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The innovative grind adjustment collar has two stages, one fine tuned for espresso, the other for brew coffee.
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M2 burrset is a noted upgrade in overall burr quality resulting in faster grinds and less fines at finer settings.
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Comes with both the grinds bin and a dosing cup.
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Motor has more than enough torque for the lightest of coffee roasts
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Same price (inflation adjusted) as original Encore 20 years ago.
The Encore ESP follows Baratza’s new “beautiful brown box” methodology, meaning everything used to ship and protect the grinder during transport is made from environmentally friendly and 100% easily recyclable materials. The box the grinder comes in is unpainted. The inner protections are all cardboard. And the grinder is housed in a compostable bag during transport, to avoid cosmetic damage. The company really leads the industry in this regard.
It’s kind of cool to see companies like OXO follow the lead somewhat (their new OXO 12 Cup Brew auto drip ships in a plain brown box with all cardboard protection inside, but they still use a styro-style wrap to protect the drip machine from cosmetic damage).
Removing the Encore ESP from the box and protective sleeves reveals the same silhouette as the older Encore; the only thing that looks slightly different is the more subtle branding. They also got rid of the old weird font they used to write “Encore” on the front of the grinder. While it may seem the same, this is a new grinder body with very slightly refined shape to it. Enough so that the BaratzaGEAR accents for the older Encore grinder do not fit the Encore ESP.
Like the Encore before it, the Encore ESP has three control points: the on/off dial on the right side, the pulse button up front, and the main hopper rotates to select the grind level. The pulse button feels stiffer on the Encore ESP compared to previous models. The on off switch on the side now has an extended tab, pointing at its operating position.
The grinder comes with one bean hopper that can hold 325g of coffee (12oz). Unlike more expensive Baratza grinders, this hopper does not have a flow shut off design that would allow you to remove the hopper when it is full of beans. Optionally, you can buy a single dose hopper from Baratza to replace the full bag hopper on top.
The Encore ESP comes with two grinds bins: the traditional, specially formulated plastic slide in grinds bin that has anti-static features and a visible line for max volume; and new with the ESP, a dosing cup. The dosing cup also comes with a rubberized mat you place in the main grinds chamber of the grinder.
The dosing cup is designed for very small batch grinding for pour over (max capacity is around 25g), but mainly for espresso portafilter use. Out of the box, the dosing cup is fitted for 58mm portafilters, but it has a removable silicone sleeve that lets it work with smaller diameter 54mm machines.
Most of the money in this grinder is in the motor, gear system, and burr set and housing. We cover the burr system in depth later on. The motor is a DC high torque system running a 550 RPM for the burrs. The torque is plenty fine enough if you like your coffee baked instead of roasted (heh, yes, that was a dig at super light “blond” roasts popular in some circles).
The power cord is a 2 prong model, and unlike some other Baratza grinders, none of the cord can be stored inside the grinder – its entire length must be accounted for on your kitchen counter.
Up around the collar of the bean hopper are the grind selection indicators. There are 40 available clicks, with the first 20 dedicated to an espresso range, and the next 20 dedicated to AeroPress through Press Pot grinding.
The Encore ESP is available in two colours: the traditional black model, and the more recent white model with black accents. The latter has a bit of a Star Wars Stormtrooper vibe to it, with the main white body but black cavity to the grinds area, and the black pin striping around the base.
I note the little finishing details, like how they have the right colour accents different on the black vs the white models. Also, the paint applied to the plastic body has a nice detailed texture to it, which gives a bit of a premium touch.
The Encore ESP weighs 2.5kg (5.5lb) empty (50g less with just the dosing cup and dose cup plate), 11cm wide, 14cm deep, and 34cm tall with the standard hopper (4.3”x5.5”x13.5”).
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Every good coffee grinder needs a break in period. Burrs have to settle, wear in a bit, and the machine has to settle into standard operating mode. Because of this, the 50th pound of coffee you run through the grinder isn’t going to grind the same way as the 5th pound.
We did this with the Encore ESP, putting 5kg through the grinder over a 2 week period, before any real testing started. That doesn’t mean we didn’t taste some of that coffee – we sure did! And some initial observations occurred.
