Category: Coffee

Rise Up Organic House Roast AeroPress

lpaulriddle
  • Bean info and V60 pourover notes
  • 16 to 17g coffee to 250g water (around 1:15)
  • Prismo with metal and paper filters
  • Grind setting 12 14
  • Water temperature 95C
  • Add coffee, start timer, pour 45 to 50g water
  • Return kettle to base, stir to wet grounds evenly, and bloom until 0:45 (I just left the stirrer in the AP for this step)
  • Top to 250g water and stir front to back 4 or 5 times, finishing around 1:15
  • Cover and steep until 3:15
  • Stir front to back 4 or 5 times again
  • Press gently, finishing around 4:30

This is pretty much the same technique I used with Zeke’s Hippie Blend (a light roast) recently, except I stirred instead of swirling during the bloom step, and I also steeped it about 45 seconds longer. This cup was not bad, but tasted slightly over-extracted, so I’m probably going to want to grind the beans a little bit coarser next time. I’m thinking about trying setting 14.

2/8: I’m almost out of the beans, but noting for posterity that setting 14 was pretty good. I didn’t steep quite as long (maybe until 3:05) but doubt that made any difference.

Rise Up Organic House Roast V60

lpaulriddle
  • Beans: “Organic House Roast” (Medium roast)
    • Roaster: Rise Up Coffee Roasters (Easton, MD)
    • Origin: Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, Sumatra
    • Roast date: 1/4/24
    • Purchase date: 1/24/24
    • AeroPress notes
  • 20g coffee / 300g water (1:15)
  • JX: 18 (54 clicks)
  • Water at 95°C
  • Recipe: Single Cup V60 Pourover with size 2 plastic dripper

I started at grind setting 20, then tried 19 (still a little acidic) and then went to 18, which was an excellent cup. I’ll keep it there for my next cup.

2/1: The last couple of cups at 18 have been really good. Quick technique notes: I am brewing into a ceramic mug, which I am not preheating. To preheat the plastic V60, I put the filter in it and then run some water from the insta-hot tap over it, then swish it around to wet the entire filter evenly. During the initial pour for the bloom, I also run a little bit of water down the sides of the filter to wash off any coffee grounds stuck there. For subsequent pours, I pour in slow spirals, into the bed only, avoiding the sides.

2/6: Not sure what’s up, but I have been having a run of weak, acidic pourovers over the past few days, with both these and some other beans. While grind setting 18 initially gave me several pretty good cups, the past couple have tasted under-extracted. Today, I went to setting 16, and it was better, but still not quite up to snuff with the cups I initially got at 18. Nothing has changed with my brewing equipment or technique, and I don’t think there’s been much variance in the brewing temperature. Could it be related to bean age and/or storage method (bag vs vacuum canister)?

2/9: Used these up today. I had 26 grams left, so I brewed a larger cup with 400g water using the two cup method I have used in the past, pouring to 250g after 50g bloom, and then topping up with the remaining 150g. I went back to grind setting 18. While this cup was not quite as good as my first few cups, it was better than my more recent smaller cups, and on par with the cup I brewed in the AeroPress yesterday. The common thread here is more immersion time — the V60 takes longer to draw down with more water and more coffee. Maybe the beans just need more time to extract as they get further past roast date.

Orinoco Sunshine Serenade V60

lpaulriddle
  • Beans: “Sunshine Serenade”
    • Medium roast
    • Roaster: Orinoco Coffee & Tea, Ltd. (Jessup, MD)
    • Roast date: Unknown (best by 9/5/24)
    • Purchase date: 1/16/24
  • 20g coffee / 300g water (1:15)
  • JX: 19 (57 clicks)
  • Water at 95°C
  • Recipe: Single Cup V60 Pourover

This is a local roaster that I hadn’t tried before, as the coffee isn’t sold at the grocery store down the street, although it looks like I might be able to find it at Giant or Safeway. I picked this bag up at Martha’s Cafe in Arbutus. Oddly, the bag doesn’t list a roast date, but only a “best by” date. I brewed my first cup on Wednesday 1/17 at grind setting 21 or 22, and have since adjusted to 19. This morning’s cup was still a tiny bit on the acidic side at 19, so I’ll try 18 next time.

