7-Apr
In two days I will be getting my Baratza Virtuoso grinder. It is 5 years old and I’m buying it used but it’s a big step into the world of coffee snobbery! I do like a damn good cup of coffee but I grew up on truck stop coffee so anything that is “dirty water” or better, I’m pretty much okay with. Not quite but the point is, I have not forgotten from whence I came!
French press was fine with me for a while because, as my friend Dean used to say, “I like my coffee like I like my women – strong and black!” And, if there was ever a coffee that was strong and black, it’s French Press. After a while, the grit and the oil really started wreaking havoc on my stomach so I switched to pour over. I thought adding a paper filter would help trap some of the oil and make it a cleaner cup of coffee, overall. That lasted for a while until…well, that’s a long story but I’ll say there were shortcuts on the technique and attention to detail that made for a pretty blah tasting cup of coffee. I really wanted more flavor so I pulled the ol’ AeroPress out of our camping supply “kitchen” tub and started making damn good coffee, one cup at a time.
Grinding the beans, however, became the next point of contention for me. It seemed pretty easy – dump one scoop of beans in the spice grinder, run it until it felt very fine, dump into the AeroPress, and make coffee. The spice grinder method worked for many, many years. I got to be pretty good with it but ultimately, you’re going to get a wide mix of granule sizes no matter how hard you try. If you want French Press, you’re going to get some granules for espresso, some for pour over, some for French Press, and some for chucking at squirrels as they root through your planting boxes. I wanted more control over my beans.
Enter the Virtuoso. A friend acquaintance from several years before posted on Slack that he was selling his. I didn’t know that I had wanted one but because:
- my birthday was coming up,
- it was a chance to get an expensive piece of machinery at a good price,
- it would free up some counter-top space (by being permanently located behind the dish rack and not out in the open like the spice grinder); and,
- it would allow the bean canister to be used to store some other dry bean-like substrate,
I thought it would be a good chance to break into the world of complete bean control!
One thing about the grinder that my friend mentioned was that the grind setting had to be made while the grinder was in the ON position. So…you had to adjust the grinder ONLY while it was grinding, thereby, wasting some amount of beans while you were switching from one setting to another. What? I cried foul and got my hands on the user manual. It definitely said something…something in one part of the manual that seemed to contradict what it was saying in another part of the manual. How can such a simple thing be described in such a complex manner? The grinder has ONE JOB – grind me beans! But exactly how to go about doing so still wasn’t clear. My brain felt betrayed by the recommendations regarding adjusting the grinder setting so I contacted the manufacturer for more information.
Their response was more than helpful:
I think it would help understand why that bit is in there. The restrictions apply to when coffee is stacked up in the hopper. Grind adjustments made from coarse to fine when the grinder is not running can be damaging to the grinder, as the rotation moves the burrs closer together with the presence of coffee beans surrounding the two burrs. However, if the grinder is running when this adjustment is made, the coffee is continually replenishing, thus no blockage happens. Grind adjustments made from fine to coarse when coffee is in the hopper and the unit is not running is not detrimental in my experience (per the grindz directions). Further, if the user does not keep coffee in the hopper at all times (if, for example, they single dose every grind like I do) the grinder can be rotated freely with the unit not running – there is nothing in the grind chamber to cause problems.
Thank you, Ryan@Baratza. Now, on to coffee excellency!