Baratza Sette 30 Conical Burr Grinder

Five star for grind quality and consistency. Very low retention. Four star for everything else. It has a serviceable grind calibration. You’ll use grind weight to offset any fine tuning that can’t be done on the calibrator ring. Easy enough to dial in, though. I’ve had mine for several years and had intended to eventually upgrade, but found it does the trick. We pull very balanced espresso every time. Fair warning: it sounds like a tornado siren. It looks good, though the materials are plastic heavy. Easy to clean and maintain.

For starters, we are typical coffee drinkers, but by no means experts. We have owned a few much cheaper grinders(blade) and the sette 30 is miles ahead of them. As burr grinders are so expensive, I see the sette 30 as an excellent affordable entry into this market for average home use. The good: -affordable -good, consistent grind quality -I think it looks nice -grinds fast -simple design that is easy to repair The not as good: -it is on the noisier side -not super easy to clean, but not overly difficult(I think this is typical for this type of grinder) -entry level build quality(more on this below) The great: -Baratza is an excellent company to deal with Build quality: I personally think the build quality is acceptable for the price. Baratza clearly focused their efforts on producing the best quality grinds at an affordable price and that meant lower quality components that do not directly affect the grind quality. The component that most complain about is the plastic gears. I agree that plastic gears are maybe not the best choice for a grinder that will be used in a professional setting for many years, but that is not the application that this grinder was designed for. We got 4 years out of ours, with 3-4 grinds a day, before the gears finally threw in the towel. My brother has one as well that is about 3 years old and has had no issues under the same conditions. I contacted baratza(through email) and they got back to me within a few minutes. After a few questions they asked me to send some pictures of the gears, which I did, and the same day a new gearbox was on the way FREE OF CHARGE. I couldn’t believe that they would stand behind their products like that this far out of warranty. Overall: It is a good grinder for the price and If I was in the market for a better one it would be a higher end baratza because they truly are an excellent company to deal with.

Upgraded from a Baratza Encore to this grinder. Grind performance is very good; aesthetically a very pleasant grinder. Noticeably louder than the already pretty loud Encore, which I don't love. Timer resolution down to the 0.01 in the 0-10 seconds range feels completely unnecessary.

TL;DR: Grinder is fantastic from a functional perspective. The internal design is great, using simple but high quality components that are assembled with care. Best product support in the space. Highly recommend. Got the grinder 5 years ago and until recently it's worked with no issues whatsoever. A few months back it stopped turning on for some reason (think it might've been due to an electrical surge during a storm). I finally got around to engaging support and have been very happy with how it's gone so far. I chose to take apart the unit on my own, just to see if there was any component that was obviously fried like a blown fuse or a warped capacitor, to narrow down what the issue was. I unfortunately wasn't able to identify the issue, but the internals are incredibly well put together. The solders are clean, many times there will be giant blobs of excess solder all over, the solders in this are done so well that you have to actually look closely to see what is soldered. The adhesive used is also near perfectly applied. There was a small line from drip on one of the components but it was barely noticeable and was easily taken off that piece. The grinder's burr still looks pristine, even after 5 years of near daily use; same goes for the rest of the grinder. I rarely if ever see a device like this put together so well. Digital components are used sparingly, just the power board and the display so very little that can go wrong with it and since it's a relatively simple machine it's easy to service yourself if you want and replacement parts are priced in a sane way. Many companies will jack up the price of components so it's not ever worth repairing, forcing you to buy a replacement or to spend an equivalent amount on repairs. One thing I think speaks to the longevity Baratza expects from their grinders is when I was discussing the issue with the support tech, he mentioned "given the age of the unit I wouldn't expect any problems with the motor or burr grinder itself". After over five years they don't expect any issues. I don't know if that or the fact they allocate skilled personnel to continue servicing things domestically, no cost cutting by offshoring or "near shoring" taken, no scripted "run doc" that limits their ability to provide support. No corners cut, a well thought out grinder made of simple, yet high quality components with one of the design pillars being serviceability. A very rare thing in modern manufacturing. They offered to send parts out for free for me to replace but I opted to just send it to because the price was more than fair given the amount of time I'd save. All told the repair came to under 50 dollars including shipping. I don't know how they come out ahead with that pricing (would expect the combined cost of shipping, labor time and parts to be well over that) but I'm all for it. Only other standard household brand that comes to mind for similar reasons is Speed Queen for laundry appliances, although they're primarily focused on commercial with consumer facing business being supplemental rather than core. As for the actual function of the device and quality of the grind, I have no complaints. Burr grinders produce a consistent grind by design, it's why they're used over a bladed grinder. I've never had clogging issues with beans that are dark and oily, or similar common problems grinders can present. I flip around on brewing method quite a bit so I've used it for doing fine grinds for espresso, medium for pour over, coarse for french press, etc. I haven't found any size that cause it to choke it up, produce inconsistent grain sizes or any other issues that plague other grinders. I've never done Turkish style brewing which supposedly needs a grind finer than espresso so that might cause issue, but I highly doubt it. It performs consistently and has a simple but elegant mechanical design that does wonders for reliability. If you want to avoid issues, simply don't be an idiot like me and instead use a surge protector. Attached pics of the components since I don't have any other use for them and might interest some to see vs. more common review images. If you're concerned about the price, keep in mind the above that this is made to last a long time (decade+) and is actually serviceable. Most if not all the other brands will require you to replace it within that time span which will probably end up costing more than the higher one time cost. I'd guess that the Fellow Ode is the closest comparison and you're only able to replace the burrs in that, anything else and an entire replacement unit is needed.