First observation: it’s noisy. Louder than a Breville Smart Grinder Pro, a Baratza Virtuoso+ or a Turin SK40. Much louder than the Lagom Mini, the quiet champ. You can still have a conversation while it’s running and thankfully, it doesn’t have the screech volume of a Baratza Sette or a Turin DF64 Gen 2.
Second observation: the controls feel very stiff and cheaper than they did on the previous Encore. Maybe it’s that new grinder feel, but turning the on/off dial on the side feels clunky and not very reassuring, and the pulse button up front is stiff.
Third observation is that things like the grinds bin, dosing collar mat all fit really well into the machine, nice and tight. When you compare the fit and finish of the Encore to a grinder like the Opus from Fellow, you realise Baratza takes a lot more care to these things (or perhaps just has the longevity in the industry to fine tune these things over time).
There is one area where things seem jiggly: the bean hopper bounces and dances around a bit under operation. The original Encore was like that too. The grind selection won’t change, but you will see movement in the hopper under operation. Here’s a short video showing it.
Even during this break in period, I brewed and drank some of the coffee ground by the Encore ESP, and everything was tasting fine and working out well (mostly non-espresso methods were drunk; I ground out about 1.5kg at the “10” setting (espresso), but added that all to my garden as compost).
The real test came when coffee was added to the Encore ESP for the first espresso tests. Baratza recommends 10 as the starting point for espresso, but this may be based on the 17g dose for 54mm espresso machines (natch, since Baratza is now owned by the most popular 54mm portafilter machine maker in the world, Breville). This was evident, because using our standard 18.5g dose resulted in a 40+ second shot. So we started at 11, and between 11 and 12, we hit our target range of 45g output in roughly 35 seconds (including 10 seconds preinfusion).
Grinding speed for espresso is pretty good; we measured 1.5g a second at the top end, requiring about 13 seconds to grind an 18.5g dose. Espresso grinds are very clumpy coming out of the Encore ESP, requiring some WDT action. The grinder also retains a lot of grinds when grinding for espresso; single dosing a cleaned out grinder resulted in as much as 2g or more being stuck inside the grind chamber and exit chute. Even using an aftermarket bellows (Introvert Makes) on the bean hopper, we struggled to get more than half of that coffee released.
Consistently during my off-camera data recording and collection, I was seeing 2g retention on a 10g sample, and when using the bellows, I could usually only coax out another .5g, with 1.5g remaining inside.
So, I decided to shoot a video showing retention during pour over grinds,and espresso grinds, and of course, my results (especially with espresso and the bellows) were an outlier: the bellows blowout of the espresso grind got us up to 9.8g out from a 10.1g sample grind. I have to point out this was an outlier, and not my normal result.
Here’s the detailed video.
Grind quality is generally good for espresso, and you kind of expect that from conical burrs and the M2 burr from Baratza and Etzinger. In Kruve sieve tests, I was measuring about 70% in our target range, and only 10% of the grind below 250 microns.
The grinds retention is definitely going to frustrate single dose fans. If I can go on a bit of a rant here, I’m not a fan myself of converting grinders designed for hopper use to single dose use, at least when it comes to espresso. The Encore ESP is designed as a hopper grinder, and will retain grinds between uses. This means be ready to waste 1-3g of coffee for every double shot pull you grind. Just comes par for the course.
My preferred method for using grinders like this is to fill up the hopper (or at least get 100-150g in there), and if you haven’t used it for a while, press the pulse button for a second to grind out 2-3g and get rid of any stale coffee. Then put your dosing cup or grinds bin on a scale, zero it out, and grind coffee into it for 12-13 seconds. Weigh the coffee to see if you’re at your dose weight. If not, grind a bit more. Then build your espresso shot.
Losing that 1-3g of coffee is a lot less hassle and frustration than cranking away with some bellows, or banging and slapping around a machine constantly to release any stored up grounds.
As for the clumping, I am sad to say the Encore ESP remains one of the more clumpy output grinders I’ve tested, at least at the espresso range. The Smart Grinder Pro is just as clumpy, and the Turin SK40 and SD40s less so. Only the Lagom Mini (the other grinder I compared) is relatively clump free in its output.
