At SCAA in Boston, there was a satellite cafe at the entrance to the show, organized by Nick Cho and Elise Hogan of Kalita USA. They invited Prima Coffee, Marco, La Marzocco, and Baratza to join them in providing the coffee service. They also invited Baristas and coffee professionals from across the US to come and prepare coffees offered from some of the best Roasters in the industry. The attendees were guaranteed excellent coffee every day!

The Forté was on the brew bar – it’s first ‘outing’ – and was really put through it’s paces from a multitude of baristas who had never seen it before, not to mention the huge crowd constantly lined up for coffee! We were anxious to hear what they had to say and reached out to ask about their experiences around the areas of:
- Ease of Setup
- Ease of Use with Interface
- Intuitiveness
- Consistency
- Durability
- The new Shut-Off Hopper

The feedback below from professionals from Intelligentsia Coffee, Sightglass Coffee, and Four Barrel Coffee all point to a grinder that answers the requests we’d received for a quality, commercial, weight-based grinder.

Jesse Raub, Wholesale Educator, Intelligentsia Coffee:
“It seemed super simple to set up. The interface was great — after a minute of studying it, I was able to set the dose without even thinking. Everything on the grinder seemed spot on. I was able to use it without any extra instructions. The weight function was great — I set it for 30g and got 30.1g everytime. It was really amazing. I was grinding right around the middle setting across the board, and was grinding 30 grams at a time. I went through a kilo in three hours, so it cranked out 30 batches with no trouble at all. The Shut-off Hopper worked great!”

Annie McGee, Wholesale Account Representative, Sightglass Coffee Roasters
“Ease of set up was great, I was able to hop on the brew bar and immediately make the needed adjustments to begin service. I think what really impressed me was the volume that the grinder could handle while still providing consistency. In a 4 hour period I brewed 5 lbs of coffee, which is an incredible amount for a pour over station. During that time the grinder was able to keep up with my flow of service and remained consistent with dose and grind.”

Alex Powar, Education, Four Barrel Coffee Roasters
“Overall I’m really impressed with the sturdiness of the build and more than anything else, I’m particularly excited for what this grinder means for high end restaurant accounts that are looking for a grinder that can satisfy their coffee brewing needs. One of the biggest hurdles in restaurant coffee is convincing accounts of the necessity of spending time to weigh out coffee in and coffee out. The dream scenario from a wholesaler perspective is to find a durable grinder that produces consistent particle size and predictable integrated weight-based dosing that one can lock in so that it’s not as easy for baristas or restaurant staff to void the programmed parameters.”

Specialty Coffee Association of America held ‘The Event’ this year in Boston. What a show! What an event! We are still reeling from it, two weeks on!

Prior to ‘The Event’ was the two day Symposium, which Kyra Kennedy and I were fortunate enough to attend. On day one, we got to learn about the super critical issue of our times, in coffee – Coffee Leaf Rust – what it is, where it is prevalent and what is being done to deal with it. Truly this is a shocking situation and impacting plants and people at all parts of the chain. Coffea genetics followed, appropriately, as the industry deals with the rust challenge and searches to find solutions. From coffee scientists working all over the world, we got a crash course in coffee varieties, breeding, and biology. Being where we are, at Baratza, on the second to last stop for coffee, before it’s consumed, there was so much fascinating information on what it takes to get the beans into our grinders, that rarely shows up on our radars!
Day two brought talks on the topic of the importance and success of collaboration in facing challenges in Speciality Coffee plus inspirational presentations from innovators within and outside the coffee industry. Ask anyone there about the Mushroom guy – amazing! We enjoyed listening to Keith Gehrke from Able Brewing about how he developed his products and were also lucky enough to have the opportunity to sit with him at lunch and get to hear even more about his journey:) Symposium ended with a video and talk on the changing face of the coffee consumer.
In between all these presentations we had great meet-ups with so many people that we often only get to see once or twice a year! There was a ‘conversation lounge’ hosted by Curtis and the mega cool part, (beyond Brant Curtis, Krista Reddington and Jeff Landy – Team Curtis!) was that it was the FIRST time we got to see our new Forté grinder, live and in action! Curtis paired it with their Gold Cup Brewer and it worked brilliantly, out of the box, serving up delicious coffees for two days. It was a great kick-off for it and our thanks to Curtis for trusting us and showing it!
Katy Goulding, SCAA’s Business Development Manager was one of the delightful face to face meetings we had! Sarah Dooley from La Marzocco, aided by Bennett Cross of Blue Bottle, led a team of Baristas from across the US, serving exceptional coffee to all the attendees. We were spoiled by Sarah’s graciousness and incredible sense of service. All in all – a packed two days!

