Fruddled Gruntbugglies

Enthralling readers since 2005

Category: Coffee

  • Zeke’s Hippie Blend V60

    • 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

    • 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

    • 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

    • 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

    • 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.

  • Rise Up Maryland Pourover

    • Beans: “Organic Maryland Coffee” medium roast (Guatemala/Honduras)
      • Roaster: Rise Up Coffee Roasters (Easton, MD)
      • Bag #1 Roast date: 11/8/2023
      • Bag #2 Roast date: 5/16/2024; purchase date: 5/28/2024
    • 17g coffee / 250g water (1:14.7)
    • JX: 18 to 20 (54-60 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.

    6/2/24: Opened my second bag today (roast date 5/16), brewed at grind setting 18 with 21g/300g, and got a nice, rich cup.

  • Zeke’s Harvest Moon AeroPress

    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

    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

    • 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

    • 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.