This grinder definitely needs some declumping action, be it through the WDT method, or stirring and agitating the grounds some other way.
Head to head, the Encore ESP does not produce espresso shots as consistently good as the Baratza Sette 270Wi (our test grinder) does. Several factors are at play, including the slower grinding time, the particle distribution, clump free vs clumpy, and the extra time needed to manage the espresso grind output from the Encore ESP. If the Sette was hitting constant 4 star shots, the Encore would reach 3.5 stars.
Against the original Encore, it’s no contest: the Encore ESP’s finer tuned grind for espresso produced superior shots nearly every time, and came much closer to our test parameter baseline.
Head to head against the Smart Grinder Pro from Breville, the Encore ESP was consistently the better shots in blind taste tests, but the SGP was closer in quality. If anything the Encore ESP shots seemed more defined in their flavour profile, and the SGP was more generic.
The Lagom Mini blew away the Encore ESP in terms of taste quality. Indeed, the Lagom beat the Sette 270Wi in several blind taste tests. This comes as a bit of a surprise because the Lagom takes nearly 50 seconds to grind 18.5g at an espresso grind.
But there are caveats here to consider. The Encore ESP can grind all day long if you want. Want to grind a full bag of coffee? No problem with the Baratza. Want to grind for your 1.4l auto drip machine’s full batch? The Encore ESP laughs at that task. The Encore ESP can bang out the 25g you want for your pourover in about 12 seconds.
The Lagom Mini takes nearly 50 seconds to grind 18.5g for espresso. And Option-O recommends only grinding 5 or 6 times a day max for espresso, otherwise the motor is too stressed. The LM is definitely a small batch, single use, single brew grinder. In that regard, it is amazing. But you give up speed and quantity with it.
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The Baratza Encore ESP is a very capable multi-purpose grinder with excellent grinding speeds (over 2g/sec for pour over). Right up to siphon, pour over, and auto drip, the grinder produces an excellent, uniform grind right up to that level. Once you move into Chemex and press pot territory, the particle distribution nose dives. To be fair, this happens with almost every conical burr grinder: the geometry and action of these grinders isn’t suited for coarser grounds.
Because there is no timer on the Encore ESP, you kind of have to eyeball how much coffee is grinding out if you’re using the full bean hopper. Knowing the grinding speed helps a bit: just count the seconds in your head to get close, and use a scale to increase your accuracy. Still, this grinder practically screams for a digital (or even mechanical) timer.
As much as I don’t like converting full hopper grinders for single dose use for espresso, I don’t mind it so much for non espresso brewing methods. And there’s further good news here: retention on the Encore ESP is greatly reduced with coarser grinds (like AeroPress and pour over grinds). In fact, I discovered an easy way to clean out stale espresso grinds from the grinder is to quickly dial it up to 30, grind for a second or two, flap the lid, and this pretty much empties out any retained grinds.
The Encore ESP works quite well as a single dose grinder for pourover, AeroPress and siphon coffee use. We tested the grinder both with the regular bean hopper, and the BaratzaGEAR single dose hopper. With the latter, lifting and lowering the cup-lid of the single dose hopper effectively clears out the grinder completely, meaning, if you put 20g in, you can get 20g out.
The clumpiness of the Encore ESP’s espresso grind all but disappears by the time the grinder is coarse enough for pour over; though sometimes the last bit out (especially with a lid flap) can be a bit clumpy. A quick shake of the grinds bin resolves this.
Pourover
As a pour over grinder, the Encore ESP performs very well, and nearly as good as the older Encore (retrofitted with the M2) burrs. Why not “as good”? Because your have a more limited grinding range settings in the non espresso range on the ESP, and there’s some pretty big jumps in grind size with single click changes on the grind selection dial. The older Encore had tighter jumps in grind size, giving you a bit more fine tuning. It’s not a big deal, but if you’re fooling around with no-bypass vs standard bypass brewing, you might find yourself wanting to go a half click finer or coarser on the ESP.