‘The Event’ happened at the Boston Convention Center from Friday – Sunday, and literally we had people in our booth non-stop for the whole three days. It is our biggest show of the year and each year it gets better! Kyle Anderson and Quinn Anderson were on the booth with Kyra and me. It was beyond amazing to meet old friends, connect with people that we’d previously only met via email or social media and also meet new people. It’s the people, the Specialty Coffee community, that always makes the show so special. Many attendees were already quite familiar with our product range, but there were a lot of people who are setting up new businesses and wanted to learn about all we have to offer and were delighted that we had grinders to meet their customers, wherever they are in their coffee journey!

The highlight for Baratza, was the launch of the Forté grinder, our new commercial grade grinder that is solid, innovative and multi-functioning. It has the ability to grind by time or by weight. In addition to having the grinder at our booth, we had a few working in some high profile spaces – the Satellite Bar at Expo entrance, the Curtis booth, paired with the Gold Cup Brewer, and at the Brew Bar on the La Marzocco booth. The feedback was incredibly positive and the Baristas and Brew Bar owners felt like we really answered their need for a ‘beefier’ grinder to support their brew bars, catering events, wholesale accounts, restaurants and more. It was very encouraging indeed to feel people’s excitement about the grinder and to hear so many requests to actually start buying them! The other group that were super impressed were the SCAA judges as the Forte was voted “Best New Product-Coffee or Tea Preparation and Serving Equipment (Commercial) – SCAA 2013″. We were honored to receive this industry recognition.

Actually, Baratza grinders were visible throughout the show, from fundraisers for Café Femenino Foundation and Coffee Kids, to multiple competition prizes, as well as being in many of our partner’s booths. Check our Facebook page for photos! Facebook – SCAA Albums

We were proud to partner with Kalita USA, La Marzocco, Prima and Marco to provide a very special coffee bar for SCAA Expo attendees, right at the entrance to the Expo. It was a gorgeous set up, designed by Nick Cho and Elise Hogan of Kalita USA and was our first stop every morning for invigorating cups of deliciousness. We are delighted that they used both the Preciso/Esatto combination and the new Forté to support the Kalita manual brew service!

Each day, in our booth we were spoiled by the opportunity to taste more amazing coffees, expertly brewed, and that does not mean by US! Elise Hogan of Kalita USA shared the Kalita brewing method one day, Mark Barany and Andy Kwon brewed up some of their special Kuma Kochere and on the last day Brandon Paul Weaver of Slate brewed up some coffees that he’d used in his Brewers Cup competition. He uses the Esatto/Virtuoso combo in their Airstream cafe right now so shared plenty of stories with other people at the booth about his experiences – thankfully all good – phew!

While we were busy engaging with people in our booth and being on the expo floor, there were competitions going on all day for the Barista Championship , Brewers Cup, and Cup Tasters Challenge. I barely got to the Competition Hall and managed to catch Lem Butler of Counter Culture in the Semi Finals. He’s such a class act to watch and experience. I wish I had more time to soak up the atmosphere of the competitions, but thanks to the great coverage from Sprudge I was able to catch up afterwards on all the excitement of the events. We were delighted to be a National Sponsor of the three events and give grinders to all the 1st, 2nd and 3rd placed in each event. They deserve it for their courage, strength, perseverance, endurance and passion to pull off their performances. We did have a major snafu on the prizes not being on hand in Boston, and apologize to the winners, but we have since dispatched them all out. Mea culpa.

