I will need to go to a local grocery store and pick-up some bottled water.

I've been using either filtered or tap water thus far...

Eastsideloco wrote:The best thing I ever did for my manual brewing was start using brewing water that approximates the SCAA's water quality standard. We have higher priorities around the house than investing in a $10k water treatment system. So that means using bottled water or similar rather than tap or filtered tap water.

For example, I can find Gerber Pure purified water most anywhere I do. Nestle's Pure Life is also a reasonable alternative. Global Customized Water's "formula" probably get you closest to SCAA standards without a treatment system, but the costs are high as you need to mix these packets with RO or distilled water. (It's a great solution for travel, though, as the packets are very small, and you can find distilled water most anyplace.)

You can "test" your water quality at home quite easily. Just go by CVS and buy a gallon of Gerber Pure purified water. Then brew identical cups at home using Gerber Pure for one cup and your regular brew water for the other. While our filtered drinking water tastes great, the coffee that it brews is pretty rough by comparison to coffee brewed with Gerber Pure.

While the specs on the Gerber Pure water aren't a direct match with the SCAA standard, I don't notice a big difference between coffee brewed with Gerber Pure vs. Global Customized Water's formula. The latter is basically designed to the SCAA standard.

I got nerdy and put together a spreadsheet. Check out these data:



It looks like the biggest problems with Austin's tap water are elevated pH, hardness and alkalinity. These values makes sense given that we're sitting on limestone.

In "Everything But Espresso," Scott Rao notes that brewing water with too high of a pH will result in dull tasting coffee. Coffee brewed with hard water will tend to taste "chalky." And brewing water with high alkalinity will result in coffee that is dull and flat.

That's clearly not a recipe for tasty coffee. Adding insult to injury, the limestone also leads to a lot of scaling, which is especially problematic in things like on-demand water heaters or espresso machines.

I'm sure some people are blessed with lovely tap water for brewing purposes. But one has to wonder: What's in your brewing water?

http://www.coffeebos.com/whats-in-your-brewing-water/

Nice table! good reference.

My local tap water is quite similar in composition to that of the Austin TX shown, PH not quite so high.
If I try and brew with straight tap water it is not very nice and they use a lot of chloramine here which takes a lot longer to boil out of the water than if chlorine or chlorine gas was used.

Water is another hurdle for a tasty coffee indeed. Even if one can convince someone to invest in a quality brew grinder and say a clever dripper, its all for nothing if the water is not up to scratch.

Hi,

yes, the video and site you linked are actually similar to what i describe.

LeBourbon wrote: Because my blooms 'deflate,' I have a hard time getting an even coating of coffee grounds on the filter sides.

I sometimes have that problem too - especially with old beans, or too dark (for filter ) roasts. Are you sure your beans are reasonably fresh?

Also, what i do in that case is, after initial blooming (or notblooming), building the walls step-wise, so add small amounts, with fast flow from high up, and vigurous circling, step by step, always washing grounds up from the bottom floating them up and then outwards.

Yes, it get getting used to. And you actually convinced me to stop the voodoo for once, and try - in a chemex - stirring and not sacrificing 2 goats and 3 virgins while chanting gibberish while pouring. I *think* that i have some decline in clearity and balance, but that could as well be imagination, i will have to hire a friend for blind tasting .

Best
-Dario

PS: Totally agree with water! Since i regularly compare well-treated water at my friends roaster-shop, simple-treated from my tapped espresso machine, and raw tapwater (... and we have 18°dH here!), that's a point that cannot be stressed enough!

This is really nice. Thank you for your time and effort!

Eastsideloco wrote:I got nerdy and put together a spreadsheet. Check out these data:

<image>

It looks like the biggest problems with Austin's tap water are elevated pH, hardness and alkalinity. These values makes sense given that we're sitting on limestone.

In "Everything But Espresso," Scott Rao notes that brewing water with too high of a pH will result in dull tasting coffee. Coffee brewed with hard water will tend to taste "chalky." And brewing water with high alkalinity will result in coffee that is dull and flat.

That's clearly not a recipe for tasty coffee. Adding insult to injury, the limestone also leads to a lot of scaling, which is especially problematic in things like on-demand water heaters or espresso machines.

I'm sure some people are blessed with lovely tap water for brewing purposes. But one has to wonder: What's in your brewing water?

http://www.coffeebos.com/whats-in-your-brewing-water/

Yes, my beans are really fresh since I homeroast. I generally start brewing my beans after a 24 hour rest.

I have noticed that, the lighter the roast, the smaller the bloom. The more a bean's structure is disturbed (by increased roast level) the more CO2 is released upon wetting with water.

This observation is supported by a post I read in Sweet Maria's library a few years ago (it might have been in one of their YouTube videos, as well).

Give Matt Perger's method a try. It does help to have a stepless burr grinder for his method because it is quite grind-sensitive.

I've been getting some really nice cups out of my V60 after I increased the pre-heat on the Buono and the dripper. Both the Buono and the V60 have to be pipping hot before brewing commences. I was losing far too much heat in the process...

Cheers!

--David

NebuK wrote:Hi,

yes, the video and site you linked are actually similar to what i describe.



I sometimes have that problem too - especially with old beans, or too dark (for filter ) roasts. Are you sure your beans are reasonably fresh?

Also, what i do in that case is, after initial blooming (or notblooming), building the walls step-wise, so add small amounts, with fast flow from high up, and vigurous circling, step by step, always washing grounds up from the bottom floating them up and then outwards.