1/23: Continuing an experiment I started this morning, I brewed a cup exactly the same as yesterday (300g water at 95C/20g coffee/grind setting 19), except I used my plastic size 2 V60 in place of my ceramic size 1 V60. This cup was much better than yesterday’s! It tasted well-extracted and nicely balanced. It seemed like the drawdown took a little bit longer than it did with the smaller dripper, but I’m not 100% sure. It seems more likely that the water lost less heat through the plastic V60 than it does through ceramic. This gives more credence to my theory that the method I’ve been using to preheat my ceramic V60 isn’t as effective as I would like. I also still suspect that the room air temperature plays a role, as I’ve noticed a drop-off in brew quality with the ceramic V60 as we’ve gotten into the colder days of winter. I might try compensating by bumping the starting water temperature a few degrees higher the next time I use the ceramic V60; or, I could just stick with the plastic V60 going forward. For starters, I’m going to try it with a light roast tomorrow.

1/25: Kept everything the same as 1/23 (with plastic V60) and got another really good cup. Just for the record, I left the timer on during the drawdown, and it finished around 2:55. I’m now even more convinced that my recent V60 issues have been caused by heat loss through the ceramic due to my preheat water not being hot enough (see note here from 1/24). For comparison, I may try brewing my next cup with the ceramic V60, preheating with water from the kettle instead of the insta-hot.

1/28: Tried today with the ceramic size 1 V60. I preheated the V60 with 95°C water from the kettle, which got it quite hot. Everything else was the same as 1/23 and 1/25. The first thing I noticed is that, as I had noticed earlier on, the drawdown was a lot faster — it was completely finished by 2:30 or 2:35, which is a full 20 seconds faster than with plastic. While the cup tasted OK, it lacked the sweetness and complexity of the cups I brewed with plastic. The obvious conclusion here is that the faster drawdown time is affecting the extraction, so maybe that’s a bigger factor than heat loss through the ceramic. I’m not sure what’s causing the difference, as geometrically, the size 1 and size 2 V60s are very similar. The ridges on the plastic V60 are more defined than on the ceramic, so maybe that has something do do with it. It could also be the filters, but I’m using brown tabbed filters with both, which (other than the size) are outwardly identical. I suppose I could try using a size 2 filter in the size 1 V60, and see if there’s any difference in drawdown speed. This also makes me want to buy a plastic size 1, just so I can eliminate the dripper size as a variable. In any case, I’ll likely be brewing the rest of these beans with the plastic dripper.

2/1: I’ve ended up going a good bit finer with these, brewing today’s cup at grind setting 17.3 (52 total clicks). This seemed to bring back some flavors that had been missing from the previous 2 or 3 cups. The only other difference was the method I used to preheat the plastic V60 — instead of preheating the mug first and then pouring the water from the mug into the V60 (with filter), I just ran some water directly from the insta-hot tap over the V60 and filter. I doubt this would make a big difference in taste, but just noting it for the sake of completeness.

2/2: Tried grinding at 17 this morning, and it seems like that was too fine, as the cup had a touch of bitterness.

2/4: Tried a little coarser (19) and increased water temperature to 97. Under-extracted and watery. I’ve gotten good cups at 19 previously, so I’m not sure what happened with this one.

Zeke’s Hippie Blend AeroPress

lpaulriddle
  • 16 to 17g coffee to 250g water (around 1:15)
  • Prismo with metal and paper filters
  • Grind setting 18
  • Boiling water (100C)
  • Add coffee, start timer, pour 45 to 50g water
  • Return kettle to base, Swirl AP gently, and bloom until 0:45
  • Top to 250g water and stir 4 or 5 times, finishing around 1:15
  • Cover and steep until 2:30
  • Stir 4 or 5 times again
  • Press gently, finishing around 3:30-3:40

This made a pretty good cup. It had no bitterness, and the body and flavor actually seemed better than the pourovers I have been making recently with these beans. I wonder if the cooler ambient air temperature this time of year is affecting the extraction of the pourovers.

I had been wanting to get back to occasionally brewing lighter roasts in the AeroPress, since I’ll likely be doing it a lot while traveling, where I won’t have precise control over the temperature of the water, or access to a scale. This seems like a good first stab. The recipe is very similar to what I’ve been using for dark roasts, but adds a bloom step. I used the scoop that came with my plastic V60 dripper to measure the beans, and also weighed them, and it seems that 16-17 grams translates to one slightly heaping scoop of beans. I’ll have to try this with a couple of different light roasts to see how much variance there is between them. Then, I’ll just need a way to eyeball the amount of water, and I expect that I can use the markings on the AeroPress cylinder for that. The Prismo definitely makes this easier, as it keeps the water from dripping out through the filter without the need to invert the AP.