No SCAA happens without some major play time too! We caught up with my fellow countrymen Paul and Drewry from Marco at the Counter Culture Party and managed to escape before some of the excitement that happened later. Another night, we got conned by the NZ and Aussie humor, with resulting belly-aching laughter, and on the last night we had a seafood feast with our Urnex friends. Plenty of very silly moments, deep conversations and great connections to remember!

Without a doubt, the Boston SCAA will also be remembered for the tragic events that happened the day after the show. Our thoughts are with all those affected by the events and we hope for healing in their bodies and hearts.

Our thanks to SCAA organizers, attendees, customers and friends for all the contributions that made SCAA so special.

OK, so the word is out! We have new, exciting products to share!! We sent an email to our customers last week giving them the heads up about what is going to be released and they seem so delighted that they are spreading the news ahead of us. Hard to be mad when we’re glad!

We have two new products, the Forté – a commercial grade, dual-function grinder, capable of grinding by weight AND time, plus a new Removable Hopper. Both products will be launched at the SCAA in Boston in April. Here are some of the details. If you are going to SCAA in Boston, be sure to stop by our booth #1136 so you can see these products for yourself!

Forté Grinder:
Many of our café/roaster customers have been using the Vario-W for the past 1-2 years and love it. It has proven itself to be an incredible work horse in the brew bar setting with accurate, durable,and consistent grinding, producing coffees with great flavor. However, we’ve also had requests for something ‘beefier’ and more commercial. Kyle kicked his creative juices into gear and designed an incredible, innovative multi-functioning grinder that is solid. We’re very excited about this new addition to our grinder line-up and feel that it will answer the needs of café, roasters, and coffee geeks. Below is a teaser.

Key Features:
• A new DC motor with 70% more power than the current Vario and with twice the duty cycle (>50% run time)
• All metal enclosure
• All metal grinding chamber
• New graphic touch-screen user interface
• Integrated Weight and Time based grinding
• Auto-dosing feature that converts weight to grind time, automatically, to allow precise direct grinding to portafilter
• New belt drive system (to handle the additional power)
• Metal detents for positive feel and setting of grind
• New bean hopper with 20% greater capacity and bean shutoff feature
• It will be available for general release in July, 2013 and can be purchased with your choice of burr – Ceramic MSRP $950 or Metal MSRP $970

New Removable Hopper
In the process of talking to café operators about the Forté, it became clear that we needed to offer a hopper that could be removed, while beans were still in it. So that’s what Kyle came up with. It’s incredibly cool and functional!

Key Features:
• Built-in bean stopper to allow hopper removal with beans in it.
• Backward compatible to Vario/Vario-W and (with minor modification) to all Baratza conical burr grinders
• Accepts Baratza hopper extender
• Dimensions 5.25″ Diameter X 5.25″ high
• Capacity 300 grams/10 ounces
• Available July 2013 for MSRP $35

TED is passionate about people sharing their ideas to enrich the lives of others. This year, TED2013 kicks off on February 25th, with two events, running simultaneously, at Long Beach and Palm Springs, with the theme of “The Young, The Wise, The Undiscovered”. Happily, Specialty Coffee will be an enriching component of the attendee experience and a time of coffee discovery for many!

In 2012, the organization Coffee Common collaborated with TED to provide coffee service for the event. The coffee program was hugely successful. Baristas shared their delicious coffees from around the world, as well as sharing the stories of the growers and roasters.

