Baratza Sette 270 Review – Are The Past Issues In The Past?
Baratza is a big name in the coffee industry. It is not an all-encompassing company, making different types of brewing tools for different uses. It specializes in one important task of coffee brewing only: grinding.
Baratza focuses on exclusively making grinders.
With that in mind, it is not surprising that Baratza grinders are highly reputed among coffee experts for their quality, reliability and many features. Some of the very best coffee grinders in the world are produced by this US company.
The Baratza Sette 270 is a perfect example of this. It is a middle-priced model in the Baratza line. The line has entry-level models, accessible to all pockets, to highly sought after ones, costing more than a full espresso machine.
Design and Build
The Sette 270 model is very similar to its bigger brother, the Sette 270Wi. It is a 3.2 kg grinder, not a lightweight one. Has capacity to hold up to 3-400g of coffee beans and it’s largely made of hard plastic. It’s not as sturdy as the more expensive models but the build quality can withstand the test of time.
Unless you plan to use it throughout your lifetime. It is vaguely 7-shaped, from which comes the name (“Sette” means seven in Italian).
What’s more interesting in the Sette 270 model is the design of the burrs. Two burrs are placed over each other, with the top one being motorized and the lower one static.
This had never been done before on a home burr grinder and was quite revolutionary.
Baratza Sette 270 Conical Burr Coffee Grinder
This specific design means that the Baratza Sette 270 is faster than most models as normally (only one burr rotates). There is no chute at all so the ground coffee falls directly from the burrs in the bin or portafilter, and thus there’s hardly any remaining of the old grinds.
The conic shaped burrs container makes sure that all the coffee grounds will go through both burrs and in the bin or portafilter below. You don’t have to waste coffee by purging old grounds, basically.
That makes cleaning easier and avoids mixing small percentages of old coffee to new ones.
Grind Consistency
The vertically placed conical burrs allow very precise grinding, especially if you need a fine to extra fine grind size. Espresso and Turkish coffee lovers will find the Baratza Sette 270 a perfect grinder for their needs. A downside of this specialization in fine grinds is that this grinder doesn’t perform as well if you need a coarse grind.
French Press and Pour Over fans won’t find the Sette 270 satisfactory. The grind consistency at these levels of coarseness isn’t the same as at finer settings. That’s one of the compromises that coffee grinder producers have to make in order to excel at one side of the grind sizes spectrum.
A more general model will be “pretty good” overall. But it won’t reach the consistency in either fine or coarse sizes that a more specialized model, like the Baratza Sette 270 is, would.
Grind Speed
We briefly cited the Baratza Sette 270 as being a very fast burr grinder. That is specifically on the order of 3.5g to 5.5g of ground coffee per second, which puts it above the vast majority of espresso grinders on the market. If you need your coffee ready fast, the Baratza Sette 270 will be an excellent companion.
A drawback of this incredible speed is the loudness: the Sette 270 is very, very loud due to the extreme speed at which it operates. If people in your house wake up much earlier than you and use the grinder while you sleep, expect to be woken up by its noise.
Past Issues
In the earlier revisions of the Baratza Sette 270 some users complained about the motor breaking up quite early. That was to be expected by a revolutionary design and by the great speed at which the grinder operates.
Over time Baratza has worked on fixing this issue and increasing the longevity of the Sette 270. Baratza introduced softer feet to help to reduce the noise in newer revisions. The bigger 270Wi model has less RPM of the motor to ensure longevity.
Most of the earlier problems are a thing of the past then. The Baratza Sette 270 is an excellent mid-range model that will last you enough to justify the price tag and will produce consistent, fine, ground coffee.
Pros and Cons
You may consider a different model if you mostly brew pour overs or need a coarse ground often. It’s not that it won’t be able to grind to these sizes, of course it will, but you won’t get the same high consistency that grinding finer will give you.
The noise and the weight of the Baratza Sette 270 may be a concern to you. If you have the space in your kitchen and don’t mind a loud grinder in exchange for great performances, either won’t be a drawback to you.
The Baratza Sette 270 offers you 30 macro adjustments to set the grind size as accurately as you need. There’s an easy to use LCD screen, 3 different dose adjustments, and an option specifying the grounding time.
It is a most versatile burr grinder. Speed, consistency (for fine grinds at least) and excellent customer support are the main pros of the Baratza Sette 270.
Alternate Grinders
Of course, if noise and the past issues concern you still, alternatives are aplenty. Baratza offers a scaled-down version of the Sette 270, named Sette 30. It costs about a hundred dollars less than the Sette 270.
Baratza Sette 30 Conical Burr Grinder
This model offers much less choice in settings, only up to 30 (thus the name). It’s slower but mostly the same as the bigger brother in all other regards. It’s meant to be a no frills version of the Sette 270, costing less but not achieving the same performance, speed and consistency-wise. Consider it a more entry-level burr grinder.
If you want more than the Baratza Sette line instead, the Eureka Mignon Specialità may be what you’re looking for. Compared to the Sette 270, it is much quieter, has flat burrs, an awesome quality construction and a more sophisticated design.
Eureka Mignon Espresso Grinder
It is not as fast as the Baratza Sette 270 though, and some people prefer conical burr grinders to flat ones like the Eureka Mignon. It also costs quite a lot more. It is a step up from the Baratza Sette 270 overall, though, if you can afford it or can’t stand the noise of the 270.
Whether you want more or less, the Baratza Sette 270 remains an excellent choice for a mid-level burr grinder.
It is a solid model for any serious coffee lover in search of a grinder that can grind fine and extra fine coffee. For espresso drinkers it may be the best and cheapest choice of them all. More generalist coffee drinkers could find its coarse size consistency low and opt for a burr grinder that provides a less skewed range towards finer sizes output.