1/21: I brewed the same recipe today with Zeke’s Holiday Roast (a medium roast) except I dropped the water temperature to 95C. It produced a perfectly OK cup that was neither better nor worse than my V60 cups. I have a feeling it would benefit from a little bit of tweaking, but as I’m almost out of the beans, I’ll likely just go back to V60 to use them up.

Peet’s Major Dickason’s AeroPress

lpaulriddle
  • Beans: “Major Dickason’s Blend” (Latin America/Indo-Pacific)
    • Dark roast
    • Roaster: Peet’s Coffee (Emeryville, CA)
    • Roast date: 11/19/2023
  • Dark Roast AeroPress Recipe
    • JX grind setting: 11 to 12 (33 to 36 clicks)
    • Water temperature: 85°C
    • Steep time: 1:35
    • Ratio: 1:12.5 (20g coffee, 250g water)
    • Prismo with metal filter and 1 paper filter
    • Go easy on the stirring (3x or so before and after steeping)

I initially brewed these yesterday at grind setting 16, but it tasted a little bit watery/under-extracted. I tried again today using grind setting 15, and it was quite good. Some “fines” definitely make it into the cup at this setting, which doesn’t bother me, but if it did, I could add a paper filter to get rid of them.

12/30: Decided to experiment today and see how much stirring really affects extraction, as I’ve read in various places that more stirring == more extraction. I stirred at least 10 times at both the beginning and the end of the steep period. The result was a really watery and lifeless cup, which is not what I had been expecting. After the fact, I realized that I had used grind setting 16 instead of 15, which kind of invalidates the experiment. It does prove that no amount of stirring is going to make up for the grind being too coarse. It also makes me wonder if I should try grinding finer than 15. Not sure if I’ll try that tomorrow, or try the stirring experiment again.

12/31: Went to grind setting 14 and back to just 4-5 stirs. Kind of a weird cup, where the first half tasted full-bodied and pretty good, but the second half seemed like it had less flavor. I’ve noticed this phenomenon a few times before, particularly with darker roasted beans, and I’m not sure if it’s because of the coffee cooling down as I drink it, or my own taste buds getting desensitized, or both, or neither. It could be that the beans are past their prime, in which case I may have hit the point of diminishing returns. However, it seems that I’ve used grind settings as low as 12 with dark roasts in the past, so I will likely try to go a little finer next time and see what happens.

1/1/24: Grind setting 13 was an improvement over 14. Interestingly, the first sip had a slightly watery mouthfeel, but the rest of the cup was pretty nicely balanced, which is the exact opposite of what I noted yesterday. Once again, I’m not sure how much of it is related to temperature vs palate. Could probably go even finer if I wanted to..

1/2: Grind setting 12 today. This was a little better still than 13, at least until the last third of the cup, when I started noticing some bitterness. This cup also had noticeably more sludge in it. I may try adding a paper filter tomorrow, to see if filtering the sludge out eliminates the bitterness.

1/3: Kept grind setting 12 and added a paper filter on top of the metal Prismo filter. Good cup with no bitterness at the end and no sludge. I think I might brew the rest of the beans this way, unless I get the urge to tinker some more.

1/5: This was still good at grind setting 11. I wonder how fine I can grind these before they start getting bitter…

1/9: Grind setting 11, stirred a little bit more than usual (maybe 7 times or so back and forth before and after steeping). This cup tasted kind of like burnt ashes. Is this what over-extracted dark roast coffee tastes like?

1/10: Used setting 11.3 (34 total clicks). I added 1 click on a whim, but I doubt it’s enough to tell a difference from 11. Didn’t stir much this time — 3 rather leisurely back-and-forth stirs before and after steeping. This ended up being the best cup I’ve brewed so far. It was good, with no burnt-coffee taste, and the entire cup was consistent (no mysterious loss of flavor halfway through). Could the stirring (or lack thereof) really contribute that much to the flavor? Unfortunately, I only have 30g of beans left to experiment with, so I’ll have to pick this back up with the next dark roast I buy.

1/12 or 1/13: Used up the last of these. I got the best cups using a grind setting of 11 to 12, going easy on the stirring, and using a paper filter in front of the metal Prismo filter, so I’ve updated the recipe accordingly. Incidentally, I ended up with 8 grams of beans left, which was not enough for a full cup, so I brewed it at 1:10 (80 grams water) and added it to some hot chocolate. It was quite tasty!

