Question for you guys.

Went to visit a friend who is well connected in the coffee world...He shared with me that he's been doing his pour overs at 210 degrees...Apparently many others are doing the same in the well known coffee world...His coffee tasted great.

I started doing the same with really good results....Anyone else doing this or know others doing the same?

I haven't done any blind tests so it's hard to say if my good results are in my head...Thoughts?

ETA: And I know there isn't a one temp fits all brewing temp, but i'm more or less talking about a starting point...I've yet to have a brew that was bitter or not really good.

Is that the temperature of the slurry or the temperature in the kettle before pouring?

Kettle before brewing

I think you'd be amazed how much the temp drops in the pour and in the slurry. I bet I'm brewing in that temp range as I heat up my pouring kettle to boiling on the stove and pull it off with little dwell time before pouring.

No doubt about it...I guess I'm used to starting around the 203 range and that 210 start seems high...Either way the drop in temp is significant.

The CBI recommended pouring "still boiling water" into the cone.

johnny4lsu wrote:Kettle before brewing

In the manual drip chapter of "Everything But Espresso," Scott Rao writes:

"To initiate extraction at a given slurry temperature requires the water temperature in the pouring vessel to be approximately 6°F-8°F higher than the desired slurry temperature."

Rao's recommended slurry temperature range is 195°F-202°F. If you extrapolate back to the kettle, that results in water temperature range between 201°F-210°F. So your friend is at the upper end of the recommended temperature range.

One rule of thumb is that more lightly roasted coffees will benefit from higher brewing temperatures and vice versa. To the extent that this is true, it relates to the fact that there is a direct relationship between roast level and the relative ease with which solids can be dissolved by the water. Since solids will dissolve more slowly with a lightly roasted coffee, you can compensate by increasing brewing temperature.

While this explanation is slightly reductive, it speaks to some general tendencies. It also suggests that unless you are working with Scandinavian roasts, which are relatively light roast profiles, you may not want to be extracting at the upper end of the brewing temperature range.

[My anecdotal experience is that baristas who compete in the SCAA's brewer's cup events are starting with brewing temperatures at the lower end of Scott Rao's kettle temperature range.]

This is the kind of heuristics I love to see. Rather than competing recipes, we have some workable rules of thumb. Thanks!

It would be nice to see these kinds of heuristics gathered up over time. I suspect that most debates could be turned into heuristics without becoming totally relativistic.

Great info.. Thanks for the input

Great post David (eastsideloco)--good info.