Interesting, thanks for sharing.

Not to nitpick, but that's a very coarse grind and quick (<1m) drawdown. My V60 pours are quite different...

RapidCoffee wrote:Not to nitpick, but that's a very coarse grind and quick (<1m) drawdown. My V60 pours are quite different...

I'm pretty sure the video is sped up given the behaviour of the steam rising from the coffee bed.

Interesting to watch but is there a practical takeaway here that I'm missing or is it just suppose to be be fun to watch the inside of the bed? The grind looks awfully coarse compared to my pourovers but then again I haven't bought the Monolith coarse brew burrs.... Yet.

It just demonstrates what center pouring technique does inside a coffee bed, and, by extension, shows how the shape and characteristics of the water stream matters for agitation of the entire coffee bed. (For example, no matter how slowly you pour, you never want the stream to break up into drops before hitting the water surface - until you learn when to use drops instead of a stream .)

As for coarseness, the grind size seems about right for traditional "Kissaten" methods for fresh (no resting) darker roasts. Using a coarse grind and a free flowing percolation brewer, you control extraction with pouring technique - one's pouring technique strongly impacts the taste of the resulting cup, which is why there are pouring masters in Japan. As an aside, this is why there is a market for Cafec - the company's goal is to make pourove brewing easier for everyone with easy-to-learn pouring techniques that people can copy from a video and don't need years of practice to master. At the other extreme there is Kono (KŌNŌ, who Hario ripped off for the V60) where training courses are offered for how to brew with their drippers. In between, there is something like Kasuya Tetsu's 4:6 method, which used an EK43 set at maximum coarseness (although I wonder about how the up-and-down slurry temperatures of the 4:6 method impacts taste).

Thanks for the insight Craig. Admittedly I'm mainly a straight espresso guy but I do make one V60 per day to take to work. Currently I'm using a Vario with the steel burrs for this purpose. I've switched from the Hario Switch to a normal V60 using Hoffman's 1 Cup recipe : I use this 5 pour structure (20.5g/320g) and always spiral the pouring kettle to wet the bed as evenly as possible. I use mostly Hatch, Dak and Manhattan for pour over. I'd be very interested if you though there was another, potentially better, method I should try. Generally the coffee is fine if underwhelming compared to the intensity of my espresso.

Ps - I did buy The Physics of Filter Coffee but have to admit it didn't lead me to a better tasting cup but I'm wiling to admit I'm missing something. Or a lot.

PIXIllate wrote:Thanks for the insight Craig. Admittedly I'm mainly a straight espresso guy but I do make one V60 per day to take to work. Currently I'm using a Vario with the steel burrs for this purpose. I've switched from the Hario Switch to a normal V60 using Hoffman's 1 Cup recipe :
video

I use this 5 pour structure (20.5g/320g) and always spiral the pouring kettle to wet the bed as evenly as possible. I use mostly Hatch, Dak and Manhattan for pour over. I'd be very interested if you though there was another, potentially better, method I should try. Generally the coffee is fine if underwhelming compared to the intensity of my espresso.

Ps - I did buy The Physics of Filter Coffee but have to admit it didn't lead me to a better tasting cup but I'm wiling to admit I'm missing something. Or a lot.

There's always 'better' methods. Hoffmann's methods as well as many others are more-or-less 80:20 - put in 20% of the effort, get 80% of the results. There's no use for him - or anyone in a similar position - to come up with a method that makes tastier coffee but takes hours of practice to master.

I always suggest full immersion methods like a cupping cup to get the best taste out of a premium specialty coffee without having to learn much technique, let alone master anything. Full immersion is probably going to be more consistent in terms of taste and extraction. A steel Vario is certainly good enough for long immersion extractions; as an aside, it is the grinder that I use for cupping.

Also, if the coffee is underwhelming, then perhaps try using more coffee? You're at 64g/l now, how about 75g/l? The video that I linked to is probably using a little over 80g/l (and pulling the dripper away once pouring is done).

baldheadracing wrote:There's always 'better' methods. Hoffmann's methods as well as many others are more-or-less 80:20 - put in 20% of the effort, get 80% of the results.

Care to share a V60 method that will get me a 90-95% result? I don't mind putting in the extra effort/practice. It can't be anywhere near as difficult as espresso, which defiantly takes years to really begin to master.

Just my opinion: Manual pourover in something like a V60 is way harder than espresso when you get to the last few percent. I can't give you a method because I don't know where I am in terms of %.

Consider making espresso on a manual lever like an early Europiccola - no boiler pressure gauge and no pressurestat, no brew pressure gauge, no thermometers, no temperature stability, no pump, no control over dispersion pattern, or fill rate, etc. Espresso would be a lot harder on such a machine - I certainly found it a lot harder. What method could you give to someone with such a machine? How would one explain how to move their arms?

Another example: the V60-01 and V60-02 are identical except the height of the cone. Hoffmann says that there is no difference between 01 and 02 with his one-cup technique ... but it is the height of the cone that determines how close one can get the pouring kettle spout to the coffee bed. How high/low should the spout be, how does one vary spout height during brewing, what is the relationship between spout height and kettle flow rate, how does that relationship vary depending on where one is in the extraction, and how do all of those factors differ for different coffees? How deep into the weeds do you want to go?

baldheadracing wrote: How deep into the weeds do you want to go?

My answer is always the same, quite deep. If there is another V60 technique you prefer I'd love to try it.

I recently reread 1Q84. I'm reminded of a quote:
"If you can't understand it without an explanation, you can't understand it with an explanation."