Baratza Vario-W Coffee Grinder - Baratza 985

This is my 3rd espresso grinder and it is by far my favorite one. Previously I had a cuisinart grinder, I returned it after using it for one day, espresso went all over the place and the grind quality was all over the place, so for a while I would just have the coffeeshops grind my coffee instead (which I have since learned was a terrible but I was using a super-auto so it didn't make that much of a difference).Once I got the Breville BES900XL Dual boiler I decided I needed a real grinder as well, so I initially purchased it with a Breville Smart Grinder. For about a week I wasted bags after bags of espresso(*tears up remembering the bags of wasted honolulu coffee company/gimme coffee/intelligentsia*), I thought that maybe I was in over my head with the machine and I should have just gone back to my Jura. But I decided to change the grinder since I read others were getting inconsistent grinds from the smart grinder.With this grinder, I had to adjust the grind settings twice, and I didn't have to touch it as long as I had the same bag of espresso, and I would get great shots from my BES900XL shot after shot. With the smart grinder I had two big issues, inconsistent weight dosing it would vary from by 1-4g _everytime_, even more if you adjust the setings. Also, I noticed that at the finest grind setting it was still fairly chunky. It was pretty much night and day difference with the Vario's the grind quality and accurate weight based dosing.The only negative thing I can say is that when I first needed to clean it, I thought I could just take it apart and brush it down, but the upper burr is installed very tightly and unless you have a tool that can provide you leverage there is no way your going to get it off don't even bother trying unless you want to cut up your fingers. I contacted customer support regarding this, and they were very fast to respond but their recommendation was to use Grindz/Puro to clean the grinder every month. (Luckily amazon has 4 for 3 promotions for Grindz and Puro so it was fairly cheap to buy supply for a year.)

Maybe I've been really unlucky or as I'm guessing these until need some re-design to solve some issues. For $575 I expected more.The prosCompact unit. Fits easily into a cupboard or on the counter against the wall.Large flat ceramic burrs with many many settings for the perfect grind.Quite, much more than our old blade grinder.Weight base grindingMotor not attached directly to the burr. If you grind allot of coffee this advantageous. The motor will not heat up the burr in turn heat up the coffee.The cons and my experienceYou need to have super strong hands to remove the burr.My first Vario W ran for 1 second and (as I found out later) the electronics had burned out.My second Vario W. has a list of problemsCould not get the scale to zero.....if I'm lucky after pushing the tare button 20-30 times I'd get 0.0It does not matter if I pushed 1 or 2 or 3 I can only get it to grind 14 grams. Doesn't matter if 1,2 and 3 are set at 60 grams I only get 14 grams and then it will grind 14gram one time. To get another 14grams it has to be unplugged..the scenario is ..14 gram....unplug.....14 grams....unplug.....14grams..The plastic bin or the scale is twisted. This causes the bin to rub against the side giving inaccurate weights. If I'm very very careful and set the bin in just right it won't hit the side...not something I want to deal with at 6:00am.The final deal breaker for me was the coffee grinds sticking in the plastic bin. When it was new the grinds easily slid out of the bin. After 2 weeks the bin needed to be bounced or hit to get the ground coffee out. A narrower plastic bin with only 4 rounded corners and sides that form into a spout is needed. A narrower bin so that when upside down over a cone filter the bottom can be tapped without having ground coffee spill onto the shelf/floor. The spout to easily fill a porta filter.****Just before I returned this I found that if I touch the plastic bin to a pcs of metal like the stainless sink this discharges the static and the grinds slide out.***

This was my first powered grinder, so I'm not able to make any comparisons. But, here are some observations...Pros:- The scale is very accurate, and works well- Grind quality looks to be very good for fine to medium sizes- Reasonably quiet and fastCons:- Static is an issue. It might be because it's winter, but sometimes it's bad enough that it defeats the purpose of the scale, because there's a significant amount of grounds in the bin that won't come out via gravity. So much for the special anti-static plastic.- I learned that a coarser grind requires an adjustment to a screw, which (after eventually grabbing a flashlight) I realized wasn't present/installed. This, combined with some scrap marks at the bottom of my bin, it makes me wonder if I got a refurb unit.- The two adjustment levels are just attached via bonded plastic, and one came loose after only a couple weeks. You think at this price, metal levers would be in order.- The screen quality is disappointing, and I could do without the blue light.- The cord holder, at maximum capacity, leaves a lot of exposed cord...seems like a strange design decision.Maybe the unit I got was a bit off, but at this price, the execution needs to be spot on, and it wasn't. I've heard good things about the Preciso, and the price is almost half this, so I'll probably try that instead.