Category: Coffee

Rise Up Maryland Pourover

lpaulriddle
  • Beans: “Organic Maryland Coffee” medium roast (Guatemala/Honduras)
    • Roaster: Rise Up Coffee Roasters (Easton, MD)
    • Roast date: 11/8/2023
  • 17g coffee / 250g water (1:14.7)
  • JX: 2 rotations (20 on the grind chart / 60 total 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 finished around 2:45

I bought this bag at the grocery store. Initially tried grind setting 21 with 18g coffee (1:13.8) but seemed a tiny bit under-extracted, so I tried today at grind setting 20. This seems like a reasonable starting point, but I can’t guarantee that I won’t try tweaking it further. Guessing these beans are roasted on the lighter end of medium, as the cup tasted kind of like a light roast in terms of body and flavors. I may even try pushing the water temperature up closer to boiling, as today’s cup had no hints of bitterness at all.

12/3: The last couple of single-cup brews I’ve done have been on the sour/acidic side. I am going to try making the grind a little bit finer the next time I brew these beans. Also, 1:13.8 seems a tad on the strong side, so I may try 16-17g coffee instead of 18g. Not sure if I’ll adjust both at the same time. I only have enough beans for 4-5 more cups, but as these beans are readily available at the grocery store, and there’s a good chance I’ll buy them again, it’s probably worth my while to dial the recipe in as much as I can. (Followup- realized later on that I had accidentally used grind setting 22 for this cup. Still think I’m going to try a little bit finer than my starting point next time; maybe 19.)

12/5: Grind setting: 19; water: 250g at 95°; coffee: 16g (1:15.6). Pretty good cup that tasted better extracted than 12/3’s. I only have 4 or 5 cups’ worth of beans left, but might try the next couple a little bit finer, just to see how far I can go before it starts tasting bitter.

12/8: Kept everything the same as 12/5, except with a grind setting of 18. Nice, smooth cup, still with no hint of bitterness.

12/12: It seems that the ideal grind setting for this recipe is 18 or 19. I’ve tried going finer (17 on Sunday and 16 today) and the cups are starting to taste sour (not bitter, surprisingly). I have 29g of beans left, so I’ll probably brew one more pourover at 18 or 19, and then maybe try a smaller cup in the AeroPress.

Zeke’s Harvest Moon AeroPress

lpaulriddle

I had not used my AP in a couple of months, so I decided to dust it off today:

  • Beans: “Harvest Moon” medium roast (Indonesia/South Asia)
    • Roaster: Zeke’s Coffee (Baltimore, MD)
    • Roast date: 10/30/2023
  • JX: 2 turns (Grind setting 20)
  • 96°C water
  • 15 grams coffee / 200 grams water (1:13.3)
  • 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
  3. Stir 3 times back to front
  4. Insert plunger and pull up to stop dripping
  5. Steep for 60 seconds
  6. Remove plunger and stir 3 times back to front again
  7. Insert plunger and press slowly

This recipe is actually very similar to one I tried back in September with a different batch of medium-roasted beans. According to my notes, that cup tasted “thin bodied”. Today’s cup, however, was pretty good. Here are the main differences:

  • 95°C water in Sept., vs 96° today
  • One paper filter in Sept., vs 2 today
  • Grind setting 18 in Sept., vs 20 today — September’s was slightly finer
  • Beans 10.5 weeks past roast date (vs 2.5 weeks)

The single biggest difference here was bean freshness. It’s possible that September’s beans may have been starting to get a little stale. Anyhow, I’ll probably try another cup using these beans with this recipe, and see if it turns out similarly to today’s.

I’m hoping to work the AP back into my “rotation” a little bit more frequently, as I’m considering using it as an option for making coffee while traveling. The idea would be to dial a recipe in for a light to medium roast, figure out the quantities of water and coffee used (to eliminate the need for a scale), and pre-grind enough beans for my trip. Then I would pack the AeroPress and ground coffee, and in theory, all I’d need at my destination would be a way to boil water.

11/22: After a slightly bitter cup a couple of days ago, I dropped the water temperature to 90° today and the resulting cup wasn’t bad. Setting 20 is on the coarse side of the “AeroPress range” on the 1Zpresso grind chart, so I might try it a little bit finer next time, just to see what happens.