Zeke’s Hippie Blend V60

lpaulriddle
  • Beans: “Hippie Blend” (Sumatra/Peru/Papua New Guinea)
    • Light roast (2/8)
    • Roaster: Zeke’s Coffee (Baltimore, MD)
    • Roast date: 12/11/2023
  • 16g coffee / 250g water (1:15.6) or 19g coffee / 300g water (1:15.8)
  • JX: 21 (63 clicks)
  • Water at 99°C
  • Recipe: Single Cup V60 Pourover

I went ahead and created a page for the single-cup V60 technique I’ve been using, and going forward, am just going to link to that in lieu of listing all the steps out in every post (unless I end up doing something significantly different).

I opened this bag on 12/25, and brewed my first cup at grind setting 20. I then tried setting 18 (finer) on 12/26. Both cups were 250g, and both had a hint of bitterness. Per above, I used a coarser grind today, and brewed a larger cup at the same ratio. Today’s cup was not bitter, and had a mild, mellow flavor to it. This seems like an OK starting point, but I may tweak this a little further. It’s worth noting that grind setting 21 is still slightly finer than what 1Zpresso’s chart shows as the “pourover” range, but I’m worried that if I go any coarser, the V60 will drain too quickly and the coffee will end up under-extracted. This might be one of those cases where I get better results by brewing 2 cups’ worth at a time, or possibly using the AeroPress, to get a longer immersion time. In any case, I have an entire pound of beans with which to experiment.

12/31: 300g water / 20g coffee / grind setting 22 (66 clicks). Probably the best cup I’ve had so far. Well extracted with no bitterness. On the strong side.

1/2/24: Might want to nudge this a little bit coarser still. Try 23 next time.

1/4: Grind setting 23 at 1:15 (20g:300g) was a very good cup.

1/5: Another decent cup at 23, but once again, could be ever so slightly smoother. Try 24?

1/16: The best grind setting seems to be between 24 and 25 (72 to 75 clicks), weighted towards 25, as 24 has occasionally tasted slightly bitter. The drawdown finishes very quickly at this setting, but I’ve noticed that this is the case with almost all of the beans I’ve brewed from Zeke’s. They also leave very little fine residue in the grinder. Part of this is likely due to the grind coarseness, but I wonder if it also has something to do with moisture content in the beans, which could be related to how they’re packaged — unlike most beans I buy, Zeke’s do not come in sealed bags.

1/25: Brewed at grind setting 25, and preheated the V60 with 95°C water from the kettle instead of using the insta-hot (I kept it a little cooler than the 99° brew water to avoid burning my fingers). This led to a lot more extraction — so much so that the cup tasted bitter. At this point, I definitely think I’m on to something — I need to either be using a plastic V60, or preheating the ceramic V60 from the kettle instead of the insta-hot. As for these beans, I only have enough to make 1 more cup, and I’m going to try it with a coarser grind.

1/27: Used up the last of these — slightly on the strong side at 21g coffee to 300g water. I preheated with kettle water again, and backed the grind all the way off to 27. This was a better cup than 1/25, but still got a little more extraction than I would like. I’m kind of wishing I had more beans to experiment with, now that I seem to have sorted out my ceramic V60 preheating issue. It’s interesting that these beans, as well as the other bag of Zeke’s I recently finished, seemed to want a much coarser grind than most others I’ve brewed. I’m sure I’ll eventually get things dialed in a little better.

Zeke’s Holiday Roast MMXXIII V60

lpaulriddle
  • Beans: “Holiday Roast MMXXIII” (Mexico/Uganda)
    • Medium roast (4/8)
    • Roaster: Zeke’s Coffee (Baltimore, MD)
    • Roast date: 12/19/2023
    • Purchase date: 12/22/2023
  • 20g coffee / 300g water (1:15)
  • JX: 23-24 (69-72 clicks)
  • Water at 95°C
  • Recipe: Single Cup V60 Pourover

12/24: I tried these for the first time yesterday at grind setting 20, and it tasted like I could go a little bit finer, so I went with 19 today. Interestingly, I didn’t notice much bubbling during the bloom phase either day. I’m not sure why some beans tend to bubble a lot, while others don’t. I’ll have to read up on that. In any case, this turned out pretty good. I may try some minor tweaks (a little bit finer grind, and/or hotter water) just to see how they affect the flavor, but this definitely works as-is.

