Hario V60 vs. Chemex design and techniques - Page 3

Coffee preparation techniques besides espresso like pourover.
the_winding_path
Posts: 10
Joined: 12 years ago

#21: Post by the_winding_path »

I've been focusing on the V60 and Chemex heavily (more the V60 & why to follow) in the past two+ years and feel that the V60 does a fabulous job, surpassing the Chemex. What I like about the V60 are the ridges. They do a variety of things, most important to me being that they keep the grounds from bottlenecking the system. With the ridges, the brew can escape out of the side walls as high as the filter is. The problem I find with the Chemex is that there is no way that the brew can escape out of anywhere but the exposed part of the filter at the bottom of the brewer. This makes the Chemex very limited to grounds volume as once the mass of grounds is large enough to completely fill the hole while brewing it slows down the brewing too much and cannot really be addressed by a more coarse grind. The Hario, on the other hand brews the same regardless of grounds volume. There is something else that I cannot put into words that seems to work against the Chemex as well. I need to go back and do more brewing experiments so that I can put it into words or change my mind (it is possible :shock: ).

With the V60 I grind slightly more coarse than most and stir with a bamboo stirrer throughout the brewing process, mostly to keep all the grounds off the walls (which is only an issue in the early/mid part of extraction) and extracting evenly. I also do this to keep the grounds from settling too much and overextracting there.

I feel that there is way too much over analysis of the spent bed. I personally use it as an indicator of extraction. From my refracting (and tasting) concave, flat and convex beds of varying degrees I have not gotten a decent extraction by measuring or taste from a convex or concave bed when they are NOTICEABLY one or the other. I find a basically flat bed to hover around a 20% extraction and what I always shoot for now.

Scott Rao talks extensively about spent bed shape in his book 'Everything But Espresso' and while I tend to agree with him, I think the focus should be more on a flat bed as opposed to a convex bed like he eschews for cone filters (I say that because all my convex brews have been overextracted TO ME). His view is that the bed shape should be directly related to the bottom of the bed: flat bottom, flat bed; conical filter,convex bed.

I HATE bitter. Coffee, espresso, chocolate . . . doesn't matter to me. The biggest variable is the differentiation between all of our palates and how that affects our approach to and the way we see coffee. I think that the V60 has the largest window of brew adjustability and volume of brew (esp once the 03 is readily available. I've brewed amazing 900g pots of coffee with it)

dan
the perfect brew is a moving target

Sam21
Posts: 400
Joined: 12 years ago

#22: Post by Sam21 »

A V60 question:

I have always stuck to brewing between 8 and 12oz in my V60. Recently, I have decided to begin experimenting with new brewing methods, timings, etc. One question that came up that I simply do not know the answer to is brew timing. With the Chemex and V60, if I seek to brew 8oz of coffee versus 24oz, how should this impact my timing goal? Is it is the same as a french press, where you keep the time the same and just adjust the grind? Meaning, a V60 should always be right around 2:30-3min and a Chemex around 3:30-4?

the_winding_path
Posts: 10
Joined: 12 years ago

#23: Post by the_winding_path »

From my experience, definitely not. To get the same extraction for a smaller mass I have to decrease the time. In the Hario I brew 40g in 3:30, 30g in 3:00, 20g in 2:30. That grounds weight/time ratio works very well for me.

Cheers,
dan
the perfect brew is a moving target

Sam21
Posts: 400
Joined: 12 years ago

#24: Post by Sam21 »

I did some research and experimentation and agree with you. I think there is a small adjustment in time necessary, but there is a time window that should be hit regardless. The V60 seems to work best between 2-3:30. I've never seen a brew time, for any amount, over that time and imagine that it could lead to over-extraction. Similarly, the Chemex brew time scales up a little bit as the total brew water increases, but not by much. For instance, a 275ml V60 works best for me around 2-2:15, but a 360ml cup works best with a notch coarser grind and a total time around 2:30-2:45. I use grind fineness as a way to adjust extraction levels based on the size of the brew, which I think accounts for much of the difference. I don't know if any of what I said makes sense haha

User avatar
aecletec
Posts: 1997
Joined: 13 years ago

#25: Post by aecletec »

Before using a proper pouring kettle I thought I had good control over my pouring with a glass oil pourer. Clearly I did not and my assumptions on chemex brewing have certainly been challenged.
For example: I tried not sifting and instead pulse poured in many tiny amounts with good results. Previously I think I was clogging my brews with too fast a pour rate. Time only has possibilities!
Lifting the filter on the chemex helps speed up the draw through if clogged/too slow, by the way.
I can hardly wait for my v3 kone...

Post Reply