Baratza - Sette 30

Baratza Sette with the aeropress attachment. Consistent grind and dosing right into the aeropress.

I had total weirdness with an Opus I bought in early September. Yeah, retention is frustrating - at least a gram unless I bang the heck out of the top and use the lid as a bellow. But my issues with it are much bigger. I had a Oxo conical grinder for pourovers and a Sette 30 for espresso. The Oxo wasn't cutting it so decided to believe the marketing that the Opus could do from espresso to cold brew. Out of the box, first thing I tried was espresso. They say 1-2 setting for espresso. Nope - got up to 3 before I could get a decent 30 second pull but I was happy with it. Moved over to pourover. Long story short, got all the way to the 11 setting and no joy - 20g/300ml v60 was taking almost 5 minutes. I changed the inner ring (after hours and hours of research to figure it out) and I'm at a "virtual" 12 setting (inner ring/outer ring combo) and I'm getting 4:15 pourovers. Still not great. They send me an outer burr, convinced this is the issue. No joy. Then a new Opus. No change. I decide to send the "new" unit back because I paid for it (support was going to refund me when I returned my original one) and put my old one back in service. Reset the inner ring back to the coarsest setting and viola, suddenly when I'm at 12, I'm getting just over 3 minute pourovers. But this is still the coarsest setting and no way I could get a cold brew or French press grind out of it. Today, I tried espresso. Dialed it all the way down to 1 (with the inner ring at coarse, so really like it's at 2) and my shots are taking 10-12 seconds. WTH? So maybe some user error but I doubt it b/c of all the adjusting, cleaning burrs I've done over 2 months. I've been playing with the inner ring, outer ring with espresso and pourover and it's clear I can't get any more coarse than just good enough for a pourover. So it's going back to Fellow for a refund as soon as the DF54 I bought on Friday arrives.

I still have one along with a Baratza Sette and now a DF64 gen 2. It's a great grinder, especially for the price. There's a lot of Breville hate, but it's not a bad machine. My biggest complaint was that it wasn't stepless and it clumps. You can mod it to be stepless and WDT helps with the clumps. If the burrs wear out, you can change out the burr set. If it ever stops grinding, more times than not it's the burr set or a plastic gear that failed, the gear is replaceable.

Just looking at it, I can see it's got the same internal design as the burr grinder Cuisinart has been making for decades now. It's better than a blade grinder, but it's on the lowest quality rung of electric burr grinders. The cheapest baratza is significantly better.

For espresso, the Baratza Sette 30 or 270 is very good. You could probably find a used 30 for around your price point. And if any of the parts fail, you can easily repair it using their original parts from Baratza. Another option is to go manual. Kingridners are all good, with the very top one competing with some of the best entry grinders out there.

wow i didn't even know such a grinder existed! I have a sette right now and while loud, seems like it works for my needs. Hard to justify the upgrade as it's been running since 2015. I even have the old one that counts up.