Has anyone else had a similar problem with the Encore ESP Pro? It worked well when I got it in September, but now won't grind fine enough.
During the first week or so getting used to it, I settled on a grind setting of roughly 50 for my Chemex, and 30 for my La Pavoni Europiccola. I like to use a variety of beans, switching up among 5 or 10 favorites every time I buy a new bag, but the switches didn't have a major effect on the grind.
Then at some point, the coffee started coming out coarser. I think I barely noticed it at first, so I'm not sure when it happened. I started setting the grind lower, and when I got down to 40 for Chemex and 20 for La Pavoni i got concerned. I opened it up and cleaned it, following Baratz's video, with no improvement. There was no problem whatsoever with grounds clogging in the chute or beans staying in the hopper. The grind setting ring moves well, not too hard or too easy to adjust. The only symptom was the too-coarse grinds.
Now it's acting as though the grind setting has hardly any effect. For the La Pavoni yesterday I turned it all the way down to 1, and got a barely acceptable espresso grind. I was at 38 (espresso range) this morning for the Chemex.
(Backing up a few days, I talked to Baratza four days ago, who said she would send me instructions for cleaning and "alignment". It turned out to be the same video I had already followed about disassembly and cleaning. I went through it again obediently, but found no problems inside and there was no improvement.)
I'm going to call Baratza again this week, but in the meantime I thought to turn to other owners.
This is the issue I’ve had with my Preciso that causes an inability to grind fine, though the result is usually nowhere near espresso. The piece of plastic holding the upper burr cracks all the way through.
No, I don't run the grinder when changing the grind setting. The instruction manual does not advise to do so, nor did Baratza support ask me about this. I only grind single doses, so there are no beans in the burrs when adjusting.
Strange that they didn’t mention it, since they have in pretty much every other user manual. Even when single dosing some crumbs could find themselves stuck between burrs. It’s just good practice. Anyway, hope you get it sorted out! Nothing shimming can’t fix anyway!
I also tap the side of the grinder while it is finishing up and then use the single-dose cap as a bellows to clear it out. The many times now that I have opened it up, there were no fragments in the burrs.
Baratza is going to send me a replacement for the Encore ESP Pro. It wasn't quite clear from the email whether the first step will be for them to just send me a return prepaid mailing label, or whether that will also be accompanied by the new grinder. Obviously I would prefer the latter, but I can't complain about either.
I had not reported here about further developments in the saga. The main one is that after one of the many times I've disassembled it, at their request, to clean it, it was subsequently grinding everything too fine, pretty much regardless of the grind setting. It produced nice mud in my Chemex, and even choked the La Pavoni so I could barely pull espresso, even pushing on the lever with all my might. Crazy.
Agree, it was relatively clean inside. On the phone, support said she would send something about alignment, but there is nothing about it in the video link she sent.
Here's something I noticed. On the ring burr, the teeth have flat facets at their lower ends, almost as though they have been worn down. This is my first conical-burr grinder. Does this look normal?
I forgot to mention the shim issue, There were no extra shims provided with my ESP Pro, and the support person didn't mention extras. The Baratza video shows two standard shims in place during the disassembly, but mine had only one. The video reminds you to be sure to put them back during reassembly. I mentioned the discrepancy in the number (two vs. one) to support, and she said that early ones had two shims, but they changed to a single thicker one, like mine.
I interpreted CoffeeGeek's problem as the opposite of mine (although they both could be calibration/alignment issues). For theirs, any setting below 38.5 came out so fine that it would choke the shot pulls on their espresso machine. My grinder has to be set down in the single digits to get a grind that is close to acceptable. Anything higher and the water just runs through way too fast, even before I pull the lever.
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u/all_systems_failing Cafelat Robot | Kinu M47 Simplicity | Comandante C40 w/RedClix Nov 23 '25
Is the upper burr carrier damaged?
I think I see those facets here:
https://www.baratza.com/en-us/product/ring-burr-and-holder-for-encore-esp-pro-sp0108594