Not sure if this should be in Tips and Techniques or Buying Advice...

In my current case, it's a Baratza Forte AP. It's 10 years old at this point but just back from service/overhaul at Baratza. They also loosened the grind adjustment levers which is much appreciated.

Anyway, once I do a little purge to account for day-old grounds, I'm talking about basically back to back shots here. IOW it's not variation owed to the beans aging.

I find that in e.g. 9.2 seconds I get anywhere from 16.5g to 17.5g. True, most are more like 16.7 - 17.3, but still that seems like a pretty big window, especially for a slow-ish grinder. I would understand somewhat more if we were talking about a 4-5g/second grinder I guess.

Is that degree of precision or lack thereof acceptable? Nature of the beast? Would a superior grinder have a tighter tolerance? I've eyed the MK E63S GBW, Lucca Atom 75, upcoming Atom Excellence 75, among others.

Not looking to switch to SD so please don't suggest that Hopper/OD only thanks.

@MODS any way you can move this to Buying Advice please? Lots of views but no responses. If you don't see this I'll repost it there in a couple days.

Moderator note: Post moved to Grinders

If accurate dosing is important to you you need to single dose, or grind and dispense into the PF for accuracy. There are some high(er) end grinders that grind by weight. But asking to get a specific weight or even a dependable narrow range of mass by time in an mid-range espresso grinder is like asking how may seconds in a pound. And single dosing is not that difficult and can eliminate a good portion of waste. Get a set of small medicine bottles and weigh out a weeks worth. You can suffer through 'almost accurate, and pretty good espresso most of the time,' spend a lot of money on a better grinder, or just weigh each dose.

baldheadracing wrote:Just wondering - why don't you use the AP's grind-by-weight feature?

Regardless, for a timed dose, the Baratza Vario/Forté seem more consistent in output if the flapper is flipped. However, you may need to then use a funnel to keep all the grounds in your portafilter. Just my experience. YMMV.

As I remember, grind by weight on my Forté is around +/- 0.3g. So I had the same question. And, I agree. The flapper mod is easy and helps retention significantly.

On a related note, I single dose my Forté and use the single dose hopper. Without it, beans can get stuck in the original hopper with each dose. I also use the top of the single dose hopper as a puffer. It's not a great puffer, but it's good enough to help with the last bit of retention.

baldheadracing wrote:Just wondering - why don't you use the AP's grind-by-weight feature?

Regardless, for a timed dose, the Baratza Vario/Forté seem more consistent in output if the flapper is flipped. However, you may need to then use a funnel to keep all the grounds in your portafilter. Just my experience. YMMV.

The GBW only doses into the plastic receptacle (which sits on the scale). Getting grinds out of it is a staticky mess (I did this for years for pour over) so workflow would be a PITA to get the grounds into the PF from there. Much easier to dose by time directly into the PF.

What is this "flapper is flipped" devilry of which you speak?

Randy G. wrote:If accurate dosing is important to you you need to single dose, or grind and dispense into the PF for accuracy. There are some high(er) end grinders that grind by weight. But asking to get a specific weight or even a dependable narrow range of mass by time in an mid-range espresso grinder is like asking how may seconds in a pound. And single dosing is not that difficult and can eliminate a good portion of waste. Get a set of small medicine bottles and weigh out a weeks worth. You can suffer through 'almost accurate, and pretty good espresso most of the time,' spend a lot of money on a better grinder, or just weigh each dose.

As I said, not interested in SD. I can and do spend the marginal extra time weighing and adjusting post-dosing. And I don't mind a .2 second purge.

Quester wrote:As I remember, grind by weight on my Forté is around +/- 0.3g. So I had the same question. And, I agree. The flapper mod is easy and helps retention significantly.

On a related note, I single dose my Forté and use the single dose hopper. Without it, beans can get stuck in the original hopper with each dose. I also use the top of the single dose hopper as a puffer. It's not a great puffer, but it's good enough to help with the last bit of retention.

Tell me more please

Interesting thanks...