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- Consistent grinding
- Great variation in grind sizes
- Minimalist and attractive
- Auto-shut off is unreliable
- Disassembly is tricky
Coffee grinder manufacturer Baratza, which has been owned by the Breville Group since 2020 (or Sage Appliances as it’s known in the UK and Europe), has given its much-loved Encore ESP coffee grinder a makeover.
Gone is the chunky switch on the side, while the central “pulse” button has been replaced with a dial and bold digital display. It looks lovely and doesn’t take an awful lot of space on your countertop. But crucially, how well does it grind coffee?
The answer to that, I found, is very well. It’s consistent and I was particularly impressed with the pour over brews I was able to produce from it – notwithstanding a couple of small reservations.
Baratza Encore ESP Pro: What do you get for the money?
The Baratza Encore ESP is an electric burr coffee grinder, designed specifically to grind fine enough for espresso (this is what gives the grinder its “ESP” label, in case you were wondering if Baratza has endowed its machines with a sixth sense). It has stepless adjustment within a huge range and offers single dose grinding as well as a timer function: both of these settings are upgrades on the original Encore ESP.
The grinder also costs a handful of pennies under £250, which is a significant step up from its predecessor’s £160 price tag, and is around £50 less than Baratza’s cheapest Sette grinder, the 270. It’s a relatively slim, compact appliance, measuring 130 x 150 x 340mm (WDH, with the hopper attached).
Baratza has ditched the Encore ESP’s physical controls in favour of a digital display and a central dial on the front of the machine: this dial is used to switch between single dose and timed modes, as well as adjusting the latter’s grind time in 0.5 second increments.
The digital display will also indicate your chosen grind setting in 0.5 increments between 0 and 60 (for context, the original Encore ESP’s stepped grind adjustment range was between 0 and 40), and Baratza helpfully includes grind suggestions for different brewing methods in the instruction manual. For instance, 0-40 is the recommended range for espresso.
As well as making the machine much easier to use (more on this below), the minimalist design looks great, and combined with its small size, makes the Encore ESP a great sidekick to a more compact coffee machine – I had it sat next to my Melitta Aromaboy on my countertop.
In the box, along with the grinder itself, is a rubber cap to pop over the opening when you’re using it in single-dose mode without the hopper, an espresso dosing cup, and a small brush for cleaning.
I should also add that the Encore ESP Pro is supplied with the same 40mm M2 conical steel burr as the original Encore ESP, alongside an upgraded ring burr. Crucially, replacement parts are readily available from Baratza’s website at not-crazy prices.
What’s it like to use?
I found the Baratza Encore ESP Pro very intuitive and easy to use. The choice of timer and single dose functions is a brilliant upgrade on its predecessor. Previously, you had to time the grind yourself, whether you were using the side dial to turn it on/off, or holding down the machine’s “Pulse” button.
With the Encore ESP Pro, you can easily dial in how long you want it to grind for. Or you can ditch the hopper entirely, add a pre-weighed amount of coffee into the top and cover it with the rubber cap instead. The dial acts as a button to start/stop grinding and to switch between the two modes (by holding it down). It’s really very simple.
Grind size is adjusted by rotating a collar at the top of the machine, with your selected grind setting appearing on the digital display. You can do this by rotating the hopper, if it’s attached, or simply by gripping the collar itself. I found the latter was a bit more tricky, though, and required quite a bit more grip strength. It doesn’t help that the collar is very smooth, either.
What I found more awkward was disassembling the grinder to clean it out. Baratza recommends cleaning your coffee grinder every three to six months, so this is something that should be easy; unfortunately, it easy anything but. I found the “Quick Release Knob” painfully stiff and, because it’s so small, very difficult to get a solid grip on. I did eventually get it off, but you might want some pliers to hand if you’re facing it for the first time.
Taking the other parts out proved easier, though I had to gradually tease the paddle wheel out with tweezers. I also urge you to line up the parts as you remove them because you’ll need to put them all back in reverse order. When I first approached this, I also found it helpful to take a couple of photos of the parts throughout the process.
How well does it grind?
Twisting and disassembling aside, the Encore ESP Pro performed excellently.
Grind accuracy tests
In my grind tests for the Baratza ESP Pro, I used the Kruve Brewler as a visual aid to measure how accurate and consistent the resulting ground coffee was. Setting 0 produced grounds at around 400/500 micrometres (μm), which sits comfortably within Kruve’s espresso range (200-700μm). At setting 45 – the bottom end of Baratza’s recommendation for pour over – grounds measured around 900/1000μm (Kruve’s pour over range is 700-1300), while the coarsest 60 setting resulted in grounds exceeding the Brewler’s scale, which tops out at 1600μm. The images below illustrate how accurate and consistent the Baratza ESP Pro grinds coffee.
In real world use, the Baratza Encore ESP Pro did a good job too. I used the grinder for stovetop coffee as well as filter, french press, aeropress and pour over. Results were impressive across the range.
At setting 30 – around the middle of Baratza’s espresso recommendation – I used the Encore ESP Pro to grind a dose of coffee for a double espresso shot (around 17/18g). The flow of the shot I pulled (using the Ninja Cafe Luxe Pro, which I’m also currently reviewing) looked good, and the leftover puck was clean. The resulting espresso was a bit sour, but not bad at all for a first attempt with that particular combination of beans, grinder and machine.
When it came to grinding for V60, I was hugely impressed. I brewed some of the best pour over coffee I’ve made in quite some time, and the nice flat bed of coffee grounds left in the V60 after brewing is testament to that consistency.
How loud is the grinder?
Using a smartphone decibel meter app, I measured the noise of the grinder a little under a metre away in a reasonably small kitchen. When running the machine empty, I noted a reading of 80dBA, and a peak of 90dBA when grinding beans.
While I won’t pretend that it’s a quiet machine, I didn’t find the Encore ESP Pro uncomfortably loud in daily use, so these readings surprised me.
Is there anything else we didn’t like?
I did notice a tendency for some grounds to get trapped in the grinder, only to be loosened with a little shake or a gentle bump, which isn’t ideal. Dedicated single-dose grinders, such as the DF54, tackle this by using bellows to blow retained grounds through the mechanism, anti-static tech or a ‘knocker’; the Baratza employs none of these techniques.
When using the single dose mode, the grinder has a feature that is supposed to kick in when there are no more beans left to grind, but on several occasions I had to intervene to stop it whirring away – usually when I had it set to a coarser grind. Pressing the dial button to stop the grinder hardly requires the greatest effort, but it’s still annoying when something doesn’t work as intended.
Should I buy the Baratza Encore ESP Pro?
If you’re after precise grinding across a wide range of sizes, the Baratza Encore ESP Pro is a very good buy. It much more flexible and capable than the original Encore ESP, and the minor annoyances I did experience were outweighed by its ease of use and solid performance.
Yes, it’s an expensive investment. But if you’re brewing espresso or pour over coffee with good quality single origin roasts, a competent grinder is essential. And that is exactly what the Encore ESP Pro is.
For context, the Fellow Ode (Gen 2) is pricier at the RRP of £345, and isn’t able to grind fine enough for espresso. Another rival is the DF54 I mentioned earlier: this isn’t much cheaper than the Encore ESP Pro, and it lacks the timer and hopper features of the Baratza.
Of course, you can always fall back on the original Encore ESP for £160: it isn’t quite as advanced, but you’re still getting the same M2 conical steel burr as the new model.
Otherwise, the new model very fairly earns its “Pro” moniker. It’s a decent grinder at a decent price and its expanded range of features makes it very easy to use. A great buy for anyone just starting out on their espresso journey.
