As I am writing this, I have come only at the end of the test of the Varia Vs3 coffee grinder. If you are in Espresso or participate in the world of special coffee, I have no doubt that you may have heard of this mill.
Striking in its presence, and the price of a super attractive value of $ 269 (Espresso Grinder Go), VS3 is a Go-to-Fund-Grinder for many coffee enthusiasts, and often postponed as one of the best coffee grinders for beginners.
Despite this, it is not a stranger for mixed criticism from the coffee community, and yes, it has flaws, which I will cover in my entire review soon.
The thing is that, VS3 has a feature that has completely changed the Espresso routine in my morning, and is ignoring it (very well minor flaws).
All this comes down to decibels.
D.B.
There are two main types of grinder: hands and electric. And I am sure you can estimate the difference between the two.
I am lazy, so in the morning when I reshuffle down to make my coffee, I do not want to go straight to a hand to grind a 20-odd gram coffee for an aspresso. So my priority is always an electric grinder (although I use 1ZPresso K-Ultra Hand Grinder while traveling).
I have used a lot of electric espresso grinder in my time – after all, I meet them to test for my job. One of the main problems with electrix is the noise. These things become loud.
I am not talking about 100DB, year-damage-level noise, but Baratja Encor ESP took an average of 82DB in our test. As Hearing health foundationWhile there is no risk for ear health, it is equivalent to being in a noise restaurant.
My Eureka Mignon Specialta is a “cool” mill, but is still an average of 75 dB noise, which is equivalent to listening to someone running landscaping equipment outside your house. Hardly you want to make noise at 6 am.
If you are a blade grinder owner (which you should not be; they suck), then you are in worse position. My father’s old blade mill looked like a turbojet.
In contrast, thanks to its DC power supply (more on it), Varia Vs3 is one of the most cool electric grinder I used by me, running on an average 67DB. Do not misunderstand me, it is clearly far from silent, but it is very calm. If in fact, it took me (pleasant) to surprise, then for the first time I used VS3 for the decoction at home.
See, while the delta between 67DB and 82DB does not seem much, it is. The decibel scale is logarithmic – a 10DB increase means 10x sound intensity, while 20DB growth is 100 times the sound intensity.
I am not good in mathematics (if I am wrong then correct me), but 15DB as I think it is equal to a 30 -fold increase in the intensity of the sound. Or to keep it in another way, Varia VS3, on average, is 30 times cool compared to Baratja Encor ESP, and my Eureka is about 10 times cool compared to Mignon Specialta.
This has made a lot of difference in my morning routine. Now I am not winning to grind my beans. Now I am awakening one of my dogs (a light sleeper), and making its bark, compounding the issue. I can decorate peacefully.
what’s the catch?
Yes, there is a grip. Varia Vs3 is calm, the reason for the DC power I mentioned above.
The AC fed by DC instead of Main, VS3 rotates at only 170rpm. The very loud Baratja moves at the ENCORASP 550RPM, which means that it will be found very quickly through a dose of coffee.
Does it really mean, though? We are talking a maximum of 10-20 seconds for the 18G dose. I would be less than a longer period than a short spike. And I think my partner will also be, because it is less likely to wake up.
What retention?
And at the end of the day, performance also has to play a very large part. VS3 is an excellent mill that scoring a lot in our uniformity and retention test, given its entry-level value tag, as you can see in the tables below.
|
Grinding size |
300μm |
500μm |
800μm |
1100μm |
1400μm |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Super fine |
20% |
90% |
95% |
100% |
100% |
|
Medium fine |
5% |
95% |
100% |
100% |
100% |
|
medium |
0% |
5% |
80% |
95% |
100% |
|
Medium coarse |
0% |
5% |
50% |
80% |
95% |
|
rough |
0% |
5% |
15% |
50% |
90% |
Our first coffee grinder test is always a uniformity test, where we pass ground coffee batch through Cruve Sifers.
More similar, technically speaking, better. What we want to see here is from 5% to 95%, there are large swings in the variance. This means that very little base passes through a sieve, but most pass through the next, showing less variance. Grinder is essentially doing a good job in smooching coffee beans equally in a shaped ground.
The VS3 performs very strongly in the middle border in medium and medium-fine pieces. At the best end of the VS3 adjustment range, we see a minor step in the variance, with 20–90% jump between the best cipher.
Overall, however, this level of uniformity is very high, which makes the VS3 an excellent mill for Espresso. Coarser grounds are slightly less similar, so if you want to make a variety of drinks, including over over, it is probably not one. But I am the first and first of all, so this is what means to me.
| Header Cell – Column 0 |
In coffee |
Grounds out |
|---|---|---|
|
Retention test 1 |
20.0g |
19.8g |
|
Retention test 2 |
20.0g |
19.8g |
|
Retention test 3 |
20.0g |
19.9g |
|
Retention test 4 |
20.0g |
19.9g |
Probably the most prominent of the physical characteristics of VS3 is its 76.5-degree metal body. This is not just for style. The grinder’s pitch helps the ground fall from the boar and reduces retention more easily through the chute. And it works.
As you can see in the top table, Varia VS3 has an average of 0.15G retention per dose more than four 20g doses. This is 0.75% retention. not bad at all.
Morning
As I mention the top, I will cover VS3 completely in a standalone review very soon. This mill has its flaws (mostly related to that DC power supply), but for $ 300, it is a seriously good aspresso grinder.
Sometimes, however, a single feature can create all differences. And as someone who wakes up in the office at 5.45 am, this feature is no noise in my grinder.
I have never owned a properly calm Espresso Grinder before, but now that I have, I am not going back.
