Baratza Virtuoso+ Espresso Grinder Overview
When it comes to grinding beans for coffee makers, pour over, AeroPress, and everything in between there’s one grinder that we’ve recommended consistently for over a decade: the Baratza Virtuoso. Now Baratza has released a successor to this renowned grinder in the form of the Virtuoso+.
Video Transcript Below:
If you’re familiar with the original, many things about the Virtoso+ will seem quite familiar. Its body is made with a combination of stainless steel and black plastic, lending it a solid but understated quality. The 40mm conical steel burrs and 180W motor deliver reliably consistent grounds at around 2 grams per second. Up top, you’ll find the same hopper-based stepped grind adjustment system with settings ranging from 1 to 40. We love this system because it makes it quick and easy to switch between different grind settings for different brew methods. The grind range extends from finer than an espresso grind to coarser than a french press or cold brew grind, meaning you can use this grinder for almost anything. As with the original, we don’t recommend it for espresso because its stepped adjustments are a bit too large, which can make dialing in a great shot pretty difficult.
For essentially anything else, it’s a dream. We regularly use it for pour over, drip coffee, and variety of AeroPress recipes. The fact that it’s such a fast single dosing grinder and only holds onto about 2 grams of retention makes it ideal for use with a variety of brew methods and coffees.
Now let’s look at a few of the new features in the Virtuoso+. The most obvious one is right on the face of the grinder. Where there used to be a single button you’ll now find a backlit LCD and a small knob. This serves to control the grinder’s new digital timed dosing system which is programmable down to one-tenth of a second. Pressing the knob starts the grinder. Further, if you press and hold the button you enter a pulse mode so you aren’t constrained by whatever timed dose you’ve set. This enables you to get consistent dosing if you don’t have a scale.
Lastly, there are a few subtle touches: the hopper and grounds bin are made of a new more transparent plastic and there are a couple of white LEDs in the grounds bin bay. This allows you to see the coffee as its dispensed from the grinder, as well as being able to see if there are any beans left in the hopper at a glance. We’ve also noticed that this new material seems to build up a bit less static, making things tidier when pouring out the grounds.
The Virtuoso+ has all the things we loved about the original with some nice quality of life improvements. It feels fresh and the added functionality helps to keeps it competitive with other popular coffee grinders.
