Baratza Virtuoso+ Conical Burr Grinder
We are of the opinion that the quality of the grinder is actually more important than the quality of the brewer. Why? You can compensate for a poorly made brewer with a good grinder. Even a cheap automatic drip brewer can be coaxed into behaving reasonably well, despite tepid water, with the right dose and grind combination
Enter the Baratza Virtuoso
Featuring 40 individual grind settings, from espresso fine to french press coarse, the Virtuoso's specially designed burrs give a precise grind with minimal fines for a flavorful, balanced extraction when making any kind of coffee from espresso to pour over to automatic drip and even french press. This grinder covers it all quite well.
The Virtuoso is built with quality parts as well. Baratza has a world-wide reputation for quality and the Virtuoso is no exception. The top and base is made from cast zinc metal, and the internal parts are heavy duty. The grinder weighs in at a sturdy 8 pounds.
The powerful DC motor keeps your beans cool, even during extended grind sessions, while a combination of electric and gear speed reducers slow the burr to an ideal 450 RPM, ensuring a smooth bean feed and reducing noise, heat and static buildup. This will keep your beans from getting hot and losing that precious flavor.
A convenient, front-mounted pulse button makes it easy to grind on demand into your brew basket if you are making espresso and want to grind directly into your portafilter.
Additionally, all the pertinent parts are coated with an anti-static treatment that keeps the coffee moving through the grinder without mess. When you are finished grinding, there suprisingly little mess (if any) when you dump the ground coffee into your brewer.
The Details
BURRS
Manufactured in Europe, the Virtuoso+’s 40 mm conical burrs grind coffee at 1.5 to 2.4g/sec. depending on the setting. But what really sets the Virtuoso+ burrs apart is that these burrs can do a very uniform grind, with a distinct lack of fines across its grinding range. So the Virtuoso+ burrs are exceptional for espresso, drip, manual brewing methods and French press. These conical burrs are durable and will remain sharp for many years. The burrs have a precision mounting system to ensure a stable platform for accurate grinding.
GEARBOX
The Virtuoso+ utilizes a simple and efficient direct drive gear reduction transmission to move power from the DC motor to the rotating cone burr. A thermal overload cutout protects the motor from overheating due to excessive use - remember, these grinders are designed to grind a dose at a time for home use!
GRIND ADJUSTMENT
Turn the hopper and with 40 settings you can quickly adjust from fine for espresso to coarse for French press. The grind range is from 200 to 1200 microns.
GRIND RETENTION
To maximize freshness, the Virtuoso+ minimizes the ground coffee left in the grinder.
BREWING METHODS
The Virtuoso+ is a great multi-purpose grinder for many styles of brewing from espresso, to drip, to French press
MOTOR
A powerful, high torque DC motor effortlessly drives the burrs. This motor turns slowly resulting in cool, quiet operation and permits long grinding duty-cycles. The circuitry is equipped with an automatically resetting thermal cutoff switch.
DIGITAL TIMER
The motor is controlled by a 40 second digital timer adjustable to the tenth of a second, that allows repeatable dosing.
CALIBRATION
An innovative burr calibration system ensures that each grinder has the full range of grind. If necessary, the grinders can be user calibrated.
SPEED CONTROL
With unique speed control, the Virtuoso+ uses a combination of gear and electronic speed reduction to control the rotation of the burr to 500 RPM. This slow speed reduces heat, noise, and static generation in the grinder. It also ensures that the beans feed smoothly into the burrs.