Baratza Encore Coffee Grinder ZCG485BLK, Black

UPDATE November 2, 2025: Within a week of posting the March update, I started to have trouble with the grinder. It would occasionally become sluggish or stop, but I could always get it restarted again. I've seen other reports of similar problems, but since the grinder continued to work, I carried on with it. Finally, about a month ago it completely died. Following some YT videos, I was able to disassemble the grinder to test the motor and other components. The short story is that the power board had died. I contacted Baratza support, and after a brief email conversation and me sending them photos of the power board, they sent me a replacement power board for free, even though the grinder was outside the 1-year warranty period. I installed the new power board, and the grinder is running again. As for why the board originally failed, I think I accidentally got coffee grounds inside the guts of the grinder while cleaning it. I can't say for sure if that was the cause, the day after I cleaned it, I inverted it with some grinds in the hopper. The next day the problems started. Regardless, this review is now not just for the grinder, but for their support. UPDATE March 8, 2025: The grinder has been wonderful to use over the past year. I am changing my review to five stars. In addition to the star bump, there are three important updates, plus a comment: 1) I upgraded the burr from the original "M3" burr to an M2 burr I ordered directly from Baratza (now Breville). I think it was worth the money. 2) Lighter roasts do make for a slightly messier cleanup than darker roasts. My original review noted not having experienced much of that. 3) Pay attention to your grinding. If it suddenly seems inconsistent, inspect the ring burr holder to make sure all three outer tabs are intact. These are plastic parts designed to break under load to protect the more important internal components. I highly recommend ordering spare holders. I have had two break in the past year, reasons unknown. It sucks to have your grinder down waiting for replacement parts to arrive. Finally, this grinder is not going to give you better coffee if there are problems besides the grinder you're replacing. For me, I discovered the house water had been a secret roadblock to making good coffee at home. Once I realized how bad it was (cheap TDS meter purchased here on Amazon), I switched to using distilled water remineralized with Third Wave Water (also sold here on Amazon). ORIGINAL REVIEW: This is a "5-stars, but" review that makes me drop the rating to 4 stars. I'd give it 4 1/2 stars. Compared to the blade grinder I was using, though, it's worth 10 stars. I ordered the Encore in March 2024, shipped from and sold by Amazon.com. I wanted to be sure of the sender, even if it might have saved a few dollars ordering from a different vendor. The first thing you have to do is to do some minor assembly, and you would think that should be easy to do. There is a fluted rubber gasket that would not stay seated on the ring burr, though, and I ended up tearing it even before making a single pot of coffee. I did some googling and found out that there's a new version of the gasket that is supposed to be with newer Encores, so I'm not sure why mine had the old one. Regardless, I could have tried to obtain a replacement gasket either from Baratza or here, but I ended up ordering some aftermarket gaskets from Aieve (sold here on Amazon) that are a perfect match to Baratza's new gasket. If you get an Encore and it comes with the new gasket, congrats on not having to deal with that headache. After getting it assembled, I followed another online recommendation to run a small batch of beans through the grinder as sort of a break-in. That worked fine. Since then, the grinder has performed admirably. It has been used nearly every day on a variety of dark and medium roasts. It hasn't been especially staticky or messy. An occasional brushing of the chute and burrs is all I've needed to clean it out. I've been careful to keep the grounds below the line on the hopper, so I've avoided clogging it. I did buy some Urnex Grindz tablets, and I'll be using them soon to give the internals a more thorough cleaning. As for the coffee itself, I'm not an expert, but it seems fairly consistent in grinds for drip and French press. Any failures on making a less-than-tasty batch of coffee are almost certainly my fault, not the grinder's. Besides the finicky original gasket, the only complaint I have would be the noise. There are remedies for that, most notably upgrading the conical burr to the one found in the Virtuoso+ or Encore ESP, but I'm not ready to do that yet. Depending on who you ask, the lack of a timer on the Encore is either a curse or a blessing. I'm happy with it. I don't store the coffee in the hopper. I weigh each batch of beans before pouring them in the hopper, so I just turn the grinder on and let it empty the hopper. You can tell by the noise level when the grinder is done, it's significantly quieter. The resulting grounds have been the same weight as what I put in the hopper, so I know the grinder isn't leaving large quantities of coffee behind. There are tons of videos on YouTube regarding the Encore. I recommend checking those out.

