Baratza Virtuoso+ Coffee Grinder ZCG587BLK, Black

The Baratza Virtuoso+ is hands down one of the best coffee grinders I’ve ever owned! Whether you’re a casual coffee drinker or a serious home barista, this grinder delivers exceptional consistency, precision, and ease of use.Right out of the box, the build quality is outstanding. The stainless steel and high-quality plastic construction give it a sleek, modern look while ensuring durability. The LED-backlit digital timer is a fantastic touch, making it easy to set precise grinding times down to the tenth of a second.This grinder is equipped with 40mm conical burrs, which produce incredibly consistent grounds—whether you’re making espresso, pour-over, French press, or anything in between. With 40 grind settings, it offers a great range of customization for different brewing methods.The digital timer makes dosing effortless, ensuring the exact amount of coffee every time. The motor is quiet and smooth, and the grind speed is fast enough to be efficient but not so fast that it overheats the beans.Adjusting the grind size is simple, and the grounds bin slides in and out smoothly. Cleaning is easy—just remove the burrs and brush them off. Baratza also offers great customer support and replacement parts, making this a long-term investment.If you’re looking for a reliable, high-quality burr grinder that balances precision, durability, and ease of use, the Baratza Virtuoso+ is an absolute winner. Highly recommended! ☕🔥

For french press, pour overs, aeropress, etc, this is a fantastic grinder. The grind is fairly uniform, the grinder is easy to use, and the entire thing is well made and made for repairs--an investment that will last a lifetime or more!However, for espresso, you *can* recalibrate the grinder to grind down to small enough grinds. This taking off the shell and essentially shifting the grind size range down. By this I mean let's say 0-40 is the range for however your Virtuoso + is currently calibrated. If you recalibrate it to the finest setting, the range, relative to the original, then becomes something like -8-32.As such, this does work for espresso--I managed to dial in some recipes with the use of puck screens and such to compensate for pressure. But the step size itself is fairly big for espresso. What I mean is that the ideal grind size for whatever espresso you want to make is very likely in between grind sizes--and there is no way for you to calibrate this grinder to be in that middle ground. Well, there is: you can do the stepless mod, but per Youtube, this comes with its own compromises (the hopper will shake a lot so you will have to stand there holding the hopper for consistent grinds). Either way, works well for my current espresso skill level and usage.That being said, if you have one of the lower end entry level machines with the pressurized baskets (like mine) and just simply want to make a mocha or strong coffee but not a "proper" or "perfect" espresso, then the grind size/steps kinda don't matter all that much. These types of baskets are meant to eliminate all the nuances of proper espresso making. When you start messing around with unpressurized baskets though, you may be somewhat unhappy depending on how you like your espresso.In case you are interested in the grind sizes I use, here they are below. Keep in mind my Virtuoso + is calibrated to the finest possible setting (Baratza has videos showing how to do this).French press - I use an Espro P7, so I use a medium grind because I can filter out the grounds. I use size level 28 and the standard 1 min bloom, 3 min brewing, 30 sec plunge techniqueEspresso - I use a Casabrews CM5418 but unpressurized baskets. The one I have dialed in the best (as well as I could with this machine and grinder) is the IKAPE 51mm high extraction beehive basket. For this basket, I use 15.5g of medium/medium-light beans at size 4 with the GEMINI 51mm Puck Screen at 0.8mm thickness. The puck screen is primarily to keep the showerhead clean and compensate for pressure as well as volume since I cannot dial in the grind size any better. The pressure ends up being ~8.5-9 BAR on my machine. it will be a bit on the sour side but still good.If you want something a bit more on the bitter side, then with the same basket, I do 16g of the same beans, grind level 5, with the MHW Bomber3 51mm 0.8mm puck screen. The pressure will be 6.5-7.5 BAR with my machine.

Best bang for the buck. I had the original Baratza Encore for 20 years, used it almost everyday and it finally needed to be replaced. I just bought the Virtuoso+. Like the Encore, this is a fantastic grinder with some added features: better blade, digital timer, night light, and it’s quieter. A perfect choice for the coffee fanatic, especially if you use a drip auto-brewer or French press. This will do a fine grind, however there are better choices if you are looking specifically for an espresso grind. Hopefully it will last a long time. I am very happy with my purchase.