11/25: I’m currently still at 90°, which seems to work well. Yesterday, I used grind setting 19, and today I tried 18, both of which have been good, with today’s maybe slightly better, although the difference is subtle, and as I’m tasting the cups 24 hours apart, also could be somewhat subjective. I think I’ll just keep nudging it finer and finer until it starts to taste over-extracted, at which point I’ll know it’s making a difference. 😀 I do think that I should probably start using an insulated mug when brewing at lower temperatures this time of year, as today’s cup cooled off very quickly in my ceramic mug, in spite of my having preheated it.

11/26: I think we are finally hitting the point of diminishing returns at grind setting 17. It was still a reasonably good cup, but with a slight hint of bitterness. So, the ideal setting would seem to be 18, or possibly one of the two positions between 18 and 17.

Two Cup French Press

lpaulriddle

I have brewed mostly single cups of coffee in the French press, which, while it works, is better suited for something like the AeroPress. Today, I brewed a larger batch, which turned out pretty good:

  • Beans: “Harvest Moon” medium roast (Indonesia/South Asia)
    • Roaster: Zeke’s Coffee (Baltimore, MD)
    • Roast date: 10/30/2023
  • 40 grams coffee, 520 grams water (1:13 ratio)
  • French press
  • Gooseneck kettle
  1. Preheat French press
  2. Heat brew water to 95°C
  3. Coarse grind (JX setting 30, or 3 rotations)
  4. Start timer and pour at the same time
  5. Pour 100 grams or so of water and return kettle to base
  6. Swirl to get all the grounds wet, and bloom until 1:00
  7. Top up to 520 grams of water and stir slowly a few times
  8. Steep for 6 more minutes, plunge, and pour

This recipe is kind of a testament to the fact that it’s hard to screw things up with a French press. I bet it would taste good with or without a separate bloom, with or without stirring/swirling, and regardless of total steep time (within reason). 6 minutes seems to be long enough to get good extraction without letting the coffee cool down too much.

11/21: This recipe tasted a little bitter this morning. Maybe try dropping the water temperature to 90°.

Zeke’s Harvest Moon Pourover

lpaulriddle
  • Beans: “Harvest Moon” (Indonesia/South Asia)
    • Medium roast (5/8)
    • Roaster: Zeke’s Coffee (Baltimore, MD)
    • Roast date: 10/30/2023
  • 18g coffee / 250g water (1:13.8)
  • JX: 2 rotations (20 on the grind chart / 60 total 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 finished around 2:55

I bought this bag yesterday at the grocery store, after using up the last of my bag of Zeke’s Market Blend. While both are labeled as medium roasts, visually, these beans are not as dark as the Market Blend beans. I decided to start off with the recipe I’ve been using for light roasts, with slightly cooler water. This is the exact same recipe I used initially with the Market Blend, which was good for the first cup or two, but required tweaking thereafter. We’ll see how it goes with Harvest Moon, but this afternoon’s cup tasted perfectly fine. I think this might be the first time I have brewed with beans from Asia, and they definitely have a uniquely different flavor compared to Central/South America and Africa.

11/6: Yesterday’s cup had a very, very small tinge of bitterness, which is one of those things where it really didn’t detract from the flavor, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to see if I could eliminate it. Tried today with a slightly coarser grind (63 clicks) and while it did eliminate the slight bitter taste, it made the cup a little bit weaker. I’m going to go back to the original grind setting. If the bitterness becomes problematic, I can either try the coarser grind with a little bit more coffee (say 1:13) or bump the water temperature down 5 degrees or so.

11/7: Brewed 500g this morning using the 2-cup recipe with 36g of coffee at grind setting 20 and 65-70g initial bloom water. Turned out pretty good. Once again, I think that brewing with the larger volume of water leads to slightly better-extracted coffee. (11/9) Second batch brewed like this was good as well, but seemed on the strong side.

11/10: Brewed using my starting recipe (pre-11/6) with one modification: I used 99°C water to bloom and 90°C water to brew. Yes, I’m sick (again) and my senses of taste/smell are accordingly blunted, and yes, I also burned my tongue, but from what I could tell in spite of all that, this turned out pretty good. It had no discernible bitterness, and seemed pretty smooth and balanced. I’ll try another cup like this soon.