(photo – Brian Jones, CoffeeCommon)

This year the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA), in partnership with the Barista Guild of America (BGA), are stepping in to lead the coffee program for TED. Roasters across the country have submitted coffees which will be brewed as espressos and on manual brew bars. We are thrilled that once again our weight based grinder, the Vario-W, has been chosen to be the grinding workhorse to support all the manual brew bars! With an event of this size, the need for accuracy, repeatability and reliability on a busy bar is critical. Grinding by weight eliminates the need for the baristas to pre-weigh the coffee, but instead allows the hoppers to be filled with the featured coffees of the hour or day, set the grind size and then grind the dose required, on demand. This allows the baristas to focus their time on the attendees they are serving.

Sharing their coffee knowledge and expertise, as well as putting 19 Vario-W’s through their paces this week, will be an awesome team of brilliant baristas, selected by the TED Coffee Team. They “were vetted for their ability to not only make great coffee but have a high level of knowledge and exemplary customer service skills”.

We wish all the BGA baristas and SCAA organizers a very successful week, and thank them in advance for volunteering their time and for creating this enriching coffee experience for the TED Attendees.

Other sources for info on the event:
Read about TED2013 – The Young. The Wise. The Undiscovered.
Barista Guild of America list of selected baristas
CoffeeCommon/TED2012 experience with Vario-W

Recently we’ve had a lot of questions from consumers about the faceplate change on the Vario and it seems we have been remiss in not sharing the what, why, when of it all!

In 2011, we had Vario customers asking for markings to allow for recording of the grind settings, so they could return to prior settings and improve repeatability. One customer actually did a photoshop mockup which we took and improved on! We first did this with the Vario-W in September 2011, and soon after introduced it on the standard Vario in Fall 2011. The changes to be noted are letters for the Micro settings and numbers for the Macro settings, plus a change from “Espresso, Filter, Press” on the preset buttons to a numbered option.

The picture on the outside of our Vario boxes has not changed yet and we apologize for this confusion. But all Vario’s sold since the Fall of 2011 have the revised faceplate. If you have an older grinder and would like the newer faceplate you can purchase it through our online store for $30.

NEW AND UPDATED VARIO FACEPLATE

Old Vario Panel

Recently, a friend was telling us about a dishwasher she’d bought just two years ago that had broken down. When she asked about having it repaired, there was a slight snicker and the response that it was already obsolete and no parts available! She was shocked. She now had to buy a new machine and this broken one was going to the landfill – two bad outcomes.

We then got talking about our approach to parts, repairs, and the landfill. It has long been our strategy at Baratza that we design and build grinders that can be repaired, and mostly repaired by the user, without having to be sent back to us. We do this so our customers can easily, quickly, and inexpensively fix their grinder and get back to grinding their coffee fresh each day. So we’ve created an extensive troubleshooting section, on our website, for each of our grinders to help identify problems and make a quick fix. If you need a part, we have all of them available on our website too! We provide parts not only for current grinders, but also for grinders we discontinued years ago! Or if you are not the handy type, you can send it to us and we will repair it.

Grinders that are under warranty, are often replaced and we take the problem grinder back. We do this so you can get a working grinder quickly. The returned grinders are fixed, cleaned, and updated to the newest parts. We then resell these refurbished grinders at a reduced price, on our website. Whatever stock we have is released every Thursday morning. They come with a 1 year warranty. By refurbishing our grinders we minimize what goes to the landfill and offer a great value to consumers.

In addition, in 2005, we made the corporate decision to eliminate all Styrofoam from our packaging and have moved to all recycled cardboard packaging.

And you’ve heard about our products for weight-based grinding, the Esatto and Vario-W? Well in 2011 we purposefully designed the Esatto as an accessory to the Encore, Virtuoso and Preciso. This allows all current owners of these products to move to weight-based grinding without having to discard their current machine and purchase a new machine.

We know there are many manufacturers that think we’re crazy to let consumers fix their own machines, or that we offer refurbs, but to us it is good business – because it takes care of Baratza, our customers and the planet at the same time.

