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Nov 07, 2024

Why We Love the Baratza Encore Burr Coffee Grinder | Reviews by Wirecutter

By Lesley Stockton Lesley Stockton is a writer focused on kitchen and entertaining. Her coverage includes grilling, kitchen knives, and cookware, just to name a few. I cannot overstate how much the

By Lesley Stockton

Lesley Stockton is a writer focused on kitchen and entertaining. Her coverage includes grilling, kitchen knives, and cookware, just to name a few.

I cannot overstate how much the Baratza Encore burr grinder improved my morning routine.

I strike a weird balance between investing heavily in my home coffee setup while not taking coffee culture too seriously. Like, I love a well-balanced cup in the morning, but I’m not about to weigh my beans on a scale to get the perfect coffee-to-water ratio. Of the $1,000-ish worth of coffee gear in my kitchen, though, my Baratza Encore burr grinder is the one thing I cannot live without.

This all-around workhorse grinder produces the consistent grind required to brew delicious coffee, and it doesn’t cost a fortune.

Before I had a coffee shop’s worth of equipment in my kitchen, I was just a regular home brewer with a blade grinder and a modest, four-cup Mr. Coffee maker. Ever since I was a teenager, I’ve always preferred coffee brewed from freshly ground beans. It’s lively, flavorful, and, in my opinion, the only way to start the day. Even when made in a cheap little coffee machine, the brew is leaps and bounds better than if I had used dusty grounds from a can.

But then my blade grinder died.

Instead of buying a new blade grinder, my partner decided to upgrade our setup with a refurbished Baratza Encore. I’d quietly wanted a burr grinder for years, and Baratza’s model was at the top of my wishlist. Something about its classic coffee-house look spoke to my heart.

Baratza was founded by Kyra Kennedy and Kyle Anderson in 1999 in Seattle. In the two decades since, Baratza grinders have become the go-to for coffee aficionados for their performance, durability, and repairability. Breville bought Baratza in 2020, but the co-founders and company remain the same to this day.

It’s funny to think that I bought a $100 machine to grind coffee beans, only to then dump those grinds into the basket of a Mr. Coffee maker. But that first sip was transformative—the most balanced and elegant cup I’d ever made. That’s because the burrs pulverize beans into more uniform grains than a blade grinder can achieve, which results in a more even extraction of flavors when they’re brewed. In the years since that aha moment, I’ve slowly built up my coffee-gear collection into the countertop-hogging behemoth that it is today.

Now, the Baratza Encore is possibly the most important tool in my coffee-making arsenal.

The Baratza Encore also added some unexpected ease to my early-morning coffee ritual. When I used a blade grinder, I had to load it with beans each day and pulse the button, while occasionally shaking the entire thing to get what I thought was an even grind. But the Encore has a hopper that I keep full of beans, so I can grind coffee with the turn of a dial while I fill the coffee maker or kettle with water. Coffee purists frown on keeping beans in the hopper—something about them going stale or whatever—but I value convenience!

We’ve been testing coffee grinders since 2015 and have yet to find a better value than the consistent, reliable, and repairable Baratza Encore.

With just a turn of the hopper, the Encore offers a wide range of grinds, from super-fine powder to coarse granules. I grind on 11 for espresso and 18 for drip. And here’s a tip: When a recipe calls for instant espresso, I substitute finely ground coffee from the Baratza grinder (setting number 5).

The Baratza Encore has been Wirecutter’s favorite coffee grinder since 2015. Year after year in our taste tests, the trim Baratza Encore has performed as well as or better than any home grinder. And it’s priced lower than other machines of comparable quality.

Read more in our guide to coffee grinders.

Baratza grinders are built to be easy to maintain and repair. I learned this when I had to replace the upper burr housing in my Encore. The company’s YouTube channel is full of DIY repair how-to videos. And you can shop for parts on the Baratza website. I felt so empowered when I replaced a part in my grinder for the first time. If you’re not into doing your own repairs, you can send your grinder to the company to get it fixed up.

An earlier version of this article was edited by Amy Koplin and Alejandra Matos. The current version was edited by Rachelle Bergstein.

Lesley Stockton

Lesley Stockton is a senior staff writer reporting on all things cooking and entertaining for Wirecutter. Her expertise builds on a lifelong career in the culinary world—from a restaurant cook and caterer to a food editor at Martha Stewart. She is perfectly happy to leave all that behind to be a full-time kitchen-gear nerd.

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