Two-cup pourover

lpaulriddle
  • Beans: “Organic Breakfast Coffee” light roast (Ethiopia)
    • Roaster: Rise Up Coffee Roasters (Easton, MD)
    • Roast date: 10/12/2023
  • 32g coffee / 500g water (1:15.6)
  • JX: 2 rotations (20 on the grind chart / 60 total clicks)
  • Water at 99°C
  • Recipe: The Ultimate V60 Technique (steps below)

I picked up a size 2 plastic V60 dripper last week, and tried it out this morning. Until today, I had only used my (ceramic) size 1 dripper to brew a single cup at a time. I don’t have a fancy insulated carafe, so I brewed into a 16oz Hydro-Flask tumbler with a closable press-in lid. This worked well — the lid can be closed to keep the coffee hot, and when open, the coffee pours easily and without dripping. Also, the plastic V60 doesn’t need a lot of preheating, so there was no need for the Fernco hack that I use to preheat my ceramic V60. I just put the filter into the dripper and ran some water from the insta-hot tap through both.

My hand grinder only has capacity for about 20g of beans, so I had to grind twice. I did this by putting the grinder on the scale, zeroing the scale, grinding 20 grams, zeroing again, and grinding 12 more grams. I poured the beans directly into the grinder, but I think going forward, it will work better to pre-weigh the 30g all at once into a separate container. If I end up brewing this amount regularly, it might make sense to invest in a higher-capacity (electric?) grinder.

Here are the steps I used:

  1. Heat water; grind coffee; pre-rinse filter and pre-heat dripper
  2. Add coffee grounds to V60 and create a well or indentation in the middle
  3. Start timer and add 60g water (the recipe specifies to add 2x the coffee weight, but this seemed close enough)
  4. Swirl until evenly mixed and bloom for 45 seconds
  5. At 0:45, add water up to 300g total (60% total weight), finishing at 1:15
  6. At 1:15, pour the remaining 200g slightly more slowly, finishing at 1:45
  7. Stir 1x clockwise and 1x anticlockwise with a spoon (to knock grounds off the sides)
  8. Allow V60 to drain a little bit
  9. Swirl gently
  10. Wait for drawdown, which should hopefully finish by 3:30

The first thing I noticed was that, compared with my one-cup method, this method mantained a much higher water level in the V60 throughout the brew. With these beans at this grind setting, the drawdown finished at around 3:10. I then put the cap on the Hydro-Flask, preheated my ceramic mug, and poured myself a cup. If I were to compare, I think it turned out a little bit better than with the 1-cup method. It was definitely on the strong side, which makes me wonder if the extra water in the V60 is leading to better extraction of the beans. I think I’ll cut it back to 30 grams of beans next time. I’m also curious whether my experiences with this method will eventually lead to any modifications to my 1-cup method. I’ll see how things go after I’ve done this a few more times.

Saturday’s Run, etc.

lpaulriddle

I got back into the swing of things today with my first 10-mile run in just over 3 weeks. Actual total distance was 10.26 miles, which beats my prior distance record by a whopping 0.04 mile. I still hope to achieve my short-term goal of running the entire BWI trail loop (10.7 miles) by the end of the year. I could probably do it now, but would like to hit 10.5 miles once or twice before I commit to going over there and trying it. Barring illness and/or injury, I’m thinking second half of November might be a reasonable target.

On the coffee front, I disassembled and cleaned my hand grinder for the first time today. I bought it at the beginning of May, so I’ve had it around 6 months. I brush it off after each use, but it’s recommended to take it apart for a more thorough cleaning every few months. It’s fairly straightforward to disassemble and reassemble, and does not require any tools. The entire process took me about 20 minutes, and going forward, I suspect it’ll take 10 minutes or less, now that I know what I’m doing. I used the grinder about once a day when it was new, and twice a day more recently. The insides had a little bit of coffee residue on them, but it really was not all that dirty. I’m thinking I shouldn’t need to do this more often than every 4-6 months.

Rise Up Migration Pourover

lpaulriddle
  • Beans: “Organic Migration” light roast (Nicaragua)
    • Roaster: Rise Up Coffee Roasters (Easton, MD)
    • Roast date: 10/5/2023
  • 20g coffee / 300g water (1:15)
  • JX: 2 rotations (20 on the grind chart / 60 total clicks)
  • Water at 99°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 60g of water to bloom, then return kettle to base
  4. 0:10 – 0:15: Gently Swirl
  5. 0:45 – 1:00: Pour up to 120g total (40% total weight)
    • Hold kettle for the remainder of the brewing process
  6. 1:10 – 1:20: Pour up to 180g total (60% total weight)
  7. 1:30 – 1:40: Pour up to 240g total (80% total weight)
  8. 1:50 – 2:00: Pour up to 300g total (100% total weight)
  9. 2:00 – 2:05: Gently swirl
  10. Drawdown finished around 2:45

This was the other bag I picked up in Ocean City, along with yesterday’s. The same recipe as yesterday’s produced a pleasant cup. These are rather large beans, and I ended up with about the same amount of “fines” in the grinder as I did yesterday. I brewed another 300g cup, mainly for comparison with yesterday’s. I think 300g is about the most coffee I can brew with either of these beans at 1:15 without overflowing my size 1 V60. Regardless, I’ll likely drop back to 250g going forward, as 300g is a little bit more than I want to drink most mornings.

