By-Pass Pour Over Recipe/Tips

[Acavia]

I plan to try a by-pass brew. I normally brew pour-over 17:1 to 18:1. I plan to do 14:1, or 13:1 and had 3X or 4X ml of water after the brew.

People with by-pass brew experience, should I do 13:1 or 14:1 or lower and then add water?
Should I go finer or coarser than normal? High (100C) or lower (90-95) temperature?

[mikelipino]

Any particular reason to brew pour over with bypass? Generally if you're adding water anyways to meet a ratio, I prefer to pass the water through coffee rather than add it directly to the carafe. Lower ratio brews will tend to under extraction making it harder to extract the more difficult solutes.

That said I'll use bypass brewing for two use cases: large brews (where the coffee and steep water doesn't fit my dripper) and iced coffee. In both cases my grind size does not change from my typical grind size, which is fairly fine for a Hoffmann-style V60, depending on the dose.

Bypass for large brews can be a bit of a compromise, but I really like a bypass iced coffee when it's hot out. Here's a steep and release recipe I use for iced in a Clever dripper, cobbled together from a few recipes.

30 g coffee, 500 g water
1. Preheat Clever and filter under hot tap. Do not preheat the carafe
2. Fill carafe with 200 g ice
3. Heat water to a full boil and grind coffee to V60 fineness
4. Pour 300 g water into Clever
5. Pour coffee on top of water, start time, and stir coffee. Do not stir too aggressively, but only to wet all grounds
6. Steep for 3:00. At 3:00, either stir top of slurry to submerge grounds or swirl to do the same (depending on water level)
7. Allow grounds to settle for 30 sec. At 3:30, place Clever over the carafe with ice and allow to drain. Drawdown should take ~45 sec with a good grinder
8. Swirl coffee and pour over a glass filled with fresh ice

[Acavia (original poster)]

I tried it once, it was nothing of note. My goal was to make a brighter/less extracted coffee that was not as strong as normal low-water brews are. I mainly brew in the 17:1 to 18:1 area. I like the thinner coffee, but suspect I might be extracting more than what I like - I like bright fruity coffee. So I thought the by-pass might achieve both things. It was decent coffee but was not super bright or anything as I thought it might be.

[K7]

I plan to try a by-pass brew. I normally brew pour-over 17:1 to 18:1. I plan to do 14:1, or 13:1 and had 3X or 4X ml of water after the brew.

People with by-pass brew experience, should I do 13:1 or 14:1 or lower and then add water?
Should I go finer or coarser than normal? High (100C) or lower (90-95) temperature?

By-pass is my default brewing method. I come from years of Americano, so it's nothing unusual for me.

IMO there is no one fixed ratio good for bypass. In general, finer the grind, less water and less contact time it takes. Since you are using less water, you want to go finer. Think of it as a spectrum. At one end of the spectrum, we have espresso brewed at 1:2 ratio with very fine grind in 25 seconds. At the other end we have very coarse grind drip or French press in 4 to 5+ minutes (or even overnight cold brew). I often grind Aeropress fine and brew at like 1:9 ratio in 75 seconds. Works great (no bitterness!) as long as I get my ratio right. I usually add bypass water to get to 1:13 to 1:15. Play with it for a while and you will get the hang of it.

EDIT: I vary temperature depending on the coffee. I find many coffees work just fine or better at temp like 100C with fine grind + short brew time. The key is getting the water ratio right in my experience.