*** Final Update*** I have now been using this grinder for close to 2 years. I have also purchased a Vario-W in order to grind by weight as I thought that would help with my consistency while making espresso; however, I will be honest, I now use the Vario for Drip and Press and use the Encore exclusively for espresso. I'm sure the Vario would work just as well (probably better) but I have found the right setting, tamp pressure, etc that makes the coffee I like using the Encore, so why mess with a good thing? I mention that for the benifit of those thinking this might not be a good espresso grinder. While I am aware that there are other pro-sumer models available, this one has been great. It does not have a large range of usable settings for espresso, but with varying tamp pressure, you should be able to get what you are looking for. A quick story about Baratza's customer support: a few months ago I noticed that my grind was suddenly too course and my shots were flowing way to fast. Since the grinder was well outside of its one-year warrany, I took it apart and found that the insides had been severely damaged. I had just moved form Washington State to Alabama and I am sure the damage was due to the poor packing and handling my goods received from our movers. (A story for another day). Anyway, as I mentioned somewhere below in one of my earlier reviews, Baratza sells pieces to replace your grinder should you need them. I needed a new ring assembly that holds the actual grinder teeth in place (consisting of several pieces) and even a new internal housing to remount the motor as some of the mounts had been broken (probably from the movers throwing my things). I was surprised to see everyting I needed was actually available to the consumer on their website - no annoying calls to convince someone to sell me those pieces. While I was at it, I decided I would also replace some other pieces that I figured wouldn't hurt - all in all I was looking at around $30 to rebuild my grinder like new. I was pretty excited about the prices. I emailed Baratza and told them my story and asked if they had any guides or schematics to help me in the rebuild. Within a day, I recieved a reply from Baratza and they told me I shouldn't have such an extensive failure with my unit in such a short time of owning it and they told me they had canceled my order and were shipping me a NEW grinder - and to please return the broken one in the box along with a prepaid shipping label they provided!!! I wrote back and explained that my grinder was no longer under warranty and the damages were due to mishandling: not a manufacturing defect - I thought someone had misunderstood me. They wrote back and said they were sorry my grinder was broken by the movers and they were happy to replace it! I couldn't believe it - they sent me another grinder with no payment from me and simply trusted me to return the broken one. When I got the new grinder I noticed the grind settings were different from the earlier one - I had read they tuend it up for better espresso performance and they did - before I was unable to "choke" my Quickmill Silvano - now if I use a setting below 6, it chokes up. I find settings 6-8 work the best for espresso, 18-24 for drip/pour-over and 30-35 for French Press. Of course, that is all highly subjective and your mileage may vary, but if you are new to the Encore, perhaps that will give you a "ballpark" to work with. Anyway, since that day about 5 months ago, I've continued using my Encore and am very pleased with it. I highly recommend it for its performance, simplicity (sometimes simple is better) and the customer support the Baratza team provided. *** 1 Year Update*** I have been using this grinder multiple times per day for a year now and so far I have NO problems to report. It still grinds just as well as it did on day one, the burrs are still sharp and I still love this grinder. I have no doubt I made the right purchase and I am glad I didn't opt for the "fancy" lcd models with the automated grind features; to me all those extra bells & whistles = more that could break. If I were to upgrade, it would be for a unit in another "class"; perhaps the Vario, but that is several $100 more and I don't see any reason to do so at this time. I will add that there is a 1 star review on this site that complains about larger beans not feeding through the hopper. Initially, I thought it sounded silly; however, not long ago, I roasted a batch of beans much darker than usual (VERY VERY dark roast), resulting in the beans being about 1 1/2 times their usual size. While grinding, I noticed that about 4 beans got lodged between the hopper and burrs. I tapped the side of the unit a few times and the final beans fed through the hopper. I had this happen two or three times. So, I suppose if you habitually use a bean that is much larger than your typical coffee bean, you might have an issue. Just search through the 1 star reviews for more details (at the time of this update, there was only one 1 star review). Summary: fantastic grinder for an excellent price makes this a best buy in my book and I highly recommend it to anyone who is a serious coffee drinker. ***Update*** I've been using this grinder daily for almost 4 months, grinding enough for about 12 cups each day (maybe