The Encore ESP performs better than the Sette 270Wi for pour over. Cleaner, better flowing cups. The Sette is fantastical for espresso, and drops off a cliff for pour over (it produces way too many fines). The Encore ESP has a much tighter grind distribution size in pour over range.
In head to head tasting against the Lagom Mini, the Breville Smart Grinder Pro, and the 2019 Encore (with M3 burrs), the Lagom Mini was again the clear winner, with every blind taste coming out on top. The Encore ESP placed second overall, but was beaten out by the SGP in one taste test. The SGP and 2019 Encore tied across 4 other tests for last place.
Chemex and Press Pot
Conical burr grinders do not do well for coarse grinds. Even the Lagom Mini can’t perform as well as the Baratza Vario+ for Chemex and press pot.
So for this round, I put the Encore ESP up against the 2019 Encore, just to see if the product line has improved in this regard (mainly due to the M2 burr set in the ESP). The short and honest answer is, I couldn’t tell.
Here’s the thing though. You’re not going to wince in disgust from a press pot brew made with coffee ground in an Encore (or Encore ESP). In fact, you will probably think it tastes excellent. People like me go nuts over fines, muddy cups, clogged filter paper (in the case of Chemex testing), and the like, but in the real world, the Encore ESP is still leagues better at press pot and Chemex grinds than your typical $75 Walmart burr grinder, or $35 Target blade grinder. Like night and day difference.
If all you drink is press pot coffee, I wouldn’t advise getting an Encore ESP. I’d recommend getting a good quality flat burr grinder that spins at lower RPMs, like the Baratza Vario series. But if you want a grinder that does every major brewing method, the Encore ESP is ‘good enough” for press and Chemex.
If the fines really bother you, you could invest in a cheap sifting dose cup if you want a really clean press pot brew with this grinder. One weird note in my testing: the Encore ESP was actually slower in the output for press pot (1.9g/sec) than for pour over (2.3g sec peak).
The biggest knock against the Baratza Encore was that it could not do a good espresso grind. Baratza was keenly aware of this, for years, so when they started work on the ESP version, this area – espresso – was their primary focus.
The result of this is the most significant change in the Encore ESP over the previous Encore: the burr group, burr housing and grind selection design.
First, and very briefly, the burrs. The Encore now features Etzinger’s M2 burr set, first designed for the Virtuoso grinder (incidentally, Breville is now using these burrs in their latest espresso machine, the Breville Barista Touch Impress). The M2 burrs are much more refined for espresso production, while still maintaining a “decent” (all things considered) level of fines production for brew coffee. They, like most conical burr grinders, still produce an excessive amount of fines once you grind coarse enough for Chemex, no bypass brewing, or press pot.
The M2 burrs are respected; indeed, many folks would buy these burrs from Baratza, and retrofit their old Encores with them to get better espresso grinding performance.
The second big change is more of a long term benefit: this is by far the easiest Baratza grinder to completely change the burrs in. They redesigned how the solid cone burr (this is the actual rotating burr, the one attached to the motor) is removed. It can now be done by hand via a twist-cap on top. A bit of a game changer because, while some cottage industry grinders out there have come up with innovative ways to swap and change burrs, the main grinder manufacturers have rarely seen the need for a system like this. Until now.
Why is this a long term benefit? Because 10, 12 years from now, if Baratza has an even better burr set compatible with the Encore ESP, you can very easily swap it. Or, if you are grinding a pound of coffee every few days, you might want to change your burrs every 7-10 years.
Of course, the biggest change is the grind adjustment collar the burrs sit in. It’s a bit of a groundbreaking design too. Half of the grinding range is designed for “near turkish” (not quite) to “moka pot” grinding. Baratza refers to it as the espresso range, and the ESP in the Encore ESP is shortform for espresso.
From Kyle Anderson, previous co-owner of Baratza and the chief engineer behind the Encore ESP’s design:
“In the range of 1-20, the entire grind output adjustment is around 400 microns. The slope on the burr adjustment in these first 20 clicks is 80 degrees. The actual vertical movement of the burrs across the range is only 70 microns (or about 3.6 microns per click!!!), but because the plane between the burrs is angled, each click registers about 20 microns in grind fineness adjustment.”
