I cupped some recent quest roasts this evening along with these commercially roasted Ethiopian beans. I used my lido 2 for grinding these ... Was gonna use the baratza sette but didn't wanna mess up my espresso dialed-in setting.

What happened mirrors the pour overs... Essentially the grounds must be so dense that they do not even float to form a proper crust for cupping, instead they just sink to the bottom. Just like they did in the kalita. I even tried a second cup where I ground finer (hence hoping to make the ground mass lighter and hoping more would float to form a crust, but only a bit of progress there). What does all of this mean? This doesn't indicate a problem with my pour technique... For what's its worth it tasted quite good in the cupping. I just don't understand how hard this bean is to brew properly in a standard pour over.

Is the degasing less? The lighter the roast the lower the rate of degassing and therefore bloom in my experience - is there much of a difference in bean to grind colour?

Yes, lighter roasts always degas less for me. Grind color is definitely light. Beans are 10 days old now, but for a light roast that's generally peaking. I have light roasts with DTR of 15% or less that still cup properly. Thoughts?

I was thinking along the same lines as you - less solubility and that maybe agitation and or a modified bloom may help if particles won't do it themselves!
The other factor mentioned seems to go against all I'd read about dark roasts being more brittle and creating more fines - unless that's referenced to some middle ground in the roasting process I don't understand. That the fines are on top of the brew where we can see rather than elsewhere makes me ponder what's going on with them.

dale_cooper wrote:Yes I know it shouldn't....

I went more coarse this morning and got it down to around 3:15. Not a bad brew, but as the cup cooled, the positive flavor notes really faded away. So I would say the murky 4:00 brew was better oddly enough.

For what its worth, last night I did a test of using the same grind setting as the 4:00, but used different beans, I think the total brew got shortened to 3:15 or so.

Just wish I knew why this happens, I'm guessing it has to do something with solubility.

Who cares about pour time? In the end the only thing that matters is if it's extracted properly. Some extractions can go as fast as 2 minutes some take 5.

Only main difference is that a pour over that stays full acts more like an immersion. Thus you would need a higher dose to offset.

Very good point Ryan. In the end, I am seeking taste and quality in the cup. I'd just like to know why this happens... it also makes the extraction difficult because you'd think the immersion based on that grind size would overextract. Even the cupping was difficult (keep in mind however, even there it actually tasted pretty good).

One thing I thought of is that I normally hate french press coffee, and my clever is a bit yellowed at this point so I don't like drinking out of it - but doing pour over for a coffee like this seems like a poor choice, and it would be better suited to immersion brew?

I have learned that paper filter methods in general can be very inconsistent. The speed changes significantly with different coffees. On my clever for example, all else being exactly equal, one coffee will draw down in a minute and another almost 3 minutes. I find that the actual extraction tatse wise (and measured via refrac) varies hardly at all. Presumably because the vast majority of extraction happens very early on and the water during draw down is TDS rich already and probably much cooler.