Sette 270Wi-Grind by Weight Conical Burr Grinder

This is a terrific grinder! The range of adjustments makes it perfect for all types of coffee brewing methods, even for the most discriminating espresso aficionado. I was able to quickly dial in my grind to get the perfect espresso shot. The grind-through design leaves very little coffee in the mechanism after the grind is finished. And the hopper shut-off allows you to change coffee without wasting or spilling beans. Brilliant design! The built-in coffee scale and programmable dosing feature are amazingly accurate, allowing you to get a dose within 1/10 of a gram. It is a bit noisy due to the grind-through design, but it is very fast so the noise does not last long. The addition of this grinder has definitely "upped" my coffee game. And in this time of Covid, when the coffee shops are shuttered I am glad to have a barista-quality option at home!

I read other reviews on this product before purchasing a year ago. I was concerned by what I read. I would buy this product again because most of the issues people raise are just wrong. I purchased it to replace an older grinder/doser I have been fighting with for 15 years. There was always ground coffee left in the doser regardless of how much effort I put into preventing it. This product fixed that. Is the hopper too small? Not for my use. The hopper holds about 1 week of beans at the rate I use it. The point is you really don't want beans sitting in the hopper any more than you want ground coffee in a doser. Is the build quality poor? I have experienced no problems with operation or quality of the unit. It seems sturdy considering it has, built in, the most sensitive electronic scale in my home. I did have a problem with not being able to verify it's accuracy. I had to pull out an old beam balance scale to do that. Do the forks vibrate so much it makes the scale inaccurate? Mine works flawlessly with the portafilter from my Rancilio. Is it loud? Grinders do make noise, this one was more quiet than my doser based grinder. It did make a mess the first time I used it. The scale was set too high for my portafilter and the grounds kept spilling over the top until I shut it off. Newbie mistake on my part. You do end up with a few bits of ground coffee around the base after using it. You should probably not use it in bed. It does everything I wanted it to do. It delivers a consistent quantity of freshly ground coffee with more than enough flexibility in coarseness and quantity. It's not cheap, but I got what I paid for.

Initially the grind adjustment ring (the "macro ring") hit a hard stop at about 21 when trying to set it less than 18 (first step in the instructions). Baratza support was ready to replace the grinder but asked that I first try using more force to rotate the ring. That did the trick- whatever caused the resistance disappeared and adjustment is now easy (I'm guessing it was a burr from machining, though I couldn't see anything). The grinder seems to be working fine. I bought this because the previous grinder (a Eureka Mignon) had an annoying issue with clumping. The Sette 270Wi drops perfectly ground bits of matching size coffee into the portafilter and *there's not one sign of clumping*!. The dosing (I use 16.0 grams) is dead on. Took only 3 times for it to learn the grind profile. Gotta love it! Adjustment of the grind is not as easy as I expected. I over adjusted toward more coarse and trying to recover has proven difficult. Just part of break-in/adjustment plus my own learning process. Grind speed is very fast, so I go through a lot of coffee for each tweak of the adjustment ring. Flavor of the espresso shots is distinctly different compared to the previous grinder. That's probably because I was over-dosing each shot by about 30% thanks to the clumping. Dosing by volume (vs. by weight) is apparently the (evil!) culprit. Bottom line is that I like what I see so far and expect my whines will disappear in another day or 2. Update #1: Just pulled the best espresso shots I've ever managed in 14 years of trying. What a difference dosing by weight instead of volume! I upped the rating to 5-stars from my original 4-stars. Update #2: It's rolling up on 2 months with the Sette 270Wi and I'm still very happy with the grinder. Here are a few added thoughts: 1- I haven't forgotten that some folks have said the unit died on them suddenly, so I have this lingering concern that so far hasn't materialized. As a hedge against that possibility I bought the extended warranty (something I swore I would never do!). 2- This thing is *loud*! I ignore it, but it was a little unnerving the first few times I used it. 3- Dosing is consistently +/- 0.1 gm. It just doesn't vary. Never fails to make me grin! 4- I've struggled trying to adjust the grind while the machine is running (it's a no-no to adjust the grind toward Fine with the motor's not running). The 270Wi grinds incredibly fast which means by the time I get the adjustment *almost* done I've just gone thru another 16.0 gm of coffee. I read on here that one user closes the gate on the hopper before adjusting. Yikes!! Why didn't I realize that on my own?! 5- I don't feel it's realistic to plan on grinding with the Sette 270Wi for pour-over, then later adjust the grind for an espresso shot. You just waste too much coffee getting re-adjusted. I use an old Capresso grinder we've had for years for the pour-over and reserve the Sette 270Wi for espresso. The issue is space on the counter top, but we live with it. I still feel ok with my rating of 5 stars. It really is good at making precise grinds of matching weight. Very, very happy. Update #3 (20 Jan 2019): I've had the Sette 270Wi for exactly 4 months and today it died. It has been intermittent for about a month, but it would recover if I unplugged the grinder then reconnected it to the AC power. That magic ended today when the grinder refused to recover. I'm afraid my tentative 5-star rating has shrunk to 1-star. Considering how long folks have complained about the failure rate, I have to agree with the reviewer who said this grinder just isn't ready for prime time. Now we'll see how well Baratza service handles the problem. They were *very* helpful in September. Update #4 (25 Jan 2019): Baratza support came thru for me. After a few iterations of checking this/that they sent a replacement Sette 270Wi. They covered shipping both ways. This replacement grinder works perfectly. Very pleased with the operation. As before, the operation is (very!) loud and the grind is right on. I've changed the rating to 4-stars because of the failure after 4 months; that failure is balanced by the excellent support. At this point I feel the design concept is just too good for 3 stars, but the failure rate isn't at all impressive and can't be ignored. Update #5 (2 Apr 2019): The replacement 270Wi is still running exactly as it should. Couldn't be happier with the design concept. It's loud and it grinds perfect doses for espresso. I'm still unchanged about it being an unjustified expectation to switch between grind settings for pour-over and espresso. My only whine (other than the earlier failure) is the ambiguous markings for Coarse/Fine. I seldom adjust the grind setting, but when I do I get it backwards, then forget which way to interpret the Fine/Coarse marking by the next time I have to adjust (a simple </> marking on the appropriate end would have fixed that).