Anderson went on to explain: “In the range of 21 to 40, the burrs’ adjustment pitch changes to a steeper angle, and the angle slopes ever higher, so the coarser you go, the more increase in micron output size between the clicks.” This means going from 20 to 21 might give a 60 micron jump; adjusting from 38 to 39 could give a 150 micron jump.
Also of note, the ramp for the espresso grind settings is constant, meaning each click results in similar micron adjustments coarser or finer. This changes, as Anderson pointed out, once you get to the non espresso adjustment range, with each click change coarser resulting in a bigger grind micron size.
I’ve seen some video reviews trying to explain this, but according to Anderson they got the information wrong, especially in micron numbers. Bottom line: there is a lot of room to play on the espresso side of the grind adjustment (starting at “10” is a good place, then go up or down a few clicks to fine tune), but once you go past 20, expect much bigger jumps in grind size the coarser you go.
Of course, being a conical burr grinder, you can also expect more fines production the coarser your go. The Encore ESP is capable of a proper press pot grind with 1200-1400 micron chunks of ground coffee, but with a lot of fines in there too.
Back to espresso for a moment, what does each click represent in terms of actual brewing time? Anderson told me that each click in the espresso range results in a shot pull that is 5 seconds longer (or shorter) in time. In my actual testing, his quoted numbers weren’t that far off, and it could be my own testing numbers were different because of a different starting dose.
We tested this using our established parameters: Breville Dual Boiler as the test machine; Social Coffee’s People’s Daily Blend as the coffee; 18.5g dose, exact to .1g; WDT method applied; 10 second preinfusion; 25 second shot (35 seconds total shot time); 45g out (1:2.5 ratio). A setting of “11” delivered this shot time and volume.
Going one click finer on the Encore ESP (to “10”) using the above parameters delivered 45g in 39.1 seconds (average across three tests). One click coarser (to “12”) delivered 45g in 31.6 seconds across three tests. Why was there less jump going coarser? Most likely the fines production of the burrset plays a role.
The TL:DR on this is it is an innovative way to provide a true multipurpose grinder that gives the kind of fine tuning adjustment range you want for espresso, while still providing a good range for everything else, from AeroPress on up to press pot coffee. And in our testing, the Encore ESP delivers exactly that.
The Baratza Encore ESP is a very easy grinder to use and maintain. On the maintenance side of things, this is great. On the usability side, it’s because there’s almost no advanced features built into this grinder, a not-so-good thing.
I find myself using the pulse button up front a lot on this grinder. For espresso, I press and hold it for 13 seconds and always get near my 18.5g target dose (after doing a 1 second purge of old grinds). For pour over, and the standard 21g dose I want for a 300ml brew, holding for around 8 seconds gets the job done. Because the pulse button up front is pretty stiff, I do have to hold the grinder with my other hand so it doesn’t tip backwards.
When it comes down to it, I’d rather use this grinder with the full bean hopper up top, and the dosing cup setup below. Just be aware there is going to be some grind “spray” if you use the dosing cup. It gets on the counter, gets into the grind bin area, and can get messy. I also attached Introvert Make’s bellows to the Encore ESP’s bean hopper lid, and that helps a lot with retention; especially for grinds coarser than espresso.
The grinder is incredibly easy to maintain and clean. The non-rotating burr just pulls out, no tools required (once you remove the bean hopper). The rotating cone burr can be removed just by turning the knurled knob on top counter clockwise. Then you can deep clean everything. Again, no tools required.
I did wish the cord could be stored somewhat in the body of the grinder, or around some loop holder in the bottom. It is thick, heavy grade, and hard to hide on the counter if you want a nice, clean look.
I have to say, the white version of this grinder looks excellent on the counter. Towards the end of my testing, I had it next to a white Gaggia Classic Evo Pro, and it just looked… awesome. The made the cavity on the Encore ESP black, and that lends a very trendy “Star Wars” Stormtrooper look to it, one that car manufacturers seem to be embracing big time.
