I am brewing first decaf coffee. It is slightly darker than medium. Peruvian coffee. Fresh roasted, 2-10-21. I normally brew light to medium light African coffee. What changes should I make, grind, water temperature, etc., other differences? Choice of pour-over: V60, Switch, Chemex or Kalita Wave.

Usually as the roast gets darker I am lowering the temperature by default. You'll still need to dial in your grind as well. I usually go finer and rely on lowering water temp or instead maybe shortening the ratio to balance the extraction, but others might go coarser and drop into smaller pulse pours in order to keep a lower slurry temperature and longer brew time.

But, decaf appears darker than it is, so it's possibly still a relatively light roast and you may end up treating it as such. I could give better advice if i know the proposed tasting notes, though, which to me are more telling of roast level.

For the methods you have, I like V60b for lighter roasts, or Wave for darker roasts. For darker roasts i personally would avoid Chemex because it takes away mouthfeel. I never used a Switch but imagine that would be suitable too.

MikeTheBlueCow wrote:
But, decaf appears darker than it is, so it's possibly still a relatively light roast and you may end up treating it as such. I could give better advice if i know the proposed tasting notes, though, which to me are more telling of roast level.
.

Slightly bright with sweet citrus acidity balanced by dark chocolate.

Red Rooster's seasonal decaf:

Decaf Peru

Our seasonal decaf selection is at the mercy of the equatorial growing season. The result is sure to be the brightest, most complex and satisfying cup of decaffeinated coffee you've ever had. In fact, you'll be surprised you're drinking decaf at all. Tasting notes: Slightly bright with sweet citrus acidity balanced by dark chocolate.

Acavia wrote:Slightly bright with sweet citrus acidity balanced by dark chocolate.

To me I would treat this like a typical light roast, then. The only hitch could be if it produces more fines than normal, which would cause you to grind coarser, like you would with any Natural Ethiopian for example.

Its fairly dark though - darkest coffee I have ever had at home. Not oily, just much darker than the light or medium-light I normally get, even from same roaster. I tried lower temperature today but it still had burnt taste to it. It seems to be similar to waiting-room coffee so far. Is decaf usually off and poor quality?

typically outside of the specialty market people like that burnt taste and so it might be roasted for that market. try lowering the temp even more but in the end, you might not be able to get what you want out of this coffee. decafe has more of a niche market and with that, it's going to probably bend towards those dark roast demands to have a greater appeal. for a lighter roast decafe it would be like a niche of a niche and you would have to search out a roastery that offers this sort of coffee. it may also not be specialty but more commercial grade so it may be roasted that way to hide the defects. I personally prefer immersion-style when a roast is too dark like the classic french press and I don't even both with a v60. also you may want to reach out to the roastery and ask them what the best way to brew it is, they will have recommendations for many of their roasts.