12/28: A little bitter this morning at grind setting 19 with 300g water/20g coffee. Could be that the beans needed to degas. Could also be that the larger brew volume led to more extraction. Will try a 300g cup at setting 20 the next time.

12/30: 300g at setting 20 was good this morning. I’m wondering if the beans were too “fresh” on 12/24 and needed to outgas a little bit. The only difference is that I brewed a larger cup today. I’ll probably stick with this setting for a bit and see how the next few cups taste.

1/1/24: A little bit of bitterness creeping in at 20 today. Still not a bad cup, but I feel like there’s room for improvement. Try 21 next time.

1/5: Setting 21 still had a slightly unpleasant bitter flavor to it on 1/3, so I tried 22 today, and it was a reasonably pleasant cup. I suspect that 22 or possibly 23 will end up being the best setting, but I still have a lot of beans to experiment with.

1/6: Setting 23 was a very good cup, but I think it might be even better at 24. Recent experience with these beans as well as Zeke’s Hippie Blend have me wondering if I should tweak my starting grind setting for brewing light- and medium-roasted beans with the V60. I’ve typically started with setting 20 (2 rotations on the JX), but maybe I should try starting somewhere like 22-23 (or even coarser) instead. I still have a good amount of both beans, so it will be interesting to see what grind setting I ultimately end up at.

1/12: The past several cups have been really good at grind setting 24.

1/23: I’ve been using grind setting 24 for the past couple of weeks, and while the cups are generally good, I’ve felt like the last few could have been better. Hard to put my finger on it, but I’m wondering if it has something to do with the cooler ambient air temperature affecting the temperature of the brew water. As an experiment this morning, I brewed a single 300g cup using my size 2 plastic V60, instead of my usual size 1 ceramic V60. I kept everything else the same (grind setting 24, water 95C, same pourover procedure), so the dripper was the only difference. This cup tasted quite different than my recent cups, though. It was similar to earlier cups that I brewed using finer grind settings — not quite bitter, but a little bit over-extracted. Plastic is a much better insulator than ceramic, and even though I preheat the ceramic V60, I’m wondering if it’s still sucking too much heat out of the brew water. I’m curious to try this experiment again, although I’ll need to use different beans, as I only have 16g of these left.

1/24: I brewed the final 16g at grind setting 23 with 250g of water. This was not a stellar cup, but I think I figured out what was going on with my ceramic V60: the preheat water from my insta-hot tap is not as hot this time of year, so the V60 isn’t getting as hot, and the brew water is losing more heat. Usually, the insta-hot gets the V60 hot enough that it’s uncomfortable to handle for too long, but today, I noticed that it’s not getting that hot any more. The insta-hot tank is mounted under the kitchen sink, which is unheated and poorly insulated, and I doubt that the thermostat is all that precise, so the water in the tank likely isn’t staying as hot as it does during the warmer months. Today, I preheated with water from the kettle instead, and it got the V60 much hotter. I can’t put a finger on what was wrong with the coffee, but it may just have been the strength (1:15.6 vs my usual 1:15), or possibly that it was over-extracted, or possibly both. Too bad I don’t have more beans to experiment with, but I did get a lot of good cups out of these.

Zeke’s Festivus Roast AeroPress

lpaulriddle
  • Beans: “Festivus Roast” (Indonesia/Central America/South America)
    • Dark roast (7/8)
    • Roaster: Zeke’s Coffee (Baltimore, MD)
    • Roast date: 11/27/2023

Initial Recipe

  • JX: 2 turns (Grind setting 20)
  • 83°C brew water / 99°C bypass water
  • 20g coffee / 200g brew water + 50g bypass water (1:12.5)
  • Two paper filters, pre-moistened
  • Recipe: An AeroPress Recipe by Tim Wendelboe
  1. Set AeroPress up in standard orientation and rinse filters
  2. Add 200g water to AeroPress and return kettle to base
  3. Stir 3 times back to front
  4. Insert plunger and pull up to stop dripping
  5. Turn kettle up to 99°C
  6. Steep for 60 seconds
  7. Remove plunger and stir 3 times back to front again
  8. Insert plunger and press slowly
  9. Add 50g bypass water