Then there’s the lack of a timer. This, to me, is the biggest failing of this grinder. You can get grinders with digital 0.1 second timers on Amazon for $50 these days. There’s no excuse for not including just a basic, simple, digital timer on a grinder costing $200, in my mind. You really start to notice if when you grinding larger batches. It’s very easy to overshoot your 6 cup auto drip grind, wasting 10, 15g or more of coffee. It adds up in cost. Even a mechanical timer would have been nice. On/off switchers are so last century.
Maybe the Encore ESP+ will have a digital timer, who knows. I’ll say this: I would have rated this grinder in the 87-88pt range if it had one.
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We covered some head to head comparisons above in the drink build sections, so I want to keep this brief. Plus, I feel one of the things the video reviewers of coffee gear do particularly well is show how one product compares to another. They can do in 2 minutes what would take me 1,500 words to type and show a couple of dozen photographs. I recommend checking a few out if you want to see more direct comparisons.
This doesn’t mean I didn’t do a heap of head to head testing. Oh boy, did I ever. Over 3 dozen blind taste tests. Two with small focus groups. For a solid week, I had the Encore ESP sitting right next to a Breville Smart Grinder Pro, a Lagom Mini, a 2019 Encore, and just for extra workload, a Timemore C3 ESP Pro. And even though Fellow won’t send us their products for review, I did manage to borrow a Fellow Opus for a few days to test against the Encore ESP.
Vs. Baratza Sette 270Wi and Sette 270
The Encore ESP still cannot touch the output from the Sette 270Wi when it comes to espresso. Sure, the 270 is noisy AF, but the output is fluffy, uncompressed and there’s almost zero retention with that grinder. For espresso in particular, the Etzinger burrs in the Sette just seem to produce a better grind for espresso. Keep in mind, the 270Wi is a $600 grinder (albeit with an Acaia scale built in). You could go for the Sette 270 (which has the same micro and macro adjustment system as the Wi) for $400, but that’s double the price of the Encore ESP. The Sette 30 is a non-starter for us because adjustment in the espresso range is just too wide per click.
Vs. Smart Grinder Pro
I think the Breville Smart Grinder Pro, along with the Fellow Opus, are Baratza’s two main competitor products on the market, at least until the Turin SK40 came out (we have one here, but didn’t have it in time for this testing). Because of this, this is going to be the longest comparison in this section.
On pure grind quality and fine tuning for espresso, the Encore ESP is the clear winner compared to the Breville Smart Grinder Pro. Both are conical burrs grinders, but the M2 burr in the Encore ESP just does a better job overall for espresso grinder. The 20 micron adjustment on the Encore ESP also gives you a lot more fine tuning ability.
For drip coffee, both grinders are very even for me in terms of the grinds output and the quality in the cup. The Encore ESP is faster, and seems the more torque-ey of the two grinders, meaning it’s probably better for those baked roasts popular in some circles.
The Smart Grinder Pro starts to beat the Encore ESP when it comes to press pot grinds. Sieve test show less fines produced with the SGP.
The Smart Grinder Pro completely destroys the Encore ESP on features. A digital 0.2 second timer, multiple (like dozens) of timer memories for espresso, percolator, drip, and pourover that you can set, a clearer display panel with lots of information, the pause grinding feature (to knock down your PF), the dosing forks and the grinds bin, and the one handed, press to grind button when grinding directly into a portafilter. Seriously, the featureset on the Smart Grinder Pro is staggering.
Both grinders put out a very clumpy grind for espresso, requiring WDT. The Smart Grinder Pro is even more clumpy. I have not tested the retention on the Smart Grinder Pro like I have the Encore ESP, but I do know it retains a lot. My experience with the SGP is to always run it for a few seconds to clear out old stale grinds.
So why go for the Encore ESP over the Smart Grinder Pro? If you are espresso-primary in your house, the Encore ESP is the better overall output, with better fine tuning. It’s also faster. Second, Baratza’s after sales service is phenomenal (even though Breville bought Baratza). Third, Baratza stocks most of the parts for the Encore ESP and sells them at near cost if you ever need to repair it down the road. Breville? Toss the grinder if it breaks in 5 years, and buy a new one.
