Tag: pourover

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.

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)
    • Bag #1 roast date: 10/12/2023
    • Bag #2 roast date: 5/14/2024; purchase date: 5/28/2024
  • 20g coffee / 300g water (1:15)
  • JX: 18-21 (54-63 total clicks)
  • 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.

6/3/24: I have been brewing my second bag of these at grind setting 18 and 21g/300g, and the cups have been pretty good, with a mild flavor and a touch of acidity — pretty much what I would expect from a “breakfast” coffee.

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.

Vitality Brazil Pourover

lpaulriddle

I’m back home from Minneapolis with a new 12-ounce bag of coffee beans. This was the first time I flew with a bag of beans in my carry-on, and when I unpacked, all of the air had been sucked out of the bag through the little plastic valve, almost like the beans had been vacuum packed. When I opened the bag, air rushed in and everything went back to “normal”. I was worried that this phenomenon might spoil the beans or otherwise negatively affect things, but it did not seem to. It did inspire me to do some reading and learn why the bags have those one-way valves. It’s to let the beans out-gas after roasting, while keeping air out so they stay fresh. I’m learning more every day!

This morning’s cup:

  • Beans: “Brazil Yellow Bourbon” medium roast
    • Roaster: Vitality Roasting (Minneapolis, MN)
    • Roast date: 9/20/2023
  • 18g coffee / 250g water (1:14)
  • 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 55g 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

The only brewing note is that (once again) I forgot the initial swirl at step 4. I remembered around the end of step 5, and gave it a half-hearted swirl then. I made sure to level the bed before I started pouring (I’m pretty good with that) and I ended up with a mostly-level bed of spent grounds at the end. I’m not sure how much the swirling actually matters in most cases, but I’ll keep doing it when I remember.

This cup tasted excellent. The beans are very fresh, which I’m sure didn’t hurt. I’d been drinking mediocre conference coffee for the past week, so the bar was admittedly low, but I’d rank this among the better cups I’ve had since I’ve been brewing with the V60.

9/24: Second cup today. Did the swirl at step 4. Overshot the final pour and ended up with 252-253 grams of water. It seemed like the water percolated more slowly than yesterday. The level in the V60 was higher than usual after steps 7 and 8. Drawdown took several seconds longer, finishing at roughly 3:00. Maybe I swirled a little too aggressively? The initial sips tasted slightly thin, but the rest of the cup was very good. If yesterday’s cup was a 10, I’d call this a 9.

9/26: Accidentally ground finer today (setting 18) and also used 17g coffee instead of 18g. Did not like the results. Body was OK, but flavor was bitter.

9/27: Tried a little bit coarser today at grind setting 22, and 18g coffee. The first thing I noticed was that the drawdown was faster, finishing at 2:40-2:45. Definitely a better cup than yesterday’s, with decent body and no bitterness, but room for improvement. I think I’ll keep this grind setting tomorrow and try nudging the water temperature a little closer to boiling. While (with the exception of yesterday) all of the cups I’ve brewed have been good, none of the subsequent cups have been quite as good as the first one, which tells me that bean freshness (and possibly how they are stored) makes a big difference.

9/28: Brewed exactly the same as yesterday, except I nudged the water from 95°C to 97°C. I did not notice any discernible difference from yesterday’s cup. Probably should have gone straight to 99 or boiling. Not sure if I’ll tweak further next time, or just keep brewing it like this.

9/29: Brewed at 99 and grind setting 22 today and the result was bitter and lacked flavor. This is definitely moving in the wrong direction, so I will adjust the temperature back downward next time.

I’m not sure why the first two pourovers I made were really good, but subsequent cups didn’t quite measure up. I wonder if it had something to do with bean freshness. I probably could have gotten it dialed back in, but ended up brewing the rest of the beans in the French press, which worked out pretty well.