more on weekends). I usually use it early morning, afternoon and evening. I grind mainly for drip and espresso, occasionally for French press or pour-over. I still have no complaints with this grinder: I believe I made the right choice between this and fancier LCD options. I've ground for a 12 cup pot on numerous occasions when company comes over, and it never overheats or bogs or slows down- I don't think it notices if you're grinding for 1 cup or 12! Everything is solid and the burrs are still sharp as ever. Once a month I disassemble it to give it a good cleaning. It doesn't seem to retain much grinds in the chamber. My only gripe is the static build up after grinding can make a mess when you pull out the grind chamber: there are enough grinds clinging to the exit chute to scatter on the counter if you're not careful (to be fair, this is a common problem plaguing all burr grinders). But really I don't even notice that anymore, after a couple weeks you develop your own routine on how to deal with it and it ceases being an issue. I tend to grind, prep the coffee pot/filter to give the static time to discharge, then I give it a solid knock or two on the side and front before taking out the chute (thankfully this is a VERY solid grinder). It might sound tedious, but I actually had to sit here and think about it because it's simply second nature now and I don't even notice doing it. The only time I notice the problem is when someone else uses the grinder who isn't aware of the "technique". Another great feature is that baratza sells every piece imaginable should you ever have a problem in the future: right down to a new motor or exterior knobs! All the pieces seemed priced appropriately. So while this may not be important to some, I like knowing that should the need arise, my equipment is completely serviceable. So I guess when the day comes that I need new burrs, I won't be shopping for another grinder, but paying a small sum for a new set of burrs. I didn't find that option on many of the other units I shopped around for. Ultimately, I still completely recommend this grinder and would not hesitate to recommend it to anyone who wants quality, affordability and versatility all rolled into a single package! ***Original Review*** I've been looking for a grinder that I could use with my current espresso machine (pressurized portafilter), drip coffee pot, and french press and would also allow me to grow into a more expensive espresso machine (i.e. the Rancilio Silvia or Quickmill Silvano). I was looking at the Rocky grinder, the Baratza Vario and Virtuoso Preciso, the Breville Smart Grinder, et al. Then I came along the Encore which I believe is new for 2012. I read several "professional" reviews and even saw some video reviews where the Encore was able to "choke" the Silvia at around grind setting "6". If you aren't aware, the Maestro and Maestro Plus (which the Encore replaces) weren't able to grind fine enough to choke the Silvia straight from the factory. Although this grinder isn't "stepless" (you have a larger variance from one "click" to the next when adjusting the grind setting, you still get 40 settings which are plenty for any home grinder. With a little tamping technique, this grinder will work fine for any espresso machine - not my opinion - the "pros" opinion. I am currently using it with my pressurized espresso machine, my drip pot and the occasional pour over and french press. It works great for them all! While it doesn't perform as well (or so I've read) as the Preciso or other high-end grinders, the fact that you can even begin to compare them speaks volumes for Baratza. I believe that currently there is NO other grinder on the market that can stand next to this one in terms of quality & versatility within the price range. Maybe the Breville Smart Grinder, but it still costs 50% more, I don't like the LCD display and I've heard (no practical experience) from several sources that Breville customer service is not quite up to par. If any of you out there care, the Baratza Maestro and Maestro Plus were already popular grinders and Baratza completely over-hauled it and produced the Encore - it offers WAY more at the same price. I'm sorry if this sounds like I'm selling the Baratza name, but this is the first of their products I've owned - I'm just impressed they did this with the Encore. So often a company produces a 2nd iteration of a product with lesser features or cheaper quality parts. Check it out for yourself, the innards are improved for better durability along with the burrs for a more consistent and fine grind! WOW...who does that?! Oh, and the first time I used it my wife was in the other room (separated by an open doorway) and she was shocked to find I had used it without her hearing it! Maybe when I close the door and begin my 5am grinding I won't wake the kids! The only con (which I've heard is not an uncommon problem with this type of grinder) is that when I remove the grind container and IF I accidentally knock the grinder, leftover grinds can fall from the chute onto the counter. I have a Dustbuster within arms reach of the grinder so it's no big deal, but if I didn't, it might aggravate me. I'm so glad I bought this and not one of the other many many brands I researched for months. I completely recommend it.