Best Recipe

  • JX: Grind setting 16 (1.5 turns plus 3 clicks, or 48 total clicks)
  • 85°C brew water (no bypass)
  • 18g coffee / 225g brew water
  • Prismo with metal filter
  • Insulated mug (Hydro Flask or similar)
  1. Set AeroPress up in standard orientation and add ground coffee
  2. Start timer and add 225g water, finishing at around 0:35, and stir 4-5 times back to front
  3. Cover AeroPress to minimize heat loss (I set the plunger on top)
  4. Steep until around 2:10 (1 minute 35 seconds)
  5. Stir 4-5 times back to front again
  6. Insert plunger and press slowly (I use just enough pressure to keep the Prismo valve open)
  7. Put lid on mug immediately to retain heat

The “initial recipe” turned out really good the first time I brewed it. Compared to the pourover cups I’ve been making recently, it was smoother and had more of a chocolaty note to it. It makes me wonder if I can tweak the pourover recipe to get a similar result. I used a finer grind setting for the AeroPress, but I don’t think I’d want to go much finer with the pourover, as it already had a slight edge of bitterness. The AeroPress cup had no hint of bitterness at all. It definitely seemed stronger than the pourover (maybe a little too strong, actually 😀), so I’m wondering if the longer steep time leads to more bean extraction at the lower water temperature. I suppose that I if I wanted to reduce the caffeine hit, I could skip the bypass and brew 200g water with 16g coffee, but I liked that the hotter bypass water brought the cup up to (what I consider to be) an ideal drinking temperature. I’ll have to give this some thought.

12/6: The same recipe with 18g coffee (1:14) had similar flavor, but (predictably) less body. I think I’d be best off brewing a little bit less coffee at a stronger ratio. A few possibilities:

  1. 200g water with 16g coffee and no bypass
  2. 160g water with 16g coffee and 40g bypass (total 200g)
  3. 180g water with 18g coffee and 45g bypass (total 225g)

All 3 recipes keep a 1:12.5 ratio. #2 and #3 are identical to 12/5’s recipe, just with proportionally less water and coffee. I think I’m going to try #3 tomorrow.

12/7: I’m not sure why, but option #3 (from above) turned out really bad. It had no flavor at all, and had I not known better, I would have thought I was drinking hot water. Maybe I did something wrong, as it seems like simply reducing all of the quantities by 10% shouldn’t have that big of an effect. Whatever the case, I’m probably not going to try #2 or #3 again.

12/8: The same recipe that was great on 12/5 (20g coffee at grind setting 20, 200g brew water at 83°, 50g bypass at 99°) was not good today. It was marginally better than yesterday’s, but still watery and lacking in flavor. Not sure what the reason is for the inconsistency. I thought perhaps that yesterday I had forgotten to tighten the filter cap on the AeroPress, but that was not the issue today. I don’t think there was much variation in my brewing technique, so I’m a little bit perplexed.

12/9: Decided to shake things up today: 18g coffee at grind setting 15, 200g brew water at 83°, 25g bypass at 99°. This is a much finer grind and a lower ratio of bypass to brew water. Due to the fine grind, there was less initial drip-through, and more plunging resistance. I pressed very slowly, backing off at any hint of back-pressure. This was a much better cup than either of the previous two. I guess the finer grind was the difference-maker, but it doesn’t explain why the first two cups at grind setting 20 were good, but the next two were under-extracted.

12/12: I’ve been brewing the 12/9 recipe for a few days now, and the main issue is that the coffee cools too fast after brewing, even when I brew it into an insulated Hydro Flask mug. I may try nudging the water temperature up closer to 90 to see what happens. If it ends up tasting bitter, I can make the grind slightly coarser.

12/13 and 12/14: I picked up a Fellow Prismo this week, mainly because I wanted to be able to brew “drip free” without having to invert the AeroPress. Yesterday, I brewed with 18g coffee at grind setting 20, 200g brew water at 85°, and 25g bypass water at boiling. It definitely had a different flavor from the same recipe brewed with the standard cap and filter. It had more of a smooth mouthfeel, but maybe not quite as strong. No hint of bitterness. Today, I tried 17g coffee at grind setting 20, 200g brew water at 90°, and no bypass. The cup stayed hot longer, but the taste had a little bit of bitterness to it. I am going to continue playing around with the Prismo over the next several days, and see if I can get something dialed in. (Note– did I actually use setting 20? Had been using 15 since 12/9).