Zeke’s Colombia Pourover

lpaulriddle

I went through my last half-pound bag of coffee beans in only 9 days, of which I drank all but two of the cups. So, if we assume that I average 1.5 cups a day, and Cathy has an occasional glass of cold brew, I can expect to use up a pound every three weeks or so. Today, I opened a new 1-pound bag:

  • Beans: “Colombia Sierra Nevada” medium-light roast
    • Roaster: Zeke’s Coffee (Baltimore, MD)
    • Roast date: 9/6/2023
  • 16g to 17g coffee / 250g water (1:15.6 to 1:14.7)
  • JX: 2 rotations (20 on the grind chart / 60 total clicks)
  • Water at 96°C 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 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 2:45

The local grocery store has a pretty good selection of Zeke’s Coffee, all in 1-pound bags. I chose this one partly because it’s single-origin, and I’m looking to get a sense for how some of these taste so I can figure out what regions I prefer. Zeke’s labels their roasts on an 8-point scale, and this one is graded 3 out of 8, so I’m calling it medium-light. I used the same recipe as yesterday and the day before, with just a tiny bit hotter water. It seems like it was a good starting point, as the cup was pretty good, although I suspect there’s room for a little bit of improvement. I may try my next cup with boiling water, just to see if it brings out any different flavors.

9/16: Brewed this again with water just under boil (99°C) and I do think I preferred it to yesterday’s. Flavor-wise, it was a little bit reminiscent of my most recent bag of light roast beans, which makes sense, because that was a blend that also included beans from Colombia. It will be several days before I brew this again, but I’ll likely stick with this recipe when I do. I also recently found an interesting AeroPress recipe that I’m curious to check out. The science behind it seems pretty sound, so I’m wondering if it’ll address the issues I’ve been having with weak AeroPress brews.

9/23: Brewed again this afternoon, everything the same as 9/16. It was well extracted, and the flavor was fantastic. If I were to nitpick, it might have been ever so slightly on the strong side, but that’s a good problem to have. I bet I could get away with using a little bit less coffee. Maybe try with 16 grams next time?

9/24: Brewed this evening with 16 grams of coffee and 50 grams initial bloom water. Kept everything else the same. Gets a thumbs up. It was a little bit less strong, but still robust and full-bodied. I might stick with this ratio for a while, unless I’m in the mood to make it stronger (more likely in the morning than the evening 😀).

Interesting note about these beans: after grinding them, there’s less fine “dust” left over in the grinder than with any other of the beans I’ve ground to date. Not sure why that is, or whether it’s considered “good” or “bad”, although I suspect I’ll learn at some point. For now, it’s just an interesting observation.

9/26: For the second time today, I forgot to reset my grind setting after brewing cold brew yesterday, and ended up grinding the beans finer than with my prior cups. I used 16g coffee with a grind setting of either 16 or 18. There was not much difference with the brewing process: very little fine dust left in the grinder, and the V60 drained down at around 2:40. The flavor was definitely different, but not in the way I would have expected. It had a little bit less body and a much more prominent fruity/cherry overtone. While it wasn’t bad, It was decidedly better balanced at the original grind setting of 20, so I’ll definitely be going back to that. Intentional or not, though, It’s always good to learn more about how various tweaks affect the flavor of the coffee.

9/29: Decided to make a larger cup of this “to go” today. I went back to a grind setting of 20, used 20 grams of coffee to 300 grams of water (1:15), and poured in 5 “pulses” of 60g each (vs 50). This worked fine with my size 1 V60 and my 12-ounce Hydro Flask mug, and tasted the same as the numerous 250g cups I’ve brewed. I seem to get pretty consistently good cups out of these beans.

10/2: Have brewed larger cups of this (per 9/29) several times now and they have all been pretty consistently good, but this afternoon’s seemed a little bit better than the others. Same water temperature, same grind size, same ratio, same recipe, etc., except this time I did not swirl the V60 at all. Instead, I rotated it a little bit between each interval, because I noticed that the area closest to where I was holding the kettle looked like it wasn’t getting as much water as the rest. Don’t know if that was the difference maker, but I’m going to try it again next time to see.