Yes, it get getting used to. And you actually convinced me to stop the voodoo for once, and try - in a chemex - stirring and not sacrificing 2 goats and 3 virgins while chanting gibberish while pouring. I *think* that i have some decline in clearity and balance, but that could as well be imagination, i will have to hire a friend for blind tasting .

Best
-Dario

PS: Totally agree with water! Since i regularly compare well-treated water at my friends roaster-shop, simple-treated from my tapped espresso machine, and raw tapwater (... and we have 18°dH here!), that's a point that cannot be stressed enough!

Great new thread.
Have learned more from this discussion about pourover than previous posts, even YouTube.
Have had identical problems as LeBourbon it seems. Was so disgusted with the ceramic V60 I parked it and have been using the Hario metal paperless with better results for past six months. Much better than ceramic but looking for perfection.

With Marshall Hance, whom I have respected for many years going back to my learning to roast phase, may have stumbled on one reason for my discontent. The problem could have been the ceramic. When get back from present trip hope to have plastic V60 waiting for experiment.

Have read Nebuk's wonderful clear, concise explanation and this encourages me to give V60 one last try. My son is back from Afghanistan and now one last visit home before reporting for three years to Korea. He does love his Americans and I want to surprise him first week in August. In the past have satisfied him with output from La Spaziale. My goal is to wow him.
And thanks LaBourbon for starting this discussion!
gene

Hey,

i've tried the Perger-Method to increase extraction rate to great extent on both the v60 and the Chemex. I find it works better for the Chemex, where the paper sits relatively flat on the walls and provides some resistance to the flow. In the v60, however, i had problems with more uneven extractions and partially very ... diluted tasting coffee. I think this results from the fact that the ridges in the walls keep the paper from the wall and make for a relatively undisturbed flow ... so we have to get our bed of coffee grounds more even to restrict flow to the same rate "around each particle".

That said, i've had a few coffees - Sumatra Umang Gayo among others - where this method worked better. The very light, but extremly sweet aroma of this coffee was often muted using my normal routine, and not apparent and sweet-stonefruit-y enough. Here, Perger's method helped a lot! On the other hand with almost-acidic fruitbombs - ethiopia yirgacheffe borboya for example - i got more muddled cups, with less clarity and pronounced fruit-sourness replaced by roastyness and sometimes even bitter aroma.

So for me the bottomline is: I'll use this on Chemex all day from now on! On the v60, it depends. Whereas the "bed-building" can result in underextraction and less pronounced sweeter, deeper aromas, the Perger method has the risk of destroying a cup. So i'll continue using the bed-method as a default, and when i think i need to boost extraction rate on a coffee that is more deep-earthy-sweet than fruity, i'll go over to the Perger method .

Thanks for getting me to try! I learnt lots of new insights on the way
Best,
Dario

Hi Gene,

I apologize for the late reply.

I'm really happy to hear you found the thread useful!

For what it's worth, this forum has contributed more to my knowledge of coffee than any other resource...

Cheers!

David

genecounts wrote:Great new thread.
Have learned more from this discussion about pourover than previous posts, even YouTube.
Have had identical problems as LeBourbon it seems. Was so disgusted with the ceramic V60 I parked it and have been using the Hario metal paperless with better results for past six months. Much better than ceramic but looking for perfection.

With Marshall Hance, whom I have respected for many years going back to my learning to roast phase, may have stumbled on one reason for my discontent. The problem could have been the ceramic. When get back from present trip hope to have plastic V60 waiting for experiment.

Have read Nebuk's wonderful clear, concise explanation and this encourages me to give V60 one last try. My son is back from Afghanistan and now one last visit home before reporting for three years to Korea. He does love his Americans and I want to surprise him first week in August. In the past have satisfied him with output from La Spaziale. My goal is to wow him.
And thanks LaBourbon for starting this discussion!
gene

Dario,

Have you tried making the grind a bit coarser?

Perger's method will make overextracted cups as soon as you cross a certain grind threshold. No other variable (such as shorter brew time) will be able to compensate.

Cheers!

David

NebuK wrote:Hey,

i've tried the Perger-Method to increase extraction rate to great extent on both the v60 and the Chemex. I find it works better for the Chemex, where the paper sits relatively flat on the walls and provides some resistance to the flow. In the v60, however, i had problems with more uneven extractions and partially very ... diluted tasting coffee. I think this results from the fact that the ridges in the walls keep the paper from the wall and make for a relatively undisturbed flow ... so we have to get our bed of coffee grounds more even to restrict flow to the same rate "around each particle".

That said, i've had a few coffees - Sumatra Umang Gayo among others - where this method worked better. The very light, but extremly sweet aroma of this coffee was often muted using my normal routine, and not apparent and sweet-stonefruit-y enough. Here, Perger's method helped a lot! On the other hand with almost-acidic fruitbombs - ethiopia yirgacheffe borboya for example - i got more muddled cups, with less clarity and pronounced fruit-sourness replaced by roastyness and sometimes even bitter aroma.

So for me the bottomline is: I'll use this on Chemex all day from now on! On the v60, it depends. Whereas the "bed-building" can result in underextraction and less pronounced sweeter, deeper aromas, the Perger method has the risk of destroying a cup. So i'll continue using the bed-method as a default, and when i think i need to boost extraction rate on a coffee that is more deep-earthy-sweet than fruity, i'll go over to the Perger method .

Thanks for getting me to try! I learnt lots of new insights on the way
Best,
Dario