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⚙️ Grinders & Grind · 2026Baratza's manual prints a starting point for six methods: espresso 8, AeroPress 12, V60 15, drip 18, Chemex 20, French press 28.
Written and reviewed by the CoffeeLabAdvisor editorial team · Published 9 October 2026
Baratza's Encore instruction manual prints suggested starting points for six methods on the grinder's 40-step dial: Espresso 8, AeroPress 12, Hario V60 15, Automatic Brewer 18, Chemex 20, French Press 28. Baratza attaches a caveat to its own table, and it is the honest one: “The exact grind setting needed in each situation can only be found through experimentation and the development of one’s palate.” One operational rule matters more than any number — “the grinder must be running or completely empty of beans” when you change the setting, or you risk damaging it.
Baratza's six published starting points across the Encore's forty steps. Note how much of the dial sits beyond French press, and how little separates the filter methods.
Most grind-setting charts on the internet are somebody's preference. This one is not: it is reproduced from the Encore's own instruction manual, under the heading ADJUSTING THE GRIND SIZE
, where Baratza introduces it as suggested grind setting starting points to use for common brew methods
.
Two things are worth noticing immediately. The filter methods are bunched tightly — V60, automatic drip and Chemex occupy five steps between them — while espresso sits a long way below and French press a long way above. And the table stops at 28 on a dial that runs to 40, so a third of the range is coarser than Baratza's own coarsest suggestion.
Printed immediately alongside the numbers, in the manual, is this: The exact grind setting needed in each situation can only be found through experimentation and the development of one’s palate.
We are quoting it because charts like this get screenshotted away from their disclaimer and then treated as settings rather than starting points. Baratza is telling you plainly that 15 is not the V60 setting; it is where to begin before the bean, the roast, the age and your own taste move you.
Treat each number as the middle of a range you will explore by two or three steps in either direction. If you are consistently landing five or more steps away from Baratza's figure for a method, that is worth noticing — usually it means the burrs need cleaning or the beans are much lighter or darker than average.
This is the most important sentence in the section and the one owners most often miss: When adjusting the grind setting, the grinder must be running or completely empty of beans to prevent damage to the grinder.
The reason is mechanical. Changing the setting moves the burrs closer together. If there are whole beans sitting between them and the motor is not turning, you are forcing the burrs into solid material with no way to clear it. Running the grinder as you adjust means the beans are being ground as the gap closes.
So the safe habit is: start the grinder, then turn the hopper. Or empty the hopper first and adjust it dry. Never turn the dial on a stationary grinder with beans loaded.
Adjustment itself is by rotating the hopper so that, in the manual's words, the silver grind setting indicator on the hopper is aligned with the desired grind setting
. To remove the hopper you rotate it fully anticlockwise, to the triangle near setting 40.
Baratza sells two grinders with Encore in the name and they are not interchangeable for this purpose.
The original Encore is model ZCG485, and the table on this page comes from its manual. The Encore ESP is model ZCG495, a different grinder with gearing reworked to put more of the dial into the espresso range. Its numbers do not map onto the original's, and there is now also an Encore ESP Pro (ZCG595) above both.
If your grinder says ESP on it, this table is the wrong reference. If it does not, this is yours. Checking is worth the ten seconds, because an espresso setting that is right on one is nowhere near right on the other.
Baratza lists espresso at 8, and that is a real entry in its own table — but it deserves context rather than a bare recommendation.
The original Encore was designed around filter brewing, and its coarse-to-fine span runs across forty steps for the whole range of methods. That leaves relatively few steps inside the espresso window, where the useful adjustments are small. The practical consequence is that the Encore can reach espresso but gives you coarse control there, which is precisely the gap the Encore ESP was built to close.
So: if espresso is occasional, setting 8 is the published place to begin. If espresso is the main thing you brew, the limitation is the step size rather than the grinder's quality, and it is the reason Baratza produced a second model.
One of these numbers can be verified against an entirely separate company's documentation, which is unusual and worth having.
AeroPress publishes its own official recipe, and in it cites Baratza Encore settings 11–13 as its reference grind. Baratza's manual independently lists 12 for AeroPress. Two makers, two documents, one answer — and 12 sits exactly in the middle of AeroPress's range.
That agreement is a small thing, but it is the kind of corroboration that tells you a published figure is a measured recommendation rather than a marketing round number.
The grinder these settings belong to, and the cleaning tablets Baratza-style burr grinders need. The settings on this page are for the original Encore, not the Encore ESP, which is a different grinder.
The default first grinder - forty settings, a brew-method grinder that reaches espresso in big steps. Listing states Baratza's best-selling entry grinder with 40 mm commercial-grade conical burrs made in Liechtenstein, 40 grind settings for methods from espresso to French press and automatic brewers, a front-mounted pulse button and on-off switch, and a 1-year warranty.
Check price on Amazon →
Grinders need cleaning too, and nothing else does this job. Listing states professional coffee grinder cleaning tablets in a 430 gram container.
Check price on Amazon →
A scale at all beats no scale; this is the cheapest honest one. Listing states a digital kitchen scale with an LCD display, a tare function and multiple units.
Check price on Amazon →
The reference cone: one large opening, spiral ribs, and total control handed to your kettle. Listing states the Hario V60 Dripper 02 in white ceramic.
Check price on Amazon →28. That is Baratza's own suggested starting point in the Encore instruction manual, which also notes the exact setting <q>can only be found through experimentation and the development of one’s palate.</q>
8, per Baratza's published table. Be aware that the original Encore was built around filter brewing and offers coarse control inside the espresso range — the Encore ESP exists to address exactly that.
Baratza lists Hario V60 at 15, Automatic Brewer at 18 and Chemex at 20. The filter methods sit close together, so small moves matter more here than elsewhere on the dial.
Forty. The hopper rotates to align a silver indicator with the chosen number, and rotating it fully anticlockwise to the triangle near setting 40 is also how you remove the hopper.
Only if the hopper is empty. Baratza's manual states the grinder <q>must be running or completely empty of beans to prevent damage to the grinder</q> — adjusting with beans loaded and the motor stopped forces the burrs into whole beans.
No. The ESP is a different grinder (ZCG495) with gearing reworked for espresso; this table is from the original Encore's manual (ZCG485). Check which one you own before using these numbers.
Sources for this page: The suggested starting points table (Espresso 8, AeroPress 12, Hario V60 15, Automatic Brewer 18, Chemex 20, French Press 28), the “suggested grind setting starting points to use for common brew methods” introduction, the “exact grind setting… experimentation and the development of one’s palate” caveat, the “grinder must be running or completely empty of beans” warning, the silver indicator alignment procedure and the triangle near setting 40 for hopper removal: Baratza's Encore instruction manual (manual-encore-en-v4-3-120122.pdf, ZCG485), “Adjusting the Grind Size”, read 2026-10-09 · The AeroPress reference grind of Baratza Encore settings 11–13: AeroPress's own published recipe, aeropress.com, read 2026-09-02 · Model numbering for the original Encore (ZCG485), the Encore ESP (ZCG495) and the Encore ESP Pro (ZCG595): those grinders' own Amazon listing titles, read 2026-10-09 We have not lab-tested brewers; where a figure is a manufacturer's, the page names the manufacturer, and machine capabilities come from our own published review records.