dsc wrote:Hi Robert,

I'm curious how well the Vario performs as a French Press / drip grinder. I'm guessing it's not awesome as it produces too many fines (enough for espresso), but I might be wrong. It might be interesting to sift the grinds through a tea strainer or something similar and see how many fines you can get. Of course taste will give you the definitive answer.

Regards,
dsc.

I discovered that I still haven't positioned the hex/allen screw forward enough to get to a true French press grind.
I will (regrettably) re-position the screw later today and report tonight. I had estimated my dose to be 14 gram @ a 11.8 second timing. Well, it was 14.2 grams!
Not bad for someone whose eyesight is somewhere south of Mr. Magoo's.
There IS static IF dosing into anything plastic, which is why I dose directly into the PF/basket, with the former WDT yogurt cup lightly inserted. No stirring. No waste, as I said.
Back when I've done the press pot thing.
The vac pot grind setting for the Macro lever was way down, midway between press and drip. Not correct.
I sort of starting knowing this as the Macro setting for espresso is still 2 full clicks/notches from the top. I am betting that when I get the espresso properly set, maybe one notch from the top, with the Micro lever maybe halfway, the press pot will also be in the ballpark.
We'll soon find out.
Anyone with a Vario, please help me with this!

Robert, you mention the need to tweak the calibration setting again to achieve the desired press pot grind. From your description, it sounds like the calibration is set too fine. The way to confirm correct calibration is as follows:
(with no beans in the grinder and the motor running) Position the Micro arm (left) all the way down, you should be able to move the Macro arm (right) from bottom to top with no change in motor load. Now, with the grinder running in Manual mode and no beans in it, position the Macro arm all the way up. Begin to move the Micro arm up, you should BEGIN to hear motor loading at the halfway point, with load increasing as you move all the way to the top. If you hear motor loading before the mid point, coarsen the calibration. If motor loading begins (or never happens) above the midpoint, then fine up the calibration set point.
I hope this helps to clarify this issue. The Vario was designed to provide the full range of grind (very fine espresso, to press pot) without the need to move the calibration setting (once it is correctly set). It is our fault that you have had to mess around with the calibration on your Vario and for this I apologize. In the latest production run we have improved our process for this procedure.
Kyle

Hi Kyle,

By "motor loading," do you mean hearing the burrs begin to touch at this point (macro at finest, micro at halfway)?

kyle anderson wrote:you should BEGIN to hear motor loading at the halfway point, with load increasing as you move all the way to the top. If you hear motor loading before the mid point, coarsen the calibration.

Welcome to H-B, Kyle!

I have to say though, I'm as confused as Jim. On my Mazzer, the motor sound never changes. It's either on or off. I can get the burrs to graze each other if I dial them all the way down, but there's no progressive "motor loading" sound that increases gradually at any point on the adjustment dial.

Note:Kyle, please weigh in here with news, notes or most probably corrections.
The motor sound most definitely changes, at least it does for me.
The pitch change is audible as you raise the Micro arm up. I was off, if using Kyles definition of a properly set up grinder. By this much!
As this Vario is of fairly early manufacture , anyone with the latest model please chime in as to the the new adjusting method. Kyle, if you could post a picture that would be great.
Personally, I believe all grinders should be set up at the factory, with the ability to achieve a reasonable press pot grind with some leeway up or down,(at least one click on the Macro setting, + a full range on the Micro. Same for the other grind spectrum, espresso. After calculating as best I could both number of seconds per Micro click finer, and the resultant loss of grind volume due to the greater time needed to grind finer, I believe 1 click from the top (Macro) to the top notch, plus the full Micro range would be way more than enough for any user.

Of course, my #'s are in some ways meaningless, as my coffee may require tighter settings than say, Jim's, but with all that leeway, there should be no problem.
CLEANING TIPS (from a slightly anal clean freak)
The B-Vario, as I'm fond of calling it appears to retain a bit of grind internally, especially when switching back and forth.

Based on my usage (about 1.5#'s so far, much of it tuning the grinder in*), I'd say maybe once every 2 weeks, unless you have taste issues, or altered performance. (which I have not had).
First, make sure to completely grind any loose beans gathered around the burrs before unplugging for cleaning. Next, removal of the hopper and upper burr assembly, a quick brushing to whisk/loosen any oily grind residue, then a can of compressed air with the thin red "straw" attached to blow away any loose grind.
Keep the air a bit at a distance so as not to subject the internals and electronics to ultra cold air!
Then replace parts, being extra sure to snuggle the upper burr back in by rocking it in till you hear and feel all the clicks. Only a little hand pressure is needed. Then rotate it counter clockwise. (this is well explained in the manual)
Snap the hopper back in and you're good to go.

