My simple recipe Medium coarse grind, 15/250, 90-92C, 3 slow pours 50gr bloom for 30s, add water to 140gr till 1m:40s from center circular pour to around 1 cm gap from the dripper rim back and forth, last pour same pattern to 250gr brew time 2m10s - 2m30s...no swirling, no stirring, no pre-tapping the dripper to flatten the coffee bed just use chopsticks to make a crate, hario non tab or origami 4 cup filter paper both give a good results... bye2.. astringency...

Side note: I use TWW water dilute to 35 - 70ppm depends on the coffee by taste...

Over the years, I always struggled to get consistent cup results from V60. The reason is probably because of the extreme variation of coffees I brew on a daily base. I roast my own coffee and source a variety of green coffees and experiment with different roast profiles and blending. So, I usually have at least 5-6 different single-origin or blends of freshly roasted beans in my cupboard. Trying to dial in for each bean on V60 turned out to be a very complex and technique (and some luck) dependent art form.

My answer was to switch to a different brewing rig. I have tried and used AeroPress for several years now. For me, it always brews a more consistent cup than V60, though completely different nuances of a cup. About 8 mo ago, I tried DeltarPress. And turned out I really like it better than AeroPress for its clean and bright profile more akin to a good V60 pour-over. It is now my go-to brewing rig for my daily cups of several different beans. Then very recently, I purchased a Hario Mugen brewer. A single-pour technique used for Mugen was a game changer for me. It is now easier than DeleterPress and produces clean, bright cups. It requires some dialing-in the grind size, similar to espresso, to accomplish desired draw time, but overall, it is much easier than brewing with V60 and the resulting cups are more consistent for me.

Sometimes, rather than trying and struggling to pour a perfect brew from V60, just using a different brewing rig may be an easy way out.

I have read up some on astringency in coffee and it turns out it is caused by specific compounds and we mostly need to pay attention to how well filtered the brew water is. Meaning, the coffee bed acts as a filter and we need to reduce bypass to reduce astringency. I saw that your brew times were around 2 minutes which suggests to me the brew bed may not be doing enough filtering.

I have successfully avoided astringency but recently have a problem bean that has high astringency. I could not get a good brew from the V60 so I switched to a Mugen (no bypass). No problems in that brewer, just needed to dial in like normal.

Other things to consider: maybe your water is hard, make sure not to preheat your plastic brewer, avoid brown filters, don't pour too hard or too soft.

My recipe: water at 205 F, medium fine grind size, bloom with 1:3 coffee to water ratio for 45 seconds, then pour starting in the center, in a tight spiral pushing outward towards the brewer wall but avoiding pouring on the filter, pour up to water ratio 1:10. Wait until the water is nearly drained, almost at the surface of the bed, and repeat the same pour up to your total desired brew ratio (mine is usually 1:15). My brew times for 15g of coffee are usually in the 2m45s range. For 20g coffee they are more in the 3m30s range.

Hi everyone, I think I have found the answer after thinking really hard about it. This is probably a unique answer tailored to my situation, but if this is the answer for someone struggling with the same problem, I'm very happy that I was of help. The answer for me was not the coffee itself being astringent, but how I have always tried too hard to taste coffee that causes my tongue to get dry. Sounds a bit vague, but I'll explain.

From seeing videos for how to taste, I always see the professionals doing weird movements with their mouths, so the coffee gets spread more easily in their mouths. I assumed I should do the same when I taste. So I mimicked them. However, I always pressed my tongue to the roof of my mouth, thinking it helped disperse the coffee. This is what caused my tongue to be dry, because I was essentially (sorry if this grosses you out) juicing my tongue, leaving it dry.

No wonder that my brews with the coursest grind settings and lowest brewing temperatures also were 'astringent'. Now I can focus on other aspects of dialing in my brew. I am currently still working on the Kenyan. The only problem I have now is that when it is sweet and it has a nice acidity, it also has a tart cherry aftertaste that I don't like. Now I'm not sure if this is a problem with my technique or if it the character of the coffee. So the next step for me is to try a different coffee to see if I still suffer from the same problem. Anyways, Thank you all for the responses, I really am happy with the suggestions!

For the people that are reading this with the same problem and still struggling with it, don't give up on finding the answer, same goes for other problems you might have in getting a good cup of coffee. You can do it!

Glad to hear you're making progress. Well done and thanks for sharing.

Hi moon_pork98,

just out of curiosity, a couple of months later how are you getting on with coffee brewing? Have you noticed a permanent decrease in astringency after improving your tasting technique?