I purchased this in November 2020 and have been using it once to three times a day since. Might not be the most precise super duper fancy machine out there, but it certainly does the job well enough for me. Since owning all I have done is to take it apart periodically and clean the gears off with a brush. Simple to do. I would think even non mechanically inclined would be able to accomplish without issue. I use this for grinding shots for a Gaggia Classic Pro. Works great and compared to the grinders the coffee places made out that I "had to have" that are 2 or 3 times the price, I saved significant money and have enjoyed many a coffee using it. As with any machine you need to dial in the grind size as close as you can for the beans you have. Once you have that done then away you go. I've had no issues with slipped adjustments or anything. I simply set the grind size and adjust the time to the beans and I'm ready to grind shot after shot. Really easy to use! If you are in doubt then don't be. Unless you need your coffee ground on a south facing slope, at a humidity between 30% and 40%, at precisely 68.3 degrees F grind head temp, under a new moon etc. etc. etc. then don't sweat it. This grinder will be perfect for the home user who just wants a good cup of coffee freshly ground. One note on noise. YES this grinder is somewhat loud. Having said that, it is only going to run a few seconds so big deal. Grind your coffee and go. If the whole house is asleep and you are trying to grind your coffee at 2am with a flashlight so as not to wake anyone, then good luck. :)

Stopped working after 3 years. Motor went bad. Grinder stuck hard; that's the reason most probably for motor failure. But anyway, this Baratza grinder is not good. It does not grind fine enough and consistently enough. It needs often periodic adjustments and tuning. Adjustments do not stay for a long time. Grinder is also very loud, and I mean it. Do yourself a favor, skip this product and buy something else. Breville Pro for example, which is cheaper and many times better. That's what I bought as the replacement and WOW. Different world! Finally getting consistent grinding and as a result, consistent and excellent coffee. And BTW, I did upgrade Baratza 30 to 270 with the upgrade package. Did not help at all.

This was my first conical grinder. I purchased this with a Brevile Bambino Plus. This was my first foray into at home espresso. I have always heard the grind is more important than anything else. I was not disappointed. My daughter helped me keep notes as we moved through different grind levels to find the right balance that was not bitter or acidic, with great creama. It was amazing to fine tune with this grinder. Within 1 level of coarsness, the espresso was amazing. What i mean by that is i tried a 15 grind and the espresso was bitter, at 17 it was chocolatey and balanced with no bitterness. I found 17-18 was the best grind for my machine. I like the hopper and the fact that the portafilter fits underneath for quick access. It does leave a little residue on the bottom but I would think when grinding coffee there would be some grounds to clean up. The timer is also great. I fined tuned the time to get the right amount of grounds every time. The grinder saves your grind time so that is super convenient. The sound actually isn't as loud as I expected. I didn't get this in exchange for a review, although that would have been great since this grinder is great.

The GOOD: 1) grinds more than fine enough for espresso (will easily go fine enough to plug the extraction with my Gaggia) 2) steps might be a bit large without the micro-adjust on the Sette 270 but I truly didn't find this a problem as #8 worked great for most of the beans I use The BAD: 1) NOISY!!! 2) Major static on the grinds (even if you add a drop of moisture)! if you hate cleaning up a mess of grinds, don't even bother trying to hold a portafilter below the discharge chute. Even if you buy a funnel, it's a pain as some will go flying. I settled on using a dosing cup held in close contact with adjustment ring to minimize static. 3) Last but not least, on day 59 I went to make my morning espresso and nothing, zilch, nada... no sign of life or power indicated on the display at all. Disappointed to say the least! UPDATE; I managed to repair the unit and Baratza was fairly helpful sending guides to show how to disassemble and inspect the fuses. Although my problem wasn't one shown in any of their guides, it was a simple fuse, but it was one that was NOT designed to be replaced as it's an auxiliary protection for a housekeeping power supply for the low voltage circuitry. I hope this repair holds for more than 2 months, but if it does this again I'll update my review.