11/12: The past few cups I’ve brewed have had kind of an off flavor to them. Can’t really pin it down as bitter or acidic, but whatever it was, I didn’t like it. These are large beans that leave a prodigious amount of “fines” stuck to the grinder, and for some reason, I had gotten into the habit of shaking/tapping the grinder to try to get as many of the fines as possible into the dripper. I suspect it was in the interest of not “wasting” anything, but I’m not sure why it didn’t immediately occur to me that this was going to negatively impact the flavor. Today, I brewed the above recipe with 250g of water (50g pulses) and 16g coffee (1:15.6) and did not shake the grinder at all, and the cup was much better. I think I will keep doing this going forward.

11/18: I brewed my remaining 27g of beans today with 400g of water. I used my 1-cup pourover method with size 2 plastic V60 and pulses of 80g water. Turned out quite good. After grinding, I’ve been gently shaking the grinder once or twice to make sure all the beans made it through, and then lightly tapping the bottom of the grinder 3 or 4 times without going overboard. This seems to get most of the properly-ground beans “unstuck” while leaving most of the “fines” behind. I’ve also been “swirling” pretty regularly lately, both pre-bloom and after finishing the pour.

Rise Up Organic Breakfast Pourover

lpaulriddle
  • Beans: “Organic Breakfast Coffee” light roast (Ethiopia)
    • Roaster: Rise Up Coffee Roasters (Easton, MD)
    • Roast date: 10/12/2023
  • 20g coffee / 300g water (1:15)
  • JX: 2 rotations (20 on the grind chart / 60 total clicks)
    • Note- seems a little better at setting 21 (63 clicks)
  • Water at 99°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 60g of water to bloom, then return kettle to base
  4. 0:10 – 0:15: Gently Swirl
  5. 0:45 – 1:00: Pour up to 120g total (40% total weight)
    • Hold kettle for the remainder of the brewing process
  6. 1:10 – 1:20: Pour up to 180g total (60% total weight)
  7. 1:30 – 1:40: Pour up to 240g total (80% total weight)
  8. 1:50 – 2:00: Pour up to 300g total (100% total weight)
  9. 2:00 – 2:05: Gently swirl
  10. Drawdown finished around 3:00

New 12oz bag today. I picked these up in Ocean City, but my local grocery store also sells beans from Rise Up. Their main location is right off US 50 in Easton, so that might be the place to go to get the best selection and freshest beans.

This is the same recipe I had been using with my last bag of lighter roast beans from Zeke’s, and it also worked well with these. I brewed a larger cup this morning, but probably will stick with 250g water and 16g to 17g coffee for most of my cups. These beans produce more fines than the Zeke’s beans did, and as a result, the draw-down took longer. I swirled after the initial 60g dose, which I had not been doing with the Zeke’s. I’m curious if swirling vs not swirling makes any noticeable difference.

I bought another 12oz bag of Rise Up beans at the same time, which I’ll try tomorrow. It is also a light roast, so I am hoping I can use the same recipe for both bags.

11/18: Getting down to the end of these, and in case I buy them again, just noting that I have been brewing my more recent cups with 250g water/16g coffee (1:15.6) and grind setting 21. I had been noticing a slight tinge of bitterness occasionally at setting 20, which is not present at setting 21.

Zeke’s Market Blend Pourover (take 2)

lpaulriddle

Starting a new post for these beans, because this is a significant change from my original recipe.

  • Beans: “Market Blend” (Ethiopia/Guatemala)
    • Medium roast (5/8)
    • Roaster: Zeke’s Coffee (Baltimore, MD)
    • Roast date: 10/2/2023
  • 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)

As with my last bag of medium roasted beans, I had been trying to brew these using a pourover recipe that works well for me with lighter roasts, with unspectacular results: the cups were occasionally bitter, occasionally weak/watery, and generally lacking in sweetness/complexity. I couldn’t quite get things figured out with my last bag, so I ended up brewing most of my cups in the French press.

