Baratza - Encore™

X Ultra is fine. K Ultra is even better if he ever wants to do espresso, but costs more. Do not let anyone tell you to get a 1 Zpresso ZP6, it is amazing but well over budget and may be too clear for him at first. He should get one later though. If you want electric I would go Baratza ENC, do not get the DF54, it is not great for pour over. I would reccomend sticking with a hand grinder though. Get much more for your money.

I’ve had my Baratza Encore grinder since 2023 and been using it everyday since. Do I need to replace the burrs?

Another vote. We use it daily for the past 2 years. Got it for $100 from Crate & Barrel on sale.

$100 for Baratza at C&B sure was a deal and I am glad you grabbed one for the same. High five!! Costco did bring in a coffee grinder, but I never saw one in person here in YEG.

Imo something like a C2 is best QPR (to use a wine term) for Moka. Moka doesn't benefit from the absolute most uniform grinders like pour over or espresso do. I think entry level pour over grinders are just fine for the use case. But imo still important to be able to dial in a new bean with a new roast. Something like an Encore will do you just fine if you really want electric, but hand grinders provide much better value if you can deal with the manual grind aspect. I always found it to be gratifying tbh. Re: pre-ground vs fresh ground, its really no contest. Fresh ground just unlocks so many possibilities for flavor- terroir, roast level, grind size, different fermentation processes.

The encore has been a fantastic grinder for me for at least 4-5 years. Still a bit pricey but you buy it once and never have to worry about it again.

\+1 for the Encore, we love ours, no signs of slowing whatsoever, consistent.

If you just want one, get a decent coffee burr that can do fine & coarse. Might cost more but you won’t hate your first latte or espresso. If I had to pick: Baratza Encore or Breville Smart Grinder Pro.

I do Aeropress, Clever Dripper, and drip brewer. I replaced Encore with a Shardor 64 running Ode2 burrs. Encore produced a lot of fines. Have the K6, use it for lighter roasts. Non offense, but any option will give you remarkably better results than blade grinder.

I have an encore for espresso for over a year now. Started with a dedica and now a la Pavoni. It does work well enough, but I'm now upgrading to a much better grinder. If you only want to brew dark roast Italian charcoal style espresso, the encore is enough to work with. But I'm running into issues with medium roast beans. It's not that I can't dial it in, it's just that the encore is not sensitive enough. There's not enough steps. Sometimes the coffee is bitter, so I move the dial a millimeter and now it's sour. If you do get it, make sure you recalibrate it immediately. This way you can make it a lot more sensitive, essentially doubling the number of steps. There's an official Baratza video on how to do this. You should also make it stepless while you've already got it opened up. For me these two modifications are enough to make good dark roast espresso. As soon as you have beans with a little acidity, you'll need to upgrade. Also, any setting lower than 9 takes literally half an hour to grind for a single dose..

I have both. With 60 grams I think you might even need to do three batches. Not 100% sure. I quickly got to the point where I use the K6 primarily for one round of less than 20 grams. I typically do either 17 grams in the K6 or 34 grams in the Encore. I do find the better results of the K6 worth the effort.