Decided to buy a new google top 10 coffee burr grinder. Barazta Encore again matched my spending range. Fantastic. Grinder a bargain at $150. Again another regretful purchase. Open grinder box...missing instructions and accessories. The main grinder unit and burr set all used and in pieces. Faulty returns must be going directly back into stock without any inspections? Barazta website...Encore is sold out. Constantly ordering and receiving obviously wrong items lately. My last Encore grinder from precocovid days has min 300 pounds of coffee through it from 5lb/5gal batches of cold brew. Granted grinder never got used for anything finer than what arrowpress required. Yearly removed cover and cleaned pwr board & motor. Def tell rock hard peaberry beans is showing the grinder its age. Last 4 years only grinding for my mocha master brewer. Small 80gram duty cycles. Notice my manual grinder giving so much better flavor when compared to old Encore. No longer getting my uniform granular suger looking grinds. At 06:30 everyday, just dump grounds in basket & start brewing mood. I am 100% disabled and waiting for 6th major surgery. Cant drive. Beg someone now to return this new/used junk Encore to get my money back. No mood to buy another new grinder to find someone's returned trash only unit. Instructions & accessories were all missing in this new box. Clearly look at pics and see a used and abused grinder in new box. Is the rest of inventory all returned & non-inspected units? Time to say days of Barazta are over. Any future purchase can be used, faulty, destroyed burr set....fantastic quality control. Encore used to be my favorite grinder. Since this is an official barazta store...website once back in stock probably all the faulty returns. Zero trust left. So many other options today for grinders compared 6+ yrs ago. Live and learn...then move on.

I love fresh-ground coffee and have been using pour over brewers for a number of years. We would use pre-ground grocery store coffee for fast morning drip machine brews and save the good stuff for other occasions. All of that changed when we accidentally got a two pound bag of whole bean coffee instead of the pre-ground version for the morning. We thought we could grind it by hand, but boy were we wrong. After two pounds of grinding with my Hario hand grinder, my left wrist has carpal tunnel, but my right forearm is ripped. Quite the combo. However, we knew that grinding by hand wasn't sustainable any longer and our small grinder was just about to scream. We've talked about splurging for a grinder and I've seen this Baratza Encore mentioned over and over in forums, we finally decided it was time. First thing that stood out to me was the packaging. It was packed very nicely in the box, but the cardboard was folded in a way that made it easy to removed. Felt like it was designed for an actual human and assumed it was a good sign. I was right! Assembly is easy, the manual is simple and straightforward. Can't ask for much more than that. The grinder feels very solid and well made once it is all put together. The design of the grinder is really nice and modern. My hope was that it would be visually appealing enough for my better half to want to leave it on the counter full time. After a couple of days, it's still sitting out in plain site. It fits directly under our cabinets and in my opinion looks really nice. With as much as we plan to use it, putting it away after every use just doesn't seem right. When I set it down on the countertop, I discovered an issue. Whoever assembled my grinder at the factory forgot one of the rubber feet on the bottom. I fired off an email to Baratza and an actual person responded in, no joke, five minutes. They apologized and shipped out the part immediately. I am grateful for that level of service! One of the complaints I heard about the machine was the noise level, so I was expecting it to sound like a blender. Honestly, I don't think it is that bad and I don't think it would wake up my family if I were to run it. It isn't quiet, but not loud enough that I would think twice about buying it. It's really easy to select the grind level and Baratza included a guide with good starting points for each type of brewer in the manual. There are enough setting notches that you could customize your own grind sizes. I printed out labels for each brewer type and the grind settings on the back, just so I don't forget them. It was a relief watching 30+ grams of coffee beans go into the hopper and get sucked down into the burrs and ground in less that a minute. The speed is reasonable, although anything beyond hand grinding would feel fast. The biggest thing I noticed was the consistency. I don't have experience with high-end coffee grinders, but to my novice eyes the grounds appeared to be very consistent and similar in size. I'm sure there would be some outliers if I dug through it all, but in my unscientific approach, it all looked good as I dumped it into the V60 filter. All in all, it's a great grinder and according to the other reviews I should enjoy it for many years to come. Hope this helps!