12/15: 200g brew water at 85°, 20g coffee at grind setting 15 (confirmed), 25g bypass water at boiling. I meant to brew this at 1:12.5, but mistakenly used 250g as the divisor, and thus ended up at 1:11.25. Regardless, for whatever reason, this cup was watery and flavorless. The common thread among the bad cups I’ve gotten seems to be the 1:10 brew ratio. I found a really good article that discusses the relationship between water and coffee volume and how it affects strength vs extraction. It’s the best, most succinct write-up on the subject that I’ve found. In a nutshell, (more coffee with the same water volume) == (more strength but less extraction [flavor]). This would seem to explain why the coffee tastes better when I brew 18g coffee to 200g water, vs 20g to 200g. The article recommends dialing in the strength first, then adjusting extraction by varying grind size, temperature, and/or immersion time.

12/16: 200g brew water at 85° (overshot slightly, so probably more like 205g), 18g coffee at grind setting 16. I also added a (dry) paper filter in front of the metal Prismo filter. I steeped from 0:35 until around 2:05 (including the initial stir), which is about 30 seconds longer than I had previously been steeping. I stirred in a back-and-forth motion and pressed slowly. This was much, much better than yesterday’s cup. I tried it with no bypass water initially, but it was too strong, so I added around 20g which brought it to probably about 1:12.5. I think that the combination of lower ratio of coffee to brew water, plus longer steep time, led to better extraction. I’m not sure if the paper filter made any difference — I added it mainly to see if it would help with cleanup, but it was kind of a push. It saved me having to rinse off the metal filter, but I still had to shake the two out of the Prismo cap and pry them apart, which isn’t really any less messy.

12/17: Brewed the same recipe as yesterday, and got another very good cup. For the record, the exact steep time after finishing the pour was 1 minute 35 seconds (0:35 until 2:10). I left out the paper filter this time, and did not notice much difference. The longer steep time seems to be the big difference-maker with this recipe.

12/19: Decided to try brewing with the full amount of 225g water (at 85°) and no bypass. I kept everything else the same (18g coffee at grind setting 16, 1 minute 35 second steep time, slow press). I think this turned out a little better than brewing with 200g water + 25g bypass. However, it’s definitely important to use an insulated mug to keep the coffee from cooling too quickly.

12/22: Used up the last of the beans. I’ll likely use “best recipe” (above) as a starting point for the next dark roast I buy, and see how it turns out.

Rise Up Winter Warmer Pourover

lpaulriddle
  • Beans: “Winter Warmer” medium roast (Indonesia)
    • Roaster: Rise Up Coffee Roasters (Easton, MD)
    • Roast date: 11/23/2023
  • Initial:
    • 18g coffee / 250g water (1:13.8) (A little too strong)
    • JX: 20 (60 clicks) (Occasionally bitter)
  • Best:
    • 16g coffee / 250g water (1:15.6)
    • Also works well with 20g coffee / 300g water (1:15)
    • JX: 21 (63 clicks)
  • Water at 95°C
  • Recipe: A Better 1 Cup V60 Technique (see below)
  1. Preheat V60, pre-moisten filter, add coffee, and tare scale
  2. Make small indentation in center of coffee grounds
  3. 0:00: Pour 50g of water to bloom, then return kettle to base
  4. 0:10 – 0:15: Gently Swirl
  5. 0:45 – 1:00: Pour up to 100g total (40% total weight)
    • Hold kettle for the remainder of the brewing process
  6. 1:10 – 1:20: Pour up to 150g total (60% total weight)
  7. 1:30 – 1:40: Pour up to 200g total (80% total weight)
  8. 1:50 – 2:00: Pour up to 250g total (100% total weight)
  9. 2:00 – 2:05: Gently swirl
  10. Drawdown should finish somewhere around 2:30-2:40

This was pretty good from the get-go. I used the same recipe that I have been using for Rise Up Organic Maryland Coffee (also a medium roast, but sourced from Central America) but made it a shade stronger, using 18g coffee vs 17g. I think I prefer the flavor at this strength, but definitely wouldn’t want to drink more than 250g at a time, else I’d be bouncing off the walls. 😀

12/4: 17g (1:14.7) had very good flavor without tasting overly strong, but I’m still feeling the caffeine afterward. Might be that this is the ideal strength, but I’m going to try at 16g next time to see how it turns out.

