Baratza Vario-W Grind by Weight Flat Burr Coffee Grinder

l (Ms. Moneypenny's husband) have owned my Vario-W for a month now. Here's the pros & cons:PROS• Crazy well built (★★★★★)• Quieter than others (★★★★☆)• Integral scale *can* expedite process for fussy types (★★★★☆)• Cool, shut-off hopper so you can swap between two kinds of beans with an extra hopper (★★★★★)CONS• Not dispensing straight to the portafilter necessitates an extra step (★★★☆☆)• The plastic grounds bin isn't designed to be scooped with a spoon and grounds cling to it (★★☆☆☆)• Non-functioning indicator lights are hold-overs from a previous model (★★☆☆☆)I used to use a kitchen scale to measure my beans (which I kept in an air-tight canister) into my old grinder. Then I'd tare my portafilter on the kitchen scale and meter in 15–16 grams of grounds; my kitchen scale has one-gram resolution. I usually had about a one-half to one gram of excess grounds. However, I used a stainless spoon and Pyrex desert bowl and the grounds were fast and easy to handle. After ten years of this, I had muscle memory and was pretty darn fast.So I figured the Baratza Vario-W would expedite the process. But it slowed me down… a LOT at first… until I cobbled a custom little tool from common kitchen materials, evolved techniques, and developed muscle memory to ultimately go faster than I ever had been.DETAILSI still keep the beans in a sealed canister (it's important to keep the volatile aromatic oils from evaporating) but now use just a scoop as I can always keep about a gram ahead of what the Barataz will consume from its hopper. Since the Baratza has to dispense and weigh into its plastic grounds bin, you must then get the grounds to the portafilter. How to do? It's a fussy process and the manual is of no help. The bin is plastic, and “anti-static” claims by the manufacturer notwithstanding, grounds do too cling. The bin's shape was designed to conform to the basic industrial design and no consideration was given to making it spoon-friendly.All in all, the process of transferring grounds slowed me down… a lot. At first, it took me an extra minute to accomplish the task without dumping gram of grounds all over the place.Finally, I ended up with an aluminum foil-covered paper picnic plate that can open flat or fold into a Vee shape as a sort of material chute. I dump the coffee grounds from the plastic bin into the plate, give it a couple sharp raps to knock the clingy stuff lose, and then form the plate (with perfectly anti-static aluminum foil cover) into an increasingly sharp Vee as I use a spoon as a scraper to scoot the grounds into the portafilter and pre-tamp them down. It took a couple weeks of practice, but I eventually was able to stop making an unholy mess and get the job done quickly.So, today (after a month), I was able to make a ristretto in record time… and by a large margin.Also frustrating were the non-functioning neon indicator lights next to the three size buttons. Were they broken? The quick-start manual was of no help and neither was the full-size on-line PDF manual. Only after I read that the scale-equipped model was a variation of an earlier time-based model, did I realize the manufacturer tried to keep manufacturing costs down with commonality. Still, a simple line in the quick-start manual would have been a thoughtful thing…

I've had one Vario-W for about 10 years which I have had in daily service since I bought it. It's survived about five moves, too. I bought a second Vario-W for decaf two years ago.In addition to being a precise grinder with a very convenient scale feature (perfect for home use), there's something about this grinder which I didn't realize when I bought it: Baratza grinders are incredibly easy to serviceMy first grinder's logic board was destroyed by an electrical surge (no fault of Baratza). For most of the junk I buy, that would mean throwing it away and buying an new one. Instead, I went to Baratza's website, and found an incredibly detailed and accurate library of written and video guides for troubleshooting and servicing all parts of the grinder, as well as a well-stocked and well-labeled replacement parts catalog. I was able to quickly disassemble and locate the issue with my grinder using their guides, and then order new board for something like $40. That saved me hundreds of dollars on a new grinder, and avoided creating unnecessary waste. By the way, the service rep hadactual knowledge of servicing Vario-W products, who looked at emailed photos of my board and confirmed my diagnosis of a blown resistor and point me to the exact part I needed to buy, within one day of me mailing Baratza.Now, after 10 years, the drive belt on my original Vario-W has got some stripped teeth, and it's slipping against the motor shaft pulley. Once again Barazta's amazing service catalog helped me quickly pinpoint the issue and there is a dedicated video guide for replacing this exact part, which I have followed, and which was *accurate*.The new drive belt is $14 shipped, and I'm confident that this machine is going to be in service for another 10 years.So in short, these machines are both *easy to service* and *actually worth servicing*. Quite a rare thing in our culture of disposability.

The grinder is great in terms of the core grinding, speed, noise, etc. Amazingly good!The weird problem is that the bin that holds the ground coffee is made of a plastic that is super-high-static. That means that the grounds don't all come out and in fact stick to the outside of the bin when pouring.I am mystified by this issue. I 100% see how that is a problem you have in the first run, but how did they not switch plastics after the first run, particularly when their other grinders use different materials for that.Posting this review because they really need to address this implementation flaw.