Why go for the Smart Grinder Pro over the Encore ESP? It’s quieter, to start with. It is more versatile in terms of grind settings and digital timer “memory” settings. It can very easily transition between espresso and drip grinding. And its output for Chemex and Press Pot is better.
For me, I would miss the extra featureset of the Smart Grinder Pro (I love the way you can just dock in a portafilter, press it back and grind on demand), but I lean towards the Encore ESP out of these two, based on the espresso output, speed, and Baratza’s after sales service. If I bought one, I’m comfortable knowing that 10 years from now, I could buy the motor for $40 and follow their handy PDF on swapping it out should mine die.
Vs. Lagom Mini
I continue to be amazed at just how good the Option-O Lagom Mini is, given its tiny size and slow RPMs. Honestly, it is better than the Sette 270Wi in terms of espresso cup quality. It’s tiny, it is exceptionally well made, and just a joy to use. It’s also $375, or almost double the price of the Encore ESP.
Through its grind range, the Mini’s output is more uniform and even, compared to the Encore ESP. Some of the best conical burr “cups” of pour over I’ve ever had have come from the Lagom Mini. The Mini even excels for press pot grinding.
The Lagom Mini is almost painfully slow (up to 50 seconds to grind 18.5g) and its duty cycle is limiting. All that said, it really is one of the best grinders under $1,000 that I’ve used for espresso in terms of what you drink in the cup. The stepless grind adjustment also allows for very finite adjustments and fine tuning.
So why would you consider the Encore ESP over the Lagom Mini? Putting aside that it is $175 cheaper, you can also do a lot more coffee grinding with the Encore ESP. The two main negatives of the Lagom Mini is how slow it is, and how the motor inside is not really rated for high volume, constant grinding. Option-O also recommends not using the grinder more than 5 or 6 times per day.
The Encore ESP doesn’t have these limitations. While not rated for commercial use, it can easily grind an entire bag of coffee (in two stages) without issue. More realistically, the ESP can grind for your full batch, large size auto drip coffee maker. The Lagom Mini cannot.
Vs. 2019 Baratza Encore
Even though the Encore ESP is $50 more than the Encore, the choice here is a no-brainer: go for the Encore ESP. You get a better burr (usually a $30-$40 upgrade over the Encore), the dosing cup and dosing mat (as well as the standard grinds bin), and most importantly, the newly designed, more beefy burr housing and grinds adjustment. The fine tuning you can do in the espresso range is a serious upgrade.
In short, the Encore ESP can do all your grinding needs. The Encore cannot (when it comes to espresso at least).
To put this to the test, I used a coffee that was brand new to me (Victoria BC’s 2% Jazz espresso blend, The Hudson) and tried to dial in both to CoffeeGeek’s standard of 18.5g in, 45g out, in 35 seconds, including 10 second preinfuse. I never got there with the Encore. Shots were either nearly stalled (50+ seconds to output 45g) or gushers (under 25 seconds including the preinfusion). To get to our target brew time, I would have to adjust the dose volume.
It took me only 2 dial in attempts with the Encore ESP to get to within 2 seconds of our target brew time. Setting 11 worked great. I do have to say, coaxing the 18.5g poured into the grinder hopper fully out into the dosing cup required a lot of bellows and banging on both units.
The Encore ESP is also marginally faster in output than the Encore is, again due to the new M2 burrset inside.
Vs. Timemore C3 ESP Pro Hand Grinder
In a pure blind taste test, with five shots pulled, head to head, the Timemore C3 ESP Pro beat the Encore ESP. This result kind of shocked me. I have to put it down to Timemore’s new S2C burrsets inside.
The Timemore also allows very fine adjustments in their ESP version of the C3 grinders, giving roughly the same micron adjustment (20um) per “click” that the Encore ESP does. The “action” of the folding crank arm on the C3 ESP Pro is also nice, letting you crank away at around 75-90rpm with some practice.
I found both grinders were similar in pour over coffee quality and give a slight nod to the Encore ESP on anything for Chemex or Press Pot. The Timemore is relatively fast (for a hand grinder) when grinding for press pot (21g out in about 30-35 seconds) but nowhere near the speed of the Encore ESP with its’ 2.3g/sec grinding speed.