10/18: Used up the last of these today. Somehow, I ended up with 29 grams of beans left, which was only enough for two really small cups or one really, really big cup. I opted for the latter, brewing all 29 grams with 435 grams of water for my usual 1:15 ratio. I was initially going to use the French press, but realized that I had already ground the beans too fine, so I stuck with the V60 recipe, and scaled the 5 “pulses” water up to 87 grams each. These beans generate very few “fines”, and the water drains through them quickly, so I had no issues with the dripper overflowing. Other beans might require a larger V60 for this quantity of coffee. The cup was pretty good. I didn’t notice a big difference from the smaller cups I’ve brewed. I would definitely buy these beans again, and probably will at some point.

After-dinner brew

lpaulriddle
  • Beans: “Cold Brew Blend” medium roast (Guatemala/Colombia) from Local Coffee Roasting Co. in Roxana, DE
  • 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 55g 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

This cup was just about perfect — full-flavored, well-balanced, and well-extracted. It’s the same recipe that I brewed a few days ago. I added a few extra details here to try to document what I did as closely as possible. I find that I really prefer holding the kettle over returning it to the base after each pour. It makes the whole process seem more smooth and fluid, and I doubt that it makes much difference with regards to the water temperature. It does make me wonder if the volume of water in the kettle has any effect on the resulting brew (the more water in the kettle, the greater its thermal mass, so the longer it will hold its temperature) but I think that’s getting to the point of splitting hairs.

I do wonder why all of my AeroPress brews lately have been weak. Everything I read says it’s because the coffee is ground too coarse, the water temperature is too low, the steep time is too short, etc., but I’ve tried adjusting all of those, and the brew is still weak. I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong. I know it wouldn’t be weak if I brewed it at 1:10, but I feel like I shouldn’t have to — this evening’s pourover was fantastic at 1:15, and my French press cups are good at 1:13 to 1:14. To add to the confusion, it wasn’t too long ago that I was consistently brewing good cups in the AeroPress at 1:14, with different beans that are long gone now. I haven’t been able to replicate that success with any of my other beans. If I have to brew at 1:10, then I don’t see the point of using the AeroPress when I can get the same results with pourover using less coffee. I expect I’ll eventually sort this out, but in the meantime, it sure is vexing.

Fun with pourover

lpaulriddle

Trying to reset my pourover recipe for my current bag of coffee beans, as the past couple of cups have been a little bitter.

  • Beans: “Cold Brew Blend” medium roast (Guatemala/Colombia) from Local Coffee Roasting Co. in Roxana, DE
  • 17g coffee / 250g water (1:14.7)
  • JX: 2 rotations (20 on the grind chart / 60 total clicks)
  • Water at 94°C
  • Recipe: A Better 1 Cup V60 Technique (see below)
  1. Make small indentation in center of coffee grounds
  2. 0:00: Pour 55g of water to bloom
  3. 0:10 – 0:15: Gently Swirl
  4. 0:45 – 1:00: Pour up to 100g total (40% total weight)
  5. 1:10 – 1:20: Pour up to 150g total (60% total weight)
  6. 1:30 – 1:40: Pour up to 200g total (80% total weight)
  7. 1:50 – 2:00: Pour up to 250g total (100% total weight)
  8. 2:00 – 2:05: Gently swirl
  9. Drawdown finished around 2:45

A few notes: I’m back to the original grind setting that I used the first time I brewed the beans. I also used 17 grams of coffee (vs 18), and started out with the water a degree or so cooler. Last night, I rewatched the Hoffmann video linked above, and the only thing he did that I haven’t been doing was to make a small indentation in the center of the grounds, so I added that step. During the brew, I had previously been putting the kettle back on the base in between all of the pours, but today, with the exception of the longer pause after the initial bloom, I just held on to the kettle the entire time. This seemed to make the process more smooth and fluid. Lastly, I skipped the final “swirl”, but not intentionally — I just forgot. These tweaks all seem very minor, but collectively, who knows?

The cup turned out just fine. Nothing mind-blowing, but very drinkable. The first couple of sips tasted bitter, but then it mellowed out. I’ve noticed this phenomenon a lot, particularly with pourovers. For some reason, it seems even more pronounced with these beans. Not sure what causes it, but maybe it’s something to do with my palate. Anyhow, I’ll stick with this methodology for my next few cups, and see how it goes. I do want to try brewing these beans with the AeroPress some time in the next couple of days.