To grind finely enough for espresso, you need to install one of the included shims. Otherwise, this grinder is easy to set up. Once set up, the grinder is excellent. The grind by weight feature works as represented. It's consistent, accurate to about .3 grams, and the grounds are uniform and fluffy. My previous grinder was a Mazzer Mini. The grounds from this machine are every bit as good. I think you could spend another $1,000 on a top-of-the line consumer grind by weight grinder and have trouble telling the difference in the espresso that you made.

Two years after purchase: In theory you can buy extra hoppers but they are often not available and Breville’s website purchasing is broken. Also, the grinder breaks and it’s difficult to get replacement parts. There is app and it connects to the internet, a huge black mark. Do not buy this grinder if you love dark roasts and don’t have a fix-it shop nearby. It doesn’t hold the smaller portafilter of the Breville Bambino Plus securely or at the right distance from the output, so the grinds just go everywhere. It’s difficult to get the required weight of espresso in the cup. One can have three different grind weights preset (of course you would have to laboriously dial in the fineness for each one but a note of the numbered dial setting or a photo would make it faster.). We’ve 3-d printed a cup to catch most of the grinds, the next accessory would be a funnel that fits into the portafilter. I like that you can buy extra hoppers and swap them out for different beans. Also that makes it easier to clean and service. HOWEVER, the beans often get stuck in the hopper so I have to fiddle with it and that also messes up the dose. Not sure if I would buy it again. This grinder is probably only suited for those with the highest-end espresso machines with full-size portafilters and the patience to really dial in the perfect grind. The top on mine was marked up already as you can see in the last photo, seemed used, that was a big bummer.

Replacing a 10 year old Vario-W that has had many design issues with it's adjustment levers. We plan on sending that back in to be refurbished for a 3rd time to have as a backup. So far this is an upgrade from the Vario-W. Super nice to have the flexibility of a direct to porta filter grinder, and the ability to grind into a container. We've had this for about a 2 months so far. The grind quality is exceptional, and is very quick compared to the Vario-W. One thing to note, in the manual it does call out a service interval (can't remember off the top of my head what the number is). Just be aware that this may be why I see so many reviews saying the motor dies on them. The service interval is how long you can run the grinder consecutively prior to needing to rest it for a period of time. So if you're trying to grind for a giant batch of cold brew or something, then make sure you understand this, or you could damage your machine. Time will tell, but I feel like this is a definite upgrade from the Vario-W in both grind quality, features, and build. We will come back and edit this review if/when any problems arise in the future. I will say from being a daily user of Baratza grinders, the fact that you can send them in for refurbishing is a huge plus. With that said, I do wish that the Vario-W would have held up longer before needing a rebuild. Last refurb lasted 3 years of daily 3-6 uses. Prior to that rebuild was maybe 4 years. I'm just hoping this machine does not need to go in every 3-4 years, and will be a bit more durable.

Loud but fast grinder. - grinds 18gr coffee beans less than 10 sec. Setting up the porta filter scale is annoying. - you'll have to measure correctly how high the clap for the porta filter or else you won’t be able to get a accurate weight. And if you set it up loose the porta filter can fall while grinding. - I keep zeroing the scale every use eve though I keep using the same setting. The scale keeps reading 0.5gr to 0.9gr off Unless I zero. - If you grind 18gr you get 18gr very minimal retention. Unfortunately my grinder stopped working after a few weeks of daily use of 2-3 cups a day with medium roast. 18gr with RDT grinding.

I am not sure how I lived without this thing! To those of you complaining about the noise... this is about as good as it gets under $1k IMO. I switched to this from a Baratza Vario which I thought was amazing when I acquired it. Well I was wrong- this is WAY better! I immediately noticed that it was MUCH quieter than the Vario. The speed of this thing is insanity, I thought people were just over exaggerating, but yeah, this literally grinds 18.5g in seconds! The grind is insanely consistent and on my very first shot pulled with the ground I noticed an immediate improvement. As a side note... the grind style of this will definitely "brighten" up and bring the acid forward in your shots so keep this in mind. I cannot speak to any use other than espresso so YMMV with respect to acidity. If you buy the not-scale version of this or do as I do and weight out your beans prior to grinding and just hope it all comes out... this retains WAY LESS than the Vario ever did. my tests have shown only 0.2g to stay in the machine and that is ever tapping it lightly to knock anything loose out. So if that is your style of doing it you will love this thing, almost everything in comes right out, nothing left behind to stale and taint the next shot. The size of this is perfect on the counter and it definitely something I want to show off as far as looks so I don't mind the size. Be aware of the cable that comes with this... there is no cable storage so if you are like me and have nowhere to hide it you might want to make a custom cord. The appliance end comes with a standard plug (see pictures) so it will be easy to make or buy a custom length cable if your cable has to be on the counter top somewhere. Disclaimer: I don't know what I am talking about so don't take my advice.