So why choose the Timemore C3 ESP Pro over the Encore ESP? It’s half the price, outputs better espresso grinds, and being unpowered, is a great travel and portable grinding option. It is fast (relative) for AeroPress through Press Pot grinds, and is very well built. Lastly, the output, even for espresso is way less clumpy than it is with the Encore ESP.
But the Encore ESP is motorized, can handle big batch grinding without any issues, allows a nice granular and repeatable grind settings for espresso, and is much, much faster overall. Basically, if you’re only making a couple shots of espresso a day, and one or two 300ml pourovers, the Timemore C3 ESP Pro might be the better option for you. If you don’t want beefy forearms and want hassle free, convenient grinding, whether it’s 18g out or 80g out, with really good output, the Encore ESP is your choice.
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The Baratza Encore ESP carries on a 20 year tradition, started by the Baratza Maestro, then the original Encore as a leading choice in the budget, quality grinder category. It confidently addresses one of the greatest shortcomings of the Encore, by having a robust, capable, fine-tunable grinding ability for espresso.
The after sales service that comes with this grinder is worth nearly the price of the grinder itself. You will probably be seeing Encore ESP grinders being used 20 years from now, just like how I have a 2000-era original Encore still in operation (it has had a motor change ($35) and a burr change ($25).
The output quality from espresso through press pot grinds is excellent. The speed is good, peaking at 2.3g/sec. The noise levels are acceptable, if a bit on the loud side. The motor has enough torque to handle PNW and Scandinavian baked roasts. The addition of the dosing cup is a nice perk that saves you $20ish dollars. The upgrade ot the M2 burrset saves another $35 or $40.
The biggest negative of this grinder, and the one that truly prevents it from being our absolute top recommended grinder under $200 is the lack of a timer. Given that $50 Amazon specials have 0.1sec digital timers on their budget grinders, there’s no excuse for the Encore ESP not to have one. This isn’t 1995 any longer. A timer would have really boosted the overall useability of this grinder, and more importantly, would prevent waste of good coffee. A solid 4+ points in our rating are knocked off because of this omission.
Some may point to the SK40, SD40 and DF64 grinders from Turin and point out they do not have timers. But they are also true single-dose grinders. The Encore ESP is a hopper grinder, capable of holding up to 300g+ of coffee up top. Hopper grinders need timers. Single Dose grinders do not.
Overall though, we do recommend the Baratza Encore ESP as an entry point, multi-purpose grinder. The longevity, build quality, grind output, and fine tuning ability for espresso make it a great choice for anyone looking to get into quality coffee in the home on a budget.
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8.5DesignLooks good, has a nice footprint and everything fits together nicely.
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7.0UsabilityA lot of grinds retention when grinding for espresso, and even using aftermarket bellows doesn’t work well. No timer is a further knock.
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7.5FeaturesBig ups for the grind selection dial innovations, easy to change burrset and dosing cup. Big downs for the lack of grind timer.
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6.5PerformanceEspresso performance is even better than the Virtuoso+ in Baratza’s lineup, and it does a good job at other grind settings too.
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8.5Value vs. CostAt $200, this is actually cheaper today than the original Encore ($205, adjusted for today’s dollars vs 2004 cost). You get a lot of entry point grinder at this price.
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8.5Quality of BuildBaratza spends the money (mostly) right in this grinder, with most going towards motor, burr set, burr housing and the grind selection dial.
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10Service / WarrantyIt’s Baratza. Best after sales service in the entire coffee industry. Most companies can’t touch them.
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9.5Included in the BoxLots of stuff included, from the single dose container to shelf, brushes and more.
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8.5Resale ValueAs long as it is in good shape, you should be able to get up to 75% of the price back on resale.
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8.5OverallGiving it up for the innovative grind selection dial and bonus dosing cup. But this grinder loses points for the lack of timer.
Where to Buy
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By submitting this form, you are consenting to receive marketing emails from: CoffeeGeek. You can revoke your consent to receive emails at any time by using the SafeUnsubscribe® link, found at the bottom of every email. Emails are serviced by Constant Contact