Posted Sun Feb 19, 2012, 2:22pm Subject: Re: The Baratza Vario Grinder Owner's Thread
Justin, MANY years ago..well, while i still have a Mazzer SJ I decided to purchase a vintage wooden espresso grinder, upon recommendation from another member. They grind as well as $300= grinders, albeit with 70 turns. I rarely use mine as I love my Vario and Preciso, but it does a wonderful job.
Orphan espresso used to really cherry them out, especially visually. They now have them, but don't do the visual stuff, but mechanically they are prolly pretty durn sound. For $60-$75, you'd have an excellent grinder as a spare. click here
justinmckay Senior Member Joined: 15 Jan 2010 Posts: 33 Location: Oceanside, CA Expertise: I love coffee
Espresso: Isomac Tea I Grinder: Baratza Vario, Hario Mini... Drip: Chemex, French Press
Posted Sun Feb 19, 2012, 9:08pm Subject: Re: The Baratza Vario Grinder Owner's Thread
CraigA Said:
Justin, You say a red light so I take it that you mean on the pcb on the inside? That would be an older model with an earlier generation pcb then.What is the serial # off of the bottom of your Vario please?
justinmckay Senior Member Joined: 15 Jan 2010 Posts: 33 Location: Oceanside, CA Expertise: I love coffee
Espresso: Isomac Tea I Grinder: Baratza Vario, Hario Mini... Drip: Chemex, French Press
Posted Sun Feb 19, 2012, 9:12pm Subject: Re: The Baratza Vario Grinder Owner's Thread
IMAWriter Said:
Justin, MANY years ago..well, while i still have a Mazzer SJ I decided to purchase a vintage wooden espresso grinder, upon recommendation from another member. They grind as well as $300= grinders, albeit with 70 turns. I rarely use mine as I love my Vario and Preciso, but it does a wonderful job.
Orphan espresso used to really cherry them out, especially visually. They now have them, but don't do the visual stuff, but mechanically they are prolly pretty durn sound. For $60-$75, you'd have an excellent grinder as a spare. click here
I have a hario hand grinder that i use for camping. I busted her out today but I decided to have french press instead of espresso. Two double shots with my hand grinder is the equivalent to an hour in the gym :P
justinmckay Senior Member Joined: 15 Jan 2010 Posts: 33 Location: Oceanside, CA Expertise: I love coffee
Espresso: Isomac Tea I Grinder: Baratza Vario, Hario Mini... Drip: Chemex, French Press
Posted Mon Feb 20, 2012, 5:53pm Subject: Re: The Baratza Vario Grinder Owner's Thread
Thankfully the hard working people at Baratza do not take pause on Presidents day (well... good for me bad for them). Had a chance to talk to them about my grinder woes. This morning they had me take some pictures and email them. This afternoon they had called me back to follow up on the pictures. My board did not have any noticeable loose solders (like they had expected). However after a few minutes with the volt meter we could see that there was no voltage going to the motor when the grinder was turned on. So like CraigA said good chance it is the board and not the motor.
They are sending me a new board as well as new belt and plastic pulley. The parts will be here later this week so I will post back when i find out for sure.
Just like everyone else was saying, the people at Baratza are awesome. Very knowledgeable and friendly I could not ask for more :)
GDK Senior Member Joined: 17 Feb 2011 Posts: 92 Location: Ontario, Canada Expertise: I love coffee
Espresso: MiniVivaldi II, preinfusion,... Grinder: Baratza Vario W
Posted Mon Feb 20, 2012, 6:40pm Subject: Re: The Baratza Vario Grinder Owner's Thread
+1 for the great customer support!!!
What is sort of unique with Baratza's support is that they do work with you to resolve the question/issue ASAP, without implying that you have done something wrong or that you do not know what you are talking about. Besides, they are assisting users on this and other forums. How much more can you expect...
justinmckay Senior Member Joined: 15 Jan 2010 Posts: 33 Location: Oceanside, CA Expertise: I love coffee
Espresso: Isomac Tea I Grinder: Baratza Vario, Hario Mini... Drip: Chemex, French Press
Posted Mon Feb 27, 2012, 7:32am Subject: Re: The Baratza Vario Grinder Owner's Thread
Well got the new board and sad to say that did not do the trick. Multiple people at Baratza have looked at it and are a bit stumped. No voltage is going to the motor with the new board (as well as the old board). I have tried everything i can think of and still no power.
