Baratza SETTE270 Grinder, Grey/Black

Have used Baratza Encore for a number of years and been very happy with it. My only niggles were that cleaning was a little fiddly and there was insufficient grind size control at the espresso end of the dial. Essentially I had a choice of 2 settings that worked for my espresso machine with no fine tuning in between. When you first start using the Sette, be prepared for some frustrating results. My experience was that for the first 10 or so grinds, it was grinding way too fine and this was choking my espresso machine. However, Baratza support assured me that a bedding in process was necessary for the burrs to season and they were right, so I persevered with the suggested initial setting of 9E. I weigh my beans to the nearest 0.1 g into the hopper, and press preset 1 which is now fine tuned to exactly the right time to grind those beans. Retention in the burrs is less than 0.1g which I am very happy with. Cleaning is much easier than with the Encore and it is lovely to see how little coffee dust drops out when you do clean with the supplied wire brush. I do not intend to use grinder cleaning product - I prefer to clean manually once a week (or so!). It worked fine on the Encore. Grind speed is very impressive (compared to Encore), less "spitty" and it is a much much nicer looking piece of kit. (I have caught myself stroking it lovingly a couple of times). I now have to decide whether to keep the Encore for French Press grinds (Sette is primarily an espresso grinder but works well for Aeropress and Mokka - my other two favourite methods) or whether to purchase the "swappable" coarser burs which are an optional extra for this grinder. Very happy with my purchase. I am in the coffee anorak camp that believes it is better to spend on a good grinder than a good espresso machine! There is a part of me pining for the 270Wi but it was just too much of a price jump for my limited means.

Muchos molinos de café son lentos, retienen mucho grano de café, y/o no alcanzan a moler consistentemente con la finura que se requiere para un buen exprés. La Baratza Sette es, en mi experiencia con ella, uno de los pocos molinos de su categoría que sí da resultados relativamente consistentes para molido de exprés si se usa para uso casero y se le instala la rondana especial para molido de exprés (incluida de fábrica). Es un molino relativamente fácil de limpiar.

Para uso doméstico es una verdadera bestia, muy preciso y no tan ruidoso como algunos comentan. Me sobra molino.

Would leave 4.5 stars if I could. I’ve paired this with my Gaggia Classic Pro—a very good combo for making cafe-quality espresso at home. I’m a total novice and have spent weeks getting educated via YouTube and tons of websites, and going through bags of coffee getting it all dialed in through trial and error. It took a LOT of learning and plenty of mediocre shots, some gnarly channeling, and several supplemental purchases that I first assumed were unnecessary (bottomless portafilter, WDT tool, distributor, puck screen and scale that can weigh to 0.1g. It does really help to have these!) But I am now pulling shots that are better than anything I’ve ever had at any cafe. Deep, balanced flavor, perfect body, rich golden crema. The grinder is without question the most important add-on for the espresso machine. Simply put, your $100 burr grinder—even if it has an espresso/Turkish setting—isn’t going to be able to produce a fine enough grind for a Gaggia or any such prosumer-grade espresso machine. And the “espresso” pre-ground coffee you can buy at the grocery isn’t even close. Your local cafe might grind for you, but even then, they won’t be able to dial it in to exactly the right fineness. If your goal is to make real espresso at home, you need a grinder of this caliber. This machine can grind extremely fine—it comes with a shim that you can install to go even finer. I was able to grind fine enough without installing the shim: fine enough to actually stop the Gaggia’s 9 bars of pressure, and I’ve still got several increments finer I could go on the settings. I understand that as the burrs settle in, I may have to adjust it finer, but for now I don’t foresee needing the shim. The settings are intuitive and easy to dial in: just move in small increments and accept that you will waste quite a bit of coffee (and you want to use the actual beans you plan to drink—every time you switch beans, you’ll need to dial in anew). Each one-letter tweak to the smaller microadjust dial seems to equal about 3 seconds in extraction time for me. As others have noted, this grinder is LOUD. Like, wake up the household loud. So if you’re the early riser in the family and want to grind fresh each morning (which is strongly recommended), then you might need to keep this in the garage or basement. :) Also, while you’ll see reviews saying this grinder has no retention, that has not been my experience. Not a big problem once you’ve landed on the grind size you plan to keep—if there’s gram or so of day-old coffee in the mix, who cares? But if you’re still in the process of dialing it in, you want all the coffee to be at the same fineness, so you’ll want to “purge” it (just let it run for a second or so and then toss that coffee) before grinding your next batch. Finally, this is the less expensive version that has time settings rather than a built in scale. I’ll say this: espresso making is a precision art, where you’re dialing in exact grind, dosage, and extraction time. You want to get your dosage measured to the tenth of a gram consistently every time so you can control the extraction. I find the timing feature to be totally worthless—the only way I know to get the dosage just right is to use a scale. Especially with the retention mentioned above, 10 seconds’ output one day might be a gram or two different from 10 seconds the next. I found a small scale fits at the base of the grinder—I zero out a cup to grind into and just grind right into that. You get a feel for when to push “stop” to minimize coffee waste, then spoon out the few tenths of a gram of excess before pouring into the portafilter. I don’t think you’ll find a better way than this to be precise and consistent. You probably won’t find a more capable grinder at this price point that has this degree of fine-tuning adjustability. Strongly recommended! Just be aware of its (few) shortcomings—that you’d probably need to spend several hundred more to eliminate.

I had my K3 grinder for almost 10 years but it required a part to be replaced which would have cost at least $400. I was generally having problems with my espresso making, probably due to the burrs also requiring replacement. Decided to see what was new in the grinder world and found the 270: in my price range and with generally good reviews. Took the plunge and I am delighted with this grinder. All of my espresso making problems went away but I gained so much more. The controls to set the grind size and quantity being ground are simple to use and powerful. Dialing in a grind was very easy and fast. The quality of the grounds is uniform and without clumps. I won't go into detail on everything but this is very close to being the perfect grinder for me. I only have 3, extremely minor complaints. Really, I'm just nitpicking. 1. It is quite loud. (But fast. My 14 sec. grind time using the K3 is now less than 7 sec.) 2. I find it a bit difficult to correctly position the portafilter. I blame myself and I plan to see if I can adjust things and make it work better. 3. It is messy. The area around the grinder collects quite a bit of grounds after awhile but they are easily cleaned up. Overall, I highly recommend this grinder and I'd buy it again if I needed to.

Esteticamente bellissima. Completamente smontabile per le pulizie. Intuitiva nell'uso quotidiano.la pesatura automatica e' perfetta. La consiglio a chi e' maniacalmente interessato a fare ottimi caffè.