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Cake day: June 22nd, 2023

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  • If you were simply cleaning grungy machines I wouldn’t call that a refurb.

    The Encore burr collar was a cheap enough part though the added shipping cost was annoying. I ordered a replacement and put it in, and I didn’t have to deeply disassemble the grinder. IDR for sure whether I needed tools but I think I did. But, 2 failures in 2 years = unreliable devices, and neither was heavily used. I don’t see how to call a kitchen appliance BIFL if it needs repairs annually.

    BIFL is difficult for anything with model specific parts. I’m unable to get a replacement oven rack for my Whirlpool combo oven made in the 1990s. Just a wire rack, nothing high tech, but specific dimensions that don’t seem to exist as standard. Similar situation with my Dirt Devil vacuum cleaner from 2003 or so.

    Anyway, we’re going around in circles so I’m going to stop.


  • solrize@lemmy.mltoBuy it for Life@slrpnk.netCoffee Grinder
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    1 day ago

    I thought you said you had refurbished a dozen Encores. Why did they need refurbishing if they weren’t broken? As mentioned, I’ve broken two. On the second one, the plastic burr collar broke and Baratza told me it was a common failure. It would surprise me if that happens with the Forte, at least for light duty home users like me. I don’t remember what went wrong with the first one. I emailed Baratza and they sent me a replacement Encore under warranty. Their warranty service is definitely good.

    Most of what I know about the Forte comes from IRC and forums. I’ve seen them in use but have never disassembled one or anything like that.

    There is one for sale near me for $300 if you want one. I’m very slightly tempted but nah:

    https://www.home-barista.com/buysell/baratza-forte-grinder-w-bg-burrs-san-francisco-t102725.html

    Is OP still around? I haven’t used my Encore in a while, so if you want to buy it, PM me. I’d call it an ok entry level grinder. I wouldn’t call it BIFL.

    It occurs to me, there are some manual grinders in the $100 range that are possibly BIFL. Some people like 1zpresso though I haven’t tried one myself. Manual grinding is too tedious for me in the morning when I haven’t had any coffee yet. That’s another reason to not do home espresso as well.


  • Because they use the same internals. Same exact motor. Just has a different shape on the output shaft.

    Erm, going from “The two grinders share a particular component” (even if it’s the motor) to “same internals” is quite a stretch of logic. Though I guess you could go further and reach from “they use the same power cord” to “they are the same grinder”. Try to do better. E.g.: check the gear train. I’ve never looked at a Forte closely but the plastic gears in the Encore are unimpressive. Also the burr holder and shaft, etc. Basically all the mechanical stuff. Or just lift them. Per web search, Encore=7 lbs, Forte=13 lbs, might indicate something.

    I wonder if the Forte breaks as easily as the Encore?

    Well you’ve had to fix a dozen Encores. How many broken Fortes have you fixed?

    That said, I’m personally not that interested in the Forte. Someone recommended it when I saw a used Vario advertised cheap, but I didn’t pursue either.










  • Thanks, yeah, my friends use Fusion 360. I don’t have a working Windows machine right now but maybe I can set something up or run under Wine.

    Yeah right now what I want to do is duplicate a shower door guide which is a 3 inch plastic part with some specific grooves and a screw hole. It’s incredibly hard to find the right one online or tell that it’s right. Home Depot doesn’t even have that kind of thing in their store any more. I do at least have a reasonably intact one that I can measure with a caliper.

    Yikes, a 28 minute video, but I guess I’ll watch it during some downtime at some point. Thanks again.


  • solrize@lemmy.mltoBuy it for Life@slrpnk.netCoffee Grinder
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    3 days ago

    The encore has 40 grind size levels. It is literally an espresso grinder.

    Um lol no, it doesn’t work like that. Doing 40 or 400 or for that matter stepless is mechanically trivial in a grinder. If that was all it took, nobody would buy Kafateks.

    best entry level brand at this price. You will only be disappointed by comparing it to machines multiple times the cost

    That doesn’t sound BIFL to me, if you buy it today and then upgrade to a better one when you can afford to. While not being absolutist, BIFL to me means that you have a reasonable expectation that it is the last one that you are ever going to buy. So the gear has durable enough to last that long, and good enough that you feel that it will always meet your standards.

    Do you know what the difference is? Between a general purpose grinder and an espresso grinder?

    Yes, OP didn’t ask about espresso at all. Espresso is a huge money sucking rabbit hole that I wisely(?) avoided entering back when I was into this kind of thing. It’s a permanent upgrade treadmill. I have several aquaintances with Kafateks, Lyn Webers, machines of the week, lab instrumentation, microscope photos of coffee grounds, etc. I decided not to care. Once in a while I go to the local cafe and have a Slayer shot and I’m satisfied. I don’t have to be able to do that at home.

    As for the Encore, well, you’ve had a dozen broken ones in your shop. I’m not an abusive or especially heavy user and I’ve broken two of them myself. It’s an ok grinder but BIFL doesn’t come into it, it just doesn’t. It’s nice that you can get repair parts from them today but do you really expect the company to exist (and not be absorbed into some evil conglomerate) through your entire lifetime? The Forte (Baratza’s semi-commercial model at around $800 new) might be a plausible BIFL grinder for the average person. Basically you want a grinder made for commercial or industrial duty, so its service interval (however many thousand pounds of coffee it is supposed to grind before needing major repairs) is larger than a home user is likely to use in their lifetime. If I had unlimited funds I’d probably want a Kafatek, but mostly because I think they are cool.

    Baratza was founded in 1999. Do they still sell repair parts for the grinders they were making in those early years? The part that failed on my second Encore was the burr collar, a weird shaped piece of plastic that probably can’t be gotten anywhere else. Maybe I could 3D print one but that’s beyond the call of duty.

    Also don’t forget that lots of Encore users like to upgrade the burr to the one sold in the next higher (Virtuoso) model. I never bothered doing that with mine.

    The OP was asking for a BIFL grinder with a maximum budget of $100.

    Yes and I’m asking for a flying pony. I think it’s best to give a realistic answer, which is that what they are asking for does not exist. That happens in every area of life and adults are supposed to be used to it and not get upset. There’s a Bunn G2 on Craigslist right now for $275 and that’s totally BIFL after a mod or two. There’s also a G9 for under $200 but my coffee nerd buddies advised against that model. We don’t have to be like AI chatbots who tell hapless humans what they want to hear even if it’s nonsense.

    It’s not completely impossible to keep it under $100 if you see something that is being thrown out from a restaurant or whatever. But that’s a matter of luck.




  • The OP question wasn’t about seeking a cheap grinder, it was about seeking a BIFL grinder. I can accept that there’s no realistic way to get both without being lucky.

    I seem to remember there is a way to get stepless adjustment for the grind size in a Bunn. Also the Encore isn’t much of an espresso grinder either.