12/11: Tried 17g at grind setting 19 (slightly finer) just as an experiment, and was not crazy about it. It just tasted a little “off”. I wouldn’t expect it to taste much different from setting 20, so maybe the water temperature dropped too much during brewing, or something was off with my technique. I’ll have to decide what I want to do for the next cup. I could continue playing around with grind settings just to see what happens, or I could bump the water temperature a couple degrees higher, or I could just go back to what has been working up to today.

12/13: Went back to grind setting 20 this morning, and brewed 300g water with 20g coffee (1:15), pouring 60g at a time vs 50g. For some reason, 300g seems to taste “better” than 250g in some way I can’t quite put my finger on. I’ve noticed it with other light-to-medium roasts as well, when brewing larger quantities of coffee using the pourover method.

12/18: I seem to be getting cups that are alternately good and alternately bitter/over-extracted. Yesterday was in the former camp, but today was in the latter. Maybe it’s time to try a slightly coarser grind and/or slightly lower water temperature. I’d like to get a little better consistency out of my last few cups from this bag, so I have a starting point for the next time I buy these.

12/19: Tried grind setting 21 today for the first time, and it turned out very nicely, in spite of me having spilled the beans all over the place prior to grinding them. 😮 The cup was smooth with no hints of yesterday’s bitterness. Seems like at setting 20, it was more sensitive to very small variations in water temperature and/or brewing technique. Hoping that 21 will produce consistently good cups. I’ll find out over the next few days. It’s also worth noting that my past several cups (going back a week or so) have all been 300g water with 20g coffee.

12/24: Used up the last of the beans. I brewed several 250g and 300g cups at 1:15.6 and grind setting 21, and they all turned out good. Updated the recipe for posterity.

Zeke’s Festivus Roast Pourover

lpaulriddle
  • Beans: “Festivus Roast” (Indonesia/Central America/South America)
    • Dark roast (7/8)
    • Roaster: Zeke’s Coffee (Baltimore, MD)
    • Roast date: 11/27/2023
  • 18g coffee / 250g water (1:13.9)
  • JX: 2 rotations + 9 clicks (23 on the grind chart / 69 total clicks)
  • Bloom water at 99°C, brew water between 81°C and 85°C
  • Recipe: A Better 1 Cup V60 Technique (see below)
  1. Heat water; preheat V60 and mug
  2. Pre-moisten filter, add coffee, and tare scale
  3. Shake V60 to level coffee bed; make small indentation in center of grounds
  4. Start timer and do the following, finishing between 0:45 and 1:15:
    • Pour 50g of water to bloom
    • Return kettle to base
    • Lower kettle temperature by 20° or so by adding room temperature water
    • Bring kettle water back up to 81°-85°C
  5. Reset timer
  6. 0:00 – 0:10: Pour up to 100g total (40% total weight)
    • Hold kettle for the remainder of the brewing process
  7. 0:20 – 0:30: Pour up to 150g total (60% total weight)
  8. 0:40 – 0:50: Pour up to 200g total (80% total weight)
  9. 1:00 – 1:10: Pour up to 250g total (100% total weight)
  10. Wait for drawdown (30-60 seconds)

I’ve been buying mostly light- to medium-roasted beans for the past several months, and I decided that it was time to try something dark again. This was my first time brewing a dark roast using the pourover method, and I used the same recipe that I used with Zeke’s Market Blend (actually a medium roast, but on the darker side of medium). The result was a perfectly drinkable cup, but it could have been a little bit stronger. Tomorrow, I think I am going to try 20 grams of coffee, which will give me a ratio of 1:12.5. I may also try making the grind finer little by little, until I notice any unpleasant flavors. At some point, I’ll also likely try brewing the beans with the AeroPress and/or the French Press.

12/1: Grind setting 22 with 20g (1:12.5) was an improvement over yesterday. The beans don’t seem to visibly out-gas during the initial high-temperature bloom step, so I may try skipping that tomorrow and doing the entire brew at 80-82°. I’m curious if I’ll notice any difference.

12/3: Didn’t seem like much difference doing the entire brew at either 82° or 84° at grind setting 22. Might go back to blooming one more time just to confirm… otherwise, I think I’ve got a baseline recipe dialed in. Next up will be to try AeroPress or French press.

12/21: I started brewing these beans with the AeroPress a couple of weeks ago, and I feel like once I dialed it in, it’s been easier to get consistently good cups using that method. I predict that going forward, I’ll end up brewing most light to medium roasts using the pourover method, and medium to dark roasts with the AeroPress. I’m curious to check back in a year or so and see if I was correct.