Visually, these beans look pretty dark, and they are also coated with oil, which makes me think maybe I should try to brew them like a dark roast. The problem is, I had never tried a pourover with a dark roast. I found yet another James Hoffmann video where he covers this topic. The main takeaways I got were:

  • Bloom with near-boiling water, but brew with cooler water
  • Grind coarser, because we actually want to extract less from the beans than with a light roast
  • Corollary: extracting less at the same ratio as a lighter roast will result in a weaker-tasting cup, so use more coffee to compensate.

In practice: I started with a 1:14 ratio, and decided to shoot for a brew temperature of 85°, but I added a little bit too much cool water after the initial pour. As a result, the water took longer than the appointed 45 seconds to warm back up. I ended up blooming for an extra 30 seconds, at which point the water was at about 82°-83°. That, of course, pushed back the times for all of my subsequent pours, as well.

This cup was definitely a step in the right direction. It was better than any of the previous pourovers I’ve made using these beans. It had a nice flavor with no bitter aftertaste, and it seemed like a good strength as well. Next time, I’ll work on my water-cooling technique, and see how the next cup turns out.

10/23: After brewing several cups, I’ve found that this recipe works well with bloom times anywhere from 0:45 to 1:15 and water temperature between 81° and 85° (inclusive). Since the bloom time can vary depending on how long it takes to bring the water back up to temperature, I added a step to zero the timer after the bloom, to make it easier to keep the timing straight during the subsequent pours. I am hoping this will be a good starting recipe for medium to darker roasts.

10/28: Decided to try a slightly stronger cup this afternoon. I used 260g water and 20g coffee (1:13), which is the ratio I usually use for medium roasts with the French press. I poured 5 “pulses” of 52g each. It turned out great! I think that 1:13 to 1:14 is about the perfect range for these beans.

11/2: Used up the last of these today, exactly one month after roast date and a little over three weeks after I bought them. The last few cups were still good, but I think the beans were getting a little bit past their prime, as there was a small, but noticeable, drop-off in taste/complexity with the last few cups. I’ll definitely buy these again at some point, though. Just need to plan to use them up within a month of roast date.

Zeke’s Market Blend Pourover

lpaulriddle
  • Beans: “Market Blend” (Ethiopia/Guatemala)
    • Medium roast (5/8)
    • Roaster: Zeke’s Coffee (Baltimore, MD)
    • Roast date: 10/2/2023
  • 17g coffee / 250g water (1:14.7)
  • JX: 2 rotations (20 on the grind chart / 60 total 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 to 60g of water to bloom, then return kettle to base
    • 16g coffee → 50-55g water; 17g coffee → 55-60g water
  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 finished around 2:55

I picked this bag up last night at the grocery store, after using up the last of the beans I bought in Minneapolis. I brewed my first cup with what has become my go-to starting pourover recipe for medium roasts. It turned out pretty good. It probably helps that I really like dark chocolate, as that was the most prominent flavor I noticed. If the cups consistently turn out like this, I don’t think I need to spend much time tweaking the recipe. As the weather gets cooler, I might want to start thinking about preheating my mug (or switching to an insulated mug) when brewing with water below boiling, so the coffee stays hot a little longer, and I’m not tempted to drink it too quickly.

I noticed that the grocery store also carries beans from Rise Up Coffee Roasters, which is based on the Eastern Shore. I may try one of theirs after I finish my other bag of Zeke’s, which is getting pretty low.

10/12: The same recipe tasted a little bitter this morning. This afternoon, I made another cup using a coarser grind (JX setting 25, or 2.5 rotations), and it was better, but a little bit watery tasting. So, maybe the ideal grind setting is somewhere in between 20 and 25.

10/13: Brewed at grind setting 22 (2 rotations + 6 clicks). Maybe a little better than yesterday’s cup, but still a little bit under-extracted.

10/14: Brewed at grind setting 21 (2 rotations + 3 clicks) and also increased starting water temperature to 99°C. Not perfect yet, but moving in the right direction. Could be that medium roasts need a higher starting temperature with pourover than with immersion? I always preheat the dripper, but I’m sure the water still loses a fair amount of heat while sitting in there percolating. This will be even more noticeable when the air temperature in the room is cooler (e.g. winter).

Epilogue: I eventually figured out a recipe that produces consistently good cups. Synopsis: grind setting 23 (2 rotations + 9 clicks), ratio 1:13 to 1:14, 99°C water to bloom, and 81°C-85°C water to brew. So, my 10/14 hypothesis was wrong — cooler brew water, and a slightly stronger ratio, turned out to be the difference makers.