I’ve been using the the osmotic flow / slow method, but I’m interested to see what other people like.
Currently I love the James Hoffmann’s 1 cup V60 using 15g/250ml ratio.
I generally don’t like to overcomplicate things and keep it pretty simple. When not at home brewing just for myself my go-to method is 30g/500ml with ~50ml water 30s blooming (45s for Chemex) then pour the rest and gently swirl after a bit.
I’ve been using a v60 over the chemex, and I “went back to basics” and looked up Hoffman’s method. I hadn’t realized how “off” my coffee was. Not a drastic change, but a noticeable improvement. Like Dessalines mentioned, its a bit stronger for me, too. But I just need to tweak the ratio.
It’s a good, simple method.
I’ve tried that one before, but for whatever reason its too damn strong for me haha.
You could try to lower the amount of coffee to something like 13-14g and see if that makes any difference.
Thx, i’ll try that for my next batch.
I do a combo between Hoffman’s perfect single cup method and Scott Rao’s method. I start with a wetted and warmed v60 with a wetted coffee sock cotton filter
- Grind 18g coffee
- Bring 400ml water to brew temp (I always heat up some extra water in case I spill or something)
- Add bloom water until no dry grounds sit on the bed (usually about 40ml)
- Swirl
- Wait 30s
- Excavate bed with tea spoon
- Pour water until there’s been 150ml water added to the whole situation
- Swirl every 10s as the coffee drains down
- Add the final 150ml (300ml should have been added now)
- Swirl every 10s as the coffee drains down
- You have coffee now
The Tetsu God/Devil technique for the Hario Switch is my go-to right now. I use Hoffmann’s iced filter recipe for iced coffee though.
Nice, I’ll have to check that out.