Baratza Encore ESP: What the Dual-Range Dial Means for Espresso

Baratza publishes most of the numbers that matter. Two are only on Baratza's Amazon listing (the setting count and the weight), and are marked as such in our catalogue.

Three figures are worth reading closely. The 300 g hopper and the 120 g grounds bin tell you it is designed to hold a bag's worth of one bean and grind into a bin, not to single-dose. At an 18 g espresso dose, a full bin is about six doses, so for espresso you will usually grind one dose at a time and stop. The 13 cm (5.1 in) width matters on a small counter: beside a 7.7 in wide Bambino, the pair takes about 12.8 in of frontage before any gap between them. And the 34 cm (13.4 in) height includes the hopper, so check the clearance under wall cabinets, because the hopper is filled from the top.

The dial is easier to understand as two dials sharing one ring. The diagram below maps the 40 numbers to what Baratza says each range is for.

The Encore name now covers three grinders with the same body, and the ESP is weighed against grinders from Breville, Fellow and MiiCoffee in the same budget. The table lines them up on the specs each maker publishes.

Read it by column. Burr size and type tell you the hardware class: the three Baratza espresso models share 40 mm M2 conical burrs, while the Opus 2 and DF54 move to 48 mm conical and 54 mm flat. Adjustment tells you how finely you can steer: stepped dials have a fixed number of positions, stepless ones do not. Single dose tells you whether the maker designed the grinder to be loaded with one weighed dose at a time, which matters if you switch beans often.

It depends on the basket. With dual-wall (pressurised) baskets, which Breville says 'regulate the pressure and help to optimise the extraction regardless of the grind', fine resolution matters less, and the Encore ESP's range is more than these baskets need.

With single-wall baskets, grind does all the work. Breville's manual describes the two failures: too fine and 'the water will not flow through the coffee'; too coarse and it flows 'too quickly', giving an under-extracted shot. A stepped dial means the right grind may fall between two clicks, in which case you adjust dose or yield to land between them. A stepless dial, like the ESP Pro, Opus 2 or DF54, removes that limit.

Grind-setting counts differ widely between grinders, but a count alone does not describe resolution: what matters is how the steps are spread across the range. That is why the Encore ESP's 40 settings compare differently from the Smart Grinder Pro's 60 or the KitchenAid KCG8433's 70, even before burr size is considered.

The burr label is the other half of the story. Baratza fits the M2 burr to the Encore ESP, the ESP Pro and the Virtuoso+, and the M3 to the filter-positioned Encore. Baratza's product pages we read do not publish the geometry behind the labels, so the safe reading is Baratza's own positioning: M2 models are the ones Baratza sells for espresso.

The Encore ESP grinds into its 120 g bin rather than into a portafilter cradle, so it works with any portafilter size; you dose from the bin into the basket. That makes it a common pairing for compact pump machines without a grinder: the Breville Bambino and Bambino Plus (54 mm), CASABREWS models (51 or 58 mm), and boiler machines such as the Gaggia Classic E24 (58 mm).

Because it doses into a bin, a scale does most of the work that a cradle and timer do on other grinders. Grind into the bin and weigh what you transfer to the basket; Baratza markets single dosing on the ESP Pro, not on the standard ESP. Either way, write down the setting that works for each bean, since the dial has no memory and switching between espresso and filter means moving across the change-over point.

With the dual-wall baskets those machines ship with, the Encore ESP is a straightforward upgrade from pre-ground coffee. With single-wall baskets, it is the entry point at which Breville's 'experiment with grind, dose and tamp' advice becomes possible, because you can now change the grind in small steps.

The Encore ESP is a hopper-fed, stepped grinder. That suits one bean at a time, ground by eye or with a scale. Choose something else when your routine is different.

Budget is part of the decision too. At list prices, the ESP sits around $200 and the ESP Pro around $300, so the step up costs about $100 for stepless adjustment, auto-stop single dosing and the timer. A Bambino plus an Encore ESP comes to roughly $500 at list, which is the same band as a Bambino Plus alone; check live prices on the cards, which move often.