So I am headed out of town for a couple of weeks and am sending my grinder to Baratza so they can have a look and figure it out. It could be the new board is bad as well but they did not seem to think so. Will report back when I find out.
mr_pedro Senior Member Joined: 13 Feb 2012 Posts: 31 Location: Baltimore Expertise: I love coffee
Posted Tue Feb 28, 2012, 11:30am Subject: Re: The Baratza Vario Grinder Owner's Thread
I received my refurbished Vario-W yesterday and I currently have a caffeine OD from dialing in the grinder. For some reason they forgot to include the hopper in the box, so I called Baratza, had a pleasant conversation just like other people mention here and they are sending me one soon. In the mean time some duct tape and the hopper of my old grinder make for a temporary solution. :)
I have played around with the adjustment screws and the burrs are now touching with the macro all the way up and the micro half way. This way a 15 g dose produced a 100% brewing ratio ristretto (15 g of coffee in the cup) in 30 s using a double LM ridgeless basket with the macro at the top and the micro slightly above half.
My next shot with the micro 4 clicks lower gave me 22 g of coffee in 25 s. So the sweet spot for a 15 g dose with my setup is probably with the micro another 2 clicks coarser, so about 6 clicks from the bottom.
I have seen some people asking this question and I don't think it was ever answered very clearly, while it is something that should be in the manual, and that is how the overlap between micro and macro settings is setup? I asked this while on the phone with Baratza and they confirmed that 10 clicks of the micro is 1 click on the macro. With the Vario-W the micro has 23 positions labeled (a) to (w) and the macro has 10 positions. So what this means is that if the macro is on position 2 and the micro is on position 1 (a), then to go 1 step finer we would go to position 1 on the macro and position 10 on the micro (j).
You can also confirm this by setting the machine to the point when the burrs just meet with the macro on 1, and then set the macro to position 2 and look for the micro setting that gives the same engine sound as before. The difference between the micro settings in the two trials should be about 10 clicks.
Coffeenoobie Senior Member Joined: 11 Dec 2011 Posts: 2,313 Location: PNW Expertise: I like coffee
Espresso: N S Oscar Grinder: Vario W
Posted Wed Mar 14, 2012, 12:36pm Subject: Re: The Baratza Vario Grinder Owner's Thread
OMG. This is the smoothest espresso I have ever pulled even with it looking a bit over extracted and low volume. I did the fineness adjustment a bit too much and I am grinding at 9 after not even wetting the whole puck at 2. I think I will back it off a tad but I am very impressed with the fineness of the grinds and range of being able to choke my machine with a whole lot of ranges.
Coffeenoobie
Buying advice: GRINDER GRINDER GRINDER. Don't cheap out on the grinder. My coffee treasure map... Click Here (maps.google.com)
Posted Wed Mar 14, 2012, 4:25pm Subject: Re: The Baratza Vario Grinder Owner's Thread
Coffeenoobie Said:
OMG. This is the smoothest espresso I have ever pulled even with it looking a bit over extracted and low volume. I did the fineness adjustment a bit too much and I am grinding at 9 after not even wetting the whole puck at 2. I think I will back it off a tad but I am very impressed with the fineness of the grinds and range of being able to choke my machine with a whole lot of ranges.
Coffeenoobie Senior Member Joined: 11 Dec 2011 Posts: 2,313 Location: PNW Expertise: I like coffee
Espresso: N S Oscar Grinder: Vario W
Posted Wed Mar 14, 2012, 4:33pm Subject: Re: The Baratza Vario Grinder Owner's Thread
No I meant macro at 2 dry bottom of the puck and then moved it to 5 and still no coffee at 30 secs so moved it again to 9. I cracked it back from fine 1.5 turns and still working on dialing it in but I can't drink any more right now... must come down off caffeine buzz.
Coffeenoobie
Buying advice: GRINDER GRINDER GRINDER. Don't cheap out on the grinder. My coffee treasure map... Click Here (maps.google.com)
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