Oh yeah, the French press grind taste test.
I freely admit that other than espresso, vac pot brew is my fave. I'm just not that fond of the press.
Especially after living with lever brewed espresso the past year +.
I'll say this, there was less "sludge" than when using my Maestro (which I did for comparison)
To my eye, the grind was a bit more uniform, and the shape of the grind was a bit more "angular."
My photographic skills are limited, but I will post a picture of press grind tomorrow.
It tasted like coffee. YMMV
Bottom line is, with a bit of work, these slightly earlier models are capable of exactly what they say they are, excellent espresso grinding, and the requisite drip and Press pot, switching between easy.
As with most grinders, ALWAYS run the grinder when going coarse to fine, probably no need to when going from fine to coarse, though maybe when adjusting the Macro slider would hurt.

No grinder is perfect. I'd love to see the grind fall like a Versalab or Mahlkoenig Vario, and maybe a more usable of PF fork for smaller PF that is more stable and CENTERED.
But the way easy electronics, quietness adequate speed and compactness make the Vario hard to resist, even if it was only dedicated to espresso.
This wasn't meant to be a "overview" as I'm probably not scientific enough to answer questions, but I am a love of good coffee, and the joy of it's capture.
*Anyone "offended" by the fact it may take a # of coffee to fine tune your grinder, kiss my grits
Seriously, most of us stress way to much over 4grams of coffee "waste., yet we'll idle our automobile for 5 minutes while waiting to pick up the kids from school.
Again, I'll point out that after your Vario is "in the groove" waste per shot will be a non issue.

edited for paragraph clarity

portamento wrote:I have to say though, I'm as confused as Jim. On my Mazzer, the motor sound never changes. It's either on or off. I can get the burrs to graze each other if I dial them all the way down, but there's no progressive "motor loading" sound that increases gradually at any point on the adjustment dial.

Hi Jim,
Yes, by "motor loading" I do mean burr contact. With the Vario Ceramic burrs, since they are precision ground (after casting) for flatness and parallelism, they are almost silent when they touch (unlike some metal burrs), so all you really hear is motor loading, not burr contact. That is why I mention motor loading instead of burr contact. Though the burr contact is significant (doing no harm as the teeth are not touching) and the noise is almost non existent, the loading on the drive system is quite high, hence you can hear the motor bog down (much more so than during any normal grinding). I hope this clears up some confusion I may have caused. I can't speak to the Mazzer sound though. I'll leave that to the Mazzer experts.
Regards, Kyle

Kyle, while I know it's a "no-no" to adjust a grinder from coarse to fine without running it at the same time (motor on), in the Vario's case, would it be OK if the only adjustment was a click finer on the MICRO lever?
Seems a waste to on/off the Vario for 1 click.

On the Micro side you are free to move the lever as you wish, full scale, up or down, without the grinder running. No worries about stressing the system, full scale movement is only 100 microns (4 thousandths of an inch).
Regards,
Kyle

Great.

On another topic, I'm wondering how the preset times were determined.
10 seconds( the default time for the Espresso button) will get me a bit more than sufficient grind for a single espresso in my Elektra single basket. I have my press button set at 9.1 for my single dose.
I've not weighed the resulting dose with the 10 second default.
I will do so tomorrow. That is, 10 second grind with my present espresso setting.
As 12 seconds gets me (with my current blend) 14.2 grams, I'm guessing I'll get whatever 2 seconds less would be. Whatever 1/6 less is. Lets see. Hmmmmmmmmmmm
Around 11.8 grams? "Jim, I'm a songwriter, not a damn mathematician." ("Bones" McCoy)

OK. I have to think 58mm basket here, not the puny 49mm I have.
11.8 would be a smallish but doable single when pulled in a La Marzocco single basket?
I didn't do singles when I had my Anita. My current Cremina pulled singles contain around 10 grams of coffee.

I'm still working on getting a pix of my French Press grind.

Thanks guys for this very informative thread!
I've recently got a Vario too and am happy with it. Mine is just labelled Ditting since they merged with Mahlkönig and are distributing the grinder in CH. I also had to recalibrate the grinder to a coarser range and the instructions from kyle worked out perfectly. Here's the result from my coarsest possible setting after the adjustment:



After trying to get a good pic with my camera without success I just used my flat bed scanner.
The scale bars were inserted with imageJ which is a free program. It could also be used to count particles and generate size distribution data and lots more. But with a resolution of 0.02mm @1200dpi (or 0.0008 inch ) it is not possible to generate much data on fines but I'll give it a try sometime anyway.

grüess
marco