirp and very slight laboring). Since I'm getting repeatable delicious espresso at these settings I think I'll abstain from aligning it any further. Doing a side-by-side with the Sette 270wi, I greatly prefer the shots from the steel burr Vario. Now just waiting for my MC4 and Max to be delivered!

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