The Encore’s settings include a manual on-off dial switch and a pulse button. The grind selection has 40 degrees of adjustment, which you choose by rotating the hopper. Coarseness ranges from 250 to 1200 microns, which is versatile enough for popular home methods such as manual pour-over, automatic drip, Chemex, and AeroPress. Grind adjustment settings: Both units have 40 steps from coarse to fine, although they differ slightly in range. In comparison, I noticed that using the single-dose hopper produces fewer fines and it’s more consistent. Most likely, because the single-dose hopper prevents the popcorning effect. Usability Multi-adjustment grind-sizing. Many grinders have complex interfaces for dialing in exactly your perfect size. Think a coarse adjustment and a fine adjustment. This would be, I imagine, especially useful if you were trying to get a perfect espresso extraction. It all seemed too fiddly for us. An innovative burr calibration system ensures that each grinder comes ready to grind for most home espresso machine portafilter baskets. If necessary, the grinders can be user-calibrated. SPEED CONTROL

Let the machine sit ~15 seconds after you turn it off, for some of the static holding the chaff to dissipate. The Baratza Encore uses a combination of gear and electronic speed reduction to control the rotation of the burr between 405 to 495 RPM. This slow speed reduces heat, noise, and static generation in the grinder and ensures beans feed smoothly into the burrs. Quality parts you can trustTimer: The Virtuoso+ replaces the timer on the side of the Virtuoso grinder with a front-mounted digital timer. The most important part of this review of the Baratza Encore is the reasons we love it. Some of these features are common across the Baratza range, some are very specific to this machine. The Encore is Way Better Than Blade or Manual This clever tactic expands the functionality of the original Encore while maintaining its simplicity and ease of use. Motor: A powerful, high torque DC motor effortlessly drives the burrs. This motor turns slowly resulting in cool, quiet operation and permits long grinding duty-cycles. The circuitry is equipped with an automatically resetting, thermal cutoff switch.

With a low range of 250 microns, the Encore can grind beans finely and consistently enough to produce a quality shot.Anyone moving a step forward into the abyss of home espresso won’t be happy with a Baratza Encore. The main reason for this is limited grind settings for grind sizes. Moreover, most espresso enthusiasts claim that the Encore can’t grind as fine as they need. Esatto: An accessory that transforms your Encore into a grind by weight grinder. Set the weight you want, the Esatto does the rest, weighing the ground coffee to within +/- 0.2g, while grinding, and stopping automatically. Baratza has a stellar customer support team for more severe repairs; most customers speak wonders of their service. Additionally, they can guide you through troubleshooting most issues at home by getting affordable spare parts online. Price The Encore features a manual on-off dial switch on the side panel and a front-mounted button to pulse-dose small amounts or directly into a portafilter. It does not have a timer.

Well, not exactly. It might be broken now, or you just realized you want something better. If that’s your case, the Baratza Encore is an excellent option. The Encore ESP utilizes a simple and efficient direct drive gear reduction transmission to move power from the DC motor to the rotating cone burr. A thermal overload cutout protects the motor from overheating due to excessive use. GROUNDS LEFT IN GRINDER If you always buy fresh coffee beans from a local roaster, and have started to experiment with using different kinds of mineralized water for your brew, then you might belong to the demography that could benefit from an even better grinder.

Introduction

Grinds Left in Grinder: To maximize freshness, the Encore minimises the ground coffee left in the grinder. Compared to other home grinders, it’s hard to miss the price gap between the Baratza Encore and cheaper products like the Cuisinart and Bodum. While some claim that the Baratza Encore can grind fine enough for espresso, it really shines in manual brewing methods. That means Aeropress, V60, Chemex, drip coffee, cold brew, and French Press. These all require grind particle sizes anywhere from medium-fine to coarse and in these the Baratza Encore excels. Of course it produces some fines (tiny dust-like coffee particles) like all grinders, but these are minimal especially considered to similarly priced grinders.