At the beginning of 2012 we introduced the 2nd generation gearbox (GB 2.0) for our conical burr grinders. All new grinders manufactured since January have the new gearbox. At the same time, we developed a parts kit to upgrade the gear box of Baratza conical burr grinders manufactured before 2012. A LOT of people are upgrading their grinders to the new gear box. We felt that the response warranted an installation “how-to” video, in addition to our installation guidelines, already in our troubleshooting section, so here it is! YouTube GB 2.0 installation video

Upgrade kit for Baratza gearbox 2.0

In case you are not familiar with the GB 2.0, here are the highlights!
With GB 2.0, we significantly increased the strength and durability of the drive transmission while decreasing noise. In addition to a new drive shaft, motor mounting plate and bushings, this change included a new drive gear made of 15% glass filled thermo plastic which is quieter than the prior metal gear, wears better and is more shock resistant. We tested it by throwing stainless screws into the burrs, and in every case the motor/gear/burrs stopped dead and the (automatically-resettable) thermal cutout was triggered and the gears were fine.

The upgrade kit is available through our webstore GB 2.0 rebuild kit

Something happens with your grinder and it stops working or grinds differently to how it used to. You’re afraid you won’t be able to make another cup of coffee. You need coffee, what do you do?

First we recommend you check our Troubleshooting pages on our website, organized by grinder – it has answers and solutions there to all the most frequently asked questions, plus lots of pdf documents with step by step instructions for fixing your grinder yourself. Yes, it can be done!

If you can’t find your solution there, then please E-mail us at Support@baratza.com – we promise to get back to you within one business day, (but usually we get back to you within a couple of hours!). One of our brilliant support people can solve the problem quickly through e–mail, without the bother of telephone tag.

If email is not an option, give us a Call at 425 641 1245 and we will assist you as soon as possible. We are often on the phone with others customers and will need to call you back, which unfortunately can lead to a delay if we get into the phone tag loop, that’s why email is so wonderful!

When you email or call, please provide us with the following information:
- Product Name
- Serial Number
- Date purchased and from whom
- Type of beans used (light/med/dark roast)
- Brief description of the error: enclose photos where available/appropriate
- Preferred method of reply – email or phone. (Give number)

Our hope (of course!) is that you and your grinder have a hassle-free relationship, but we are realistic in knowing that issues do arise. We expect this info will be helpful to you and ensure that you receive timely, efficient support and service!

Recently we did a short blog on the life of burrs! It was well received and generated many more questions from our Baratza community, especially around the topic of the differences between ceramic and metal burrs, and the heat generated in burrs, when grinding. We decided it was time that Kyle Anderson, download some of that knowledge that he’s built up over his 20 years in the business of designing and manufacturing coffee machines and grinders, and let you in on some facts on these burrs! By the way, Kyle’s the President and Co-owner of Baratza, plus he’s the chief designer/engineer/geekhead – he knows a thing or two!

So, here you go………….

____________________________________________________________________________________

by Kyle Anderson

As with the ongoing argument about which is better: a Ford or a Chevy, so goes the banter about steel vs. ceramic burrs in coffee grinders. In the former argument the facts are few and the fur flies readily, in the later the same is true. The few known “facts” about steel and ceramic burrs are mixed in with a large dose of misunderstandings. My goal with this blog is to lay out the facts, dispel the most common misunderstandings, all in the hopes of producing a better educated coffee grinder user/buyer. While we have produced grinders for 11+ years with conical and flat burrs, I will limit this missive to flat burrs only.

First a few facts….

-Ceramic burrs are harder than steel and last (on average) about twice as long as steel burrs.

-Ceramic burrs are more brittle than steel so you could chip the ceramic burr if a very hard rock was hiding in the beans.

-Ceramic burr are less thermally conductive than steel, this means these burrs transfer less heat than steel burrs (See below on heat).

-Ceramic burrs require a custom mold or tool to form them. These tools are not cheap so there are far fewer ceramic burr designs to choose from than steel.

