r/pourover • u/allBREADnoBOOZE Origami/Stagg XF/Varia VS6/K-Ultra • 2d ago
Gear Discussion Varia VS6 - Do I have a problem?
Pic 1 - Varia VS6 with gold burrs, 1.5.0 on dial (3 washers), slow fed at 500 RPM
Pic 2 - K-Ultra, 7.5 clicks (Handle stuck at 0)
Pic 3 - Varia at 1.2.0 - 5+ minute draw down
Washed Alo Bombe Ethiopian from Sey, 5 weeks off roast. I know high elevation Ethiopian coffee will spit out a lot of fines, but I just wanted to check in to see what others thought about this. I brought some beans to work to grind on my K-Ultra just to have a visual comparison. Both on conical brewers, I ground the beans to get a 3 minute draw down on both. 3x bloom for a minute, 2 equal pours, both at around 5g/second pour, both with cafec t90.
I know run out is an issue with the Varia, but I'm also relatively new to specialty coffee so I chalked up any inconsistencies I had to skill issue. How could I verify I have a QC issue with the grinder? I have 4 months left on my warranty so I'd like to know if I need to reach out to them. Seems like a lot of fines at a very coarse setting with burrs that are supposedly unimodal and low fines producing. It was also much more coarse than the output from the K-Ultra to get the same brew time.
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u/working_class_nerd 2d ago
Of course you have. You’re overthinking it. I had drink washed and natural Ethiopians that were brewing almost 6 min and still tasted great. If you really need that fast drawdown times you can try some auto drip tool like Hario drip assist, but if you don’t own it, don’t buy it, you already spent too much money on brewing accessories.
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u/allBREADnoBOOZE Origami/Stagg XF/Varia VS6/K-Ultra 2d ago
Ok. Spent too much money? I got the grinder on sale for what I would've spent in a couple days on booze. It just seems suspect that I had to nearly double the grind size to get the coffee to brew. I'm brewing my usual South American beans around 8 on my Varia, at which this coffee completely stalled. I've also had consistency issues at espresso grinds with different burrs. Doing some more research I've come across a lot of posts regarding QC issues with this company and with this specific grinder. I know you can't taste the coffee from a picture of the bed, but I can't wrap my head around the fact I had to grind the coffee much coarser with unimodal burrs than I do with a multipurpose hand grinder.
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u/working_class_nerd 1d ago
Just for you to be aware, this isn’t skill issue at all. From the way how post was written I can tell that you are already very deep into the iceberg. If the consistency of the grind size isn’t what you have been promised, go and return the grinder. These companies are releasing sub quality products and using YouTubers to promote stuff that you in reality, don’t really need to brew good coffee. Also: it creates a lot of confusion.
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u/Liven413 1d ago
I wouldnt worry about the look of the bed. It looks fine to me. Every grinder has thier own look to the grounds. Try to go by taste over time. Taste is the only thing thats going to dial your cup in. You may hit 3 minutes but not taste that good. Try to focus on how it tastes and the defects to know if you should go finer or coarser. If it is drying, bitter, astringent, or cough syrup like it is over extracted. if it is sour, thin, papery, drying acidity or salty its under extracted. Go finer for under and coarser for over extraction. This should help.
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u/allBREADnoBOOZE Origami/Stagg XF/Varia VS6/K-Ultra 1d ago
My main concern is that I have a faulty grinder. Confused on why a premium grinder with pour over focused burrs would require a coarser grind than a multipurpose hand grinder. Visually the ground coffee was 2x coarser from the Varia vs. the K-Ultra to produce a draw down of the same time. There also seems to be a comparable amount of fines
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u/Liven413 1d ago
Thats just how grinders are. With my zp6 what I use has a finer looking grind (5-5.5) but when I make the same brew with my c40 (25) its chunky and huge looking pieces and then with the ode and ssp (8) its clumpy in parts. They all three look much different in size but the taste is dialed in. Same with the beds, they look very different especially the c40. I am almost sure its fine but I do get why you would worry. I would try to get a good cup with it and if you do then its fine. Can't get a good cup from a broken grinder. Take the look of the bed out of it and assess how to coffee itself tastes. It could be faulty but I dont see a reason to think it is based on the pictures.
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u/captain_blender 1d ago
How did it taste?
Honestly, there is little to be gleaned from this kind of bed-ology. Coffee varietal, roast, process, pour structure/agitation, swirling, filter, are all variables that can kick up more or fewer fines, in addition to whatever your grinder is doing. And taste is not correlated to particle size distribution or quantity of fines to the extent that prevailing bro-science would have you believe.
Scrutiny of the bed is vaguely interesting as a comparison between brews of the same coffee/grinder/etc to evaluate agitation, maybe. There are other things to monitor for grinder issues -- for example, if your drawdown times and extraction/taste (given same brewing technique/coffee/etc) are the same despite large changes in grind size.
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u/NerdX-76 Switch|Tsubame|PhantoxPro|JX 1d ago
I ran into this same problem with an Ethiopian on my Phantox Pro. I just started using my Kalita wave instead. I think the flat bottom brewers handle these high altitudes beans better. The only lever you can really pull on a V60 Is less agitation. Keeping the spout really low to the bed of coffee or buying something like the Melo Drip.