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Wasted 4 hours on a grinder burr alignment issue I should have caught in 10 minutes
Got a new Baratza Encore last month and spent an entire Saturday pulling shots that tasted like dirt... kept thinking it was my technique or the beans. Turned out the upper burr carrier was seated slightly off from the factory, making the grind wildly inconsistent. Finally grabbed a flashlight and a marker, did the marker test, and saw it was off by maybe 2 millimeters. Has anyone else dealt with a burr alignment problem that drove them crazy before realizing it was the machine itself?
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phoenix_bailey9d agoMost Upvoted
Gasped out loud when you said 2 millimeters... that's such a tiny gap but I bet it made everything taste like sadness. Had a similar thing happen with my old Breville where the upper burr was just a hair crooked and it took me three weeks of pulling awful shots before I noticed. Used a permanent marker on the burrs and saw it was barely rubbing on one side... drove me absolutely nuts. Felt like the coffee equivalent of a loose screw in a telescope, just enough off to ruin everything. Makes you wonder how many "bad batches" of beans are actually just misaligned grinders.
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diana_kim669d ago
I'd push back on that a bit, most bad batches are just old beans or bad roasting.
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the_tessa9d ago
@phoenix_bailey yeah that permanent marker trick is a lifesaver. I always check burrs with a flashlight and marker before anything now. Saves so much headache down the line.
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