It's coming up on two years since I purchased this, and in that time, it has probably been used every single day. I don't do espresso, so I can't speak to how well this works for grinding that fine. But it works very well for our needs. It grinds consistently, it's pretty easy to clean, and the grinder itself hasn't broken down. I'm happy with it, and if I were to purchase a new grinder, if I didn't plan on upgrading to a different price tier, I'd probably purchase another one of these. I wish it came in more interesting colors, though. My docking of a star is because, a couple of months ago, I noticed the grinds were extremely coarse no matter how much I adjusted the grind setting. After doing a little bit of internet research, I discovered that some tabs had broken off my burr grinder holder, which made adjustments to the grind size impossible. The part is only $5 from Baratza (although I purchased the combo holder and burr, which is $17 rather than $5, but I think that's still pretty reasonable), and once I made the replacement, it worked great again. I think the tabs breaking off after less than two years is pretty lame, but at least the replacement part is reasonable. I didn't think to save the old grinder holder to take a picture of the old and the new so people could see what I'm talking about, but I have included a picture from the internet with the tabs circled, so if someone else has this same problem and comes across this review, maybe they'll be able to fix the problem rather than purchase a new grinder, which I was contemplating doing.

Ok, you wanted a review: Grinds the beans consistently every time. The machine is a pleasure to use. I'm guessing most burr grinders are be a bit of a nuisance to properly clean. Only takes about 3 minutes though. The following are all observations about the idiosyncrasies of the machine, none of these are showstoppers, I would recommend this rig to everyone I know. Like with anything worth having you need to learn the proper operating technique. There are nooks and crannies deep inside the mechanism you can never really clean, or see. You can get most of the way there. The machine would have to be completely disassembled in order to remedy this issue. A problem with any burr grinder I'm sure unless you buy some $$$ commercial unit. It's takes a bit of a knack to get the snug fitting rubber gasket to seat properly which is necessary to do each time you brush out the internals. A good thing I suppose as it does provide an excellent seal but I can see someone messing up the seating. If it is not right the hopper won't quite fit and you may get people trying to force things or damage the gasket (see below). Notes about some usage techniques are lacking in the manual, nothing you will not figure out for yourself over the course of time though. For example, there is a fixed on/off switch and a pulse button for controlling the motor. They don't tell you what the pulse button is for though. Spoiler Alert: It is to be used at the very end of the grind when there are like 4 beans left. You should shut the main switch off at this point and then use the pulse button to coax those last few beans through the grinder. Otherwise they will just bounce around the container. Important: when you clean the machine you can easily/accidentally rotate an internal ring, associated with the lower burr grinder, away from its' home position. It rotates in one direction or the other when the bean container is in place to select the grinder setting. So anyway, if you unwittingly rotate it out of its home position while cleaning you will never get the bean hopper back on the machine. You will be convinced the machine is broken and have no idea why? And only after the second use! So, I refer back to the manual because I recalled a note about something or other not fitting right. There is a single sentence in there alluding to this situation about having to rotate the ring all the way in one direction. That of course fixed the problem, BUT, if you don't read manuals you might be in trouble. Also, though the manual does mention this, it should do a much better job of calling it out as an IMPORTANT "feature" that can be encountered during cleaning. I suspect they have had machines returned by folks thinking they were broken. None of these issues are going to trip up an experienced or "technical minded" coffee jock. But a burr grinder rookie may sweat this one out a little and possibly damage the machine trying to force something. Once you know or figure out all of this stuff you will never have another problem. But never let an inexperienced person disassemble the machine for cleaning unless you have schooled them on these caveats. Conclusion Great grinder, manual could be improved upon. Oh yah, ship an extra rubber gasket with the machine! If that thing fails [for whatever reason] I suspect the grinder becomes unusable. And all for lack of a 50 cent gasket that at a minimum, must be painful to replace. That extra gasket is a great marketing tool that for pennies will immediately improve customer perception of your product.

