Good morning! New to site and am in need of some coffee assistance. I have a Comandante C40 MK4 and I'm trying to figure out grind settings parameters for a pour over on a Blue Bottle Dripper. Any and all assistance would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Hi Mark,

What have you tried so far? I would try between 24 and 26 clicks.

Julia,

Thank you very much for your reply. I have been using 25 on the comandante, but have not really tasted the sweetness/fruit notes until the cup has really cooled down. My brewing ratio has been 13g/200ml; trying not to waste coffee until I better dialed in my brew. Any thoughts/suggestions? Thank you.

Mark

Our recipes seem similar. Here's what I've often brewed with:

13g coffee, 200g water, 97*C/207*F water, Comandante MK4 set to 26 clicks
0:00 - 1st pour of 50g poured slowly and gently
0:30 - 2nd pour of 50g poured slowly and gently
1:00 - 3rd pour of 50g poured slowly and gently
1:30 - 4th pour of 50g poured slowly and gently
no stirring, swirling, etc.
water drawdown finishes somewhere between 2:00 and 2:30 depending on the coffee

Is that more or less what you do?

Yes, my recipe is very similar with slight modifications:

13g coffee, 200g water, 94*C/201*F water, Comandante MK4 set to 23 clicks
0:00 - 1st pour of 50g poured slowly and gently
0:30 - 2nd pour of 100g poured slowly and gently
1:20 - 3rd pour of 50g poured slowly and gently
no stirring, swirling, etc.
water drawdown finishes somewhere between 2:00 and 2:30 depending on the coffee

I'll try a bit hot water temp and include an extra pour to see if this helps my cup!

Thank you for your recipe and your response. Much appreciated!

Thanks for reporting back, kava1.

Sure, try a couple of brews along the lines of what you have just said - coarser grind, higher temp, extra pour at 1:30.

Also, I've noticed that one of the local coffee shops makes pourovers with acidity only appearing when the brew cools down, definitely not when hot. It's a consistent observation across a range of coffees. Not sure what causes it but one wild guess is water.

What kind of water are you brewing with? Bottled water? If so, what brand? Tap water? If so, do you know a bit more about it (TDS for starters)?

Just had a brew using your recipe; rather tasty. I'm using a Kenya Nyeri, single blend, with notes of blackberry, honey and grapefruit.

Up front, no real noticeable acidic flavor, but as the cup cooled down, a real blast of grapefruit. Not an unpleasant taste! I am using

good quality bottled water. I understand the concept of TDS, but I do not possess the instruments to test TDS. If you happen to have

any additional info., please let me know. Alway interested in learning more coffee knowledge! Thank you again!

I love grapefruit coffees! Always happy to drink one

Just to sanity check the bottled water. It should have a label. Could you post a photo please? Example of more or less what I'm looking for:
https://cdn2.imagearchive.com/thehomebr ... 193040.jpg

Unfortunately, the bottled water that I use does not contain the chemical breakdown of the contents on the bottle notes.

No worries, Mark. Thanks for checking.

To recap, I just wanted to sanity check two important things: brew recipe and water quality. Just in case something was obviously off.

Your recipe looks alright. Whether it's causing the issue with lacking acidity before the coffee cools down, I can't tell. I don't have that much experience. It might be worth playing a bit with different recipes to see what happens but it sounds like you have done that already.

Your water - we can't say much about it It might be perfectly fine. It might be worth trying some other brands of bottled water recommended on this forum for pourovers. If they give you more acidity when the brew is hot, great. If not, move on. It should be fairly cheap and easy to verify.

For the record, coffee generally increases in acidity as the brew cools down. That's perfectly normal. Do you get missing acidity when hot for all coffees or only some? Do you get more acidity when hot when you visit coffee shops?