-Unit cost of ceramic burrs are MUCH lower than comparable steel burrs, typically less than half (after the molds to make the burrs are paid for)

-Ceramic burrs are ideal for heavy duty commercial applications (see LaMarzocco Swift grinder for $4500! It is only sold with ceramic burrs)

-The material of the burr has no bearing on the speed it must rotate, this is a function of the design of the teeth.

-The noise generated during grinding is a function of the teeth design not the material of the burr.

-Ceramic and steel burrs both handle all roasts equally

-Steel burrs MAY be more durable than ceramic if a stone is encountered, but the steel burr can dent or chip also.

Heat and grinding coffee beans: the big misunderstanding

Thermal conductivity of the burrs (i.e. The material they are made from) has NO BEARING on the root cause of heat build up in grinders which comes from a combination of internal friction as the coffee bean is crushed, and from minor friction in the actual cutting of the bean by the burrs. The sharper the burrs ,the less heat is created in the cutting of the bean. The majority of heat creation comes from the crushing of the bean. One could actually argue that the higher thermal conductivity of steel burrs can actually decrease the heat of the ground coffee in small batches. This is because the heat is created IN the bean and is then transferred to the burrs. If the burrs are steel, they will do a MUCH better job of transferring this heat away from the coffee and to the housing of the grinding mechanism. The actual surface temperature of the grinding surface will be similar whether the burr is steel or ceramic, except for that heat which is able to transfer through the burr and away from the coffee. In large industrial coffee grinders, the burrs are mounted to a plate that has water cooling running through it. The burrs conduct the heat away from the beans (and the grinding surface) to the water. A secondary source of heat in ground coffee comes from heat that is stored in the burrs and grinder housing (from coffee ground earlier or immediately preceding) and transferred back into the coffee being ground in the moment. And this brings me to another pet peeve:

The speed of rotation of grinding burrs and the effect on heat build up in the the ground coffee.

Dull and/or poorly designed burrs (of any material (steel or ceramic)) will result in inefficient grinding of the coffee which in turn will generate more heat in the beans. The actual speed of rotation of the burrs is not the dominant (or even significant) variable. I have seen designs of conical burrs turning at 3400 rpm and grinding 10+ grams per second and the coffee comes out cool. (Typical conical burr grinders turn at 300-500 rpm) An argument can be made for lessening the contact time that the coffee beans have with the burrs (once the burrs get hot). Remember, the surface of the burrs get hot from the beans that have been ground before, this hot surface can then conduct this heat back into new coffee. As coffee passes through the grind path quickly (this can only happen with well designed, sharp burrs and a clever grind chamber design) the contact time is so minimal that the only heat experienced by the coffee is that from its own crushing and cutting, not from latent heat in the burrs or grinder housing.

I hope this writing has shed some light on common misunderstandings relative to burrs materials and heat issues in the grinding of coffee.

People ask us all the time about life expectancy of their burrs. It’s hard to give a hard and fast rule as the life expectancy of a burr varies, depending on the type of coffee, degree of roast, grind size, volume ground, and any rocks you may run into! The increasingly popular lighter roasted beans tend to be a lot harder on the burrs. However, as a good rule of thumb you can expect the burrs on our grinders to last as follows:

• Encore, Virtuoso and Preciso burrs 300 to 500 pounds of coffee
• Vario and Vario-W 500 to 1000 pounds of coffee

So, take my household for example, I mainly use a Vario to grind for espresso. My household makes about 8 double shots a day. Dose for the shots are 20 grams. The Vario is grinding 160 grams a day or around 58,400 grams a year. There are 453 grams of coffee in a pound. So I am grinding about 129 pounds a year. This number is a little low since once a month I use my grinder to cater a coffee hour at church and serve about 100 drinks. I also grind for Chemex, French press, Aeropress, and there is always the wasted coffee dialing in a new coffee. So I estimate that I grind about 150 pounds of coffee a year. Therefore, my Vario burrs should last about 3 to 7 years.

It is difficult to know when to change the burrs. One clear indication that it is time for new burrs is if your grinder is not capable grinding coarse any more.