UPDATE / July 2018 the motor stopped. Cleaned out and it eventually came back on for about ten grinds then stopped again, no sound, no grind. Could be electrical. My decision is if it's worth repair cost plus shipping to repair and back. My guess is probably not, My guess is repair will be at least half the cost of a new unit. I have an older cheap-o grinder to get me through. I'll probably go through trouble shooting for obvious defects and fix if I can. I use it once per day. *** So, I contacted customer service, received a fast response and a test to perform on unit, they came to the conclusion that the motor itself has gone bad prematurely and have shipped me a new motor to install, along with instructions on how to do it. They have a trouble shooting section on their web site and many quality videos on youtube. I'm really pleasantly surprised and delighted with their amazing support! I admit the grinder arrived today, October 2016, but I've ground 5 times so far. The instructions are not adequate to assemble. But there are videos on YouTube that explain and show how to place the burr, the rubber gasket and the hopper correctly. Solid device, heavy, steel burrs but the motor is strong so that it can grind slow to reduce heating of steel. With the catch bin removed there is a button to drop grind directly into the basket. I bought cheap beans at Walmart at $3.80 for one pound to clean burrs before using expensive beans My concern was, does this do fine grind for espresso and I'm now certain is does that fine and more.The finest grind I swear can do Turkish coffee! I tried the finest setting for espresso but it was so fine the water couldn't push through the grind! Tomorrow I will try a setting of 8 which two others suggested and use the pinch test before grinding a batch. I did run across an article which referred to Pinch Test for espresso grind, pinch grind between thumb and forefinger very tight, if the grinds comes apart after releasing pinch too coarse, if all grind sticks together then too fine, you want the center only to clump tight together and outer edges loose for best espresso grind. There are option's, one option you can buy is a timer, and another is a stand to replace catch bin, which holds the filter basket to catch grind directly into. You can grind just what you need per cup and not have ground up beans sitting in the catch bin a few days. Fresh grind daily! I've read several complaints about static and the catch bin and a dusty mess, I saw no indication of that. I have a $50 grinder and yes it know what this looks like, and the Baratza Encore, no dust, very clean, almost no dust left in catch bin after dumping and nothing behind catch bin. To assemble, please go to YouTube to review video, [...] If you do this correctly you will have ultra fine grind, if you don't you'll get half the range the machine is capable of, view video twice! I paid full price for my grinder, this is a completely neutral review.

Value. These last a long time, so the price is sort of relative. for the amount of time spent researching and buying new grinders and getting used to them, this one is probably the cheapest in the long run. Grind quality. These days, the grind quality of this grinder is overstated. It does a good job reliably, and that is about all you can ask for a home grinder. Burrs last about 8years of daily use. but those last two years are probably less than ideal, as the new burrs refresh the grinder noticeably. The conical burrs are not as uniform as flat burrs, but i tend to enjoy conical burrs anyways. I expected this to grind more uniform than it does. you can clearly see a spectrum of grind sizes, so this is not for control freaks, or people that want the sweetest cleanest cup. There is a reliable character to the grind settings, so you get a much more casual reliability to this machine. It is likely one of the best grind qualities under $200 (2022). That said, there is a lot more competition out there, and the Capresso Infinity probably has the same grind quality, and is a hint more quiet, at just under $99. Also, I’ve had cheaper burr grinders like Krups and Cuisine art, and they don’t match the consistency of grinds day in and day out. That said, they still make good coffee. but replacing a $60 coffee grinder every 5years (even if they don’t break, their burrs go bad) vs getting a Baratza Encore… and the grind quality of the Encore is better than most cheaper grinders, so it is ironic that the better grind ends up costing the same price after several years. Additional thoughts: It feels like a real appliance, like your fridge or microwave may be around for a decade, and so will this. It is nice to be able to buy something once, and keep it a long time because it does a good job and is reliable. Then just replace parts, which feels good not wasting so much. The look of this thing is neutral, and it eventually disappears into the background. Cons: - the hype. They say a lot of things, but this is far from perfect, other than being perfect in compromises. It strikes the right balance of all the needs of grinding coffee at home. - doesn’t do espresso well - was overpriced during the pandemic, but seems they have come back down. Final thoughts: A ton of good coffee grinders have entered the market, and that means this Encore is no longer as premium feeling as it was a decade ago. But it is nice to know there is still this no brainer option out there. So many things in today’s life we have to constantly learn and research before we can decide, and well, with the Encore, it is still a simply good recommendation that most people can’t go wrong with. Because it is good, it isn’t wasteful, and over time it is actually budget friendly. Not to mention you’ll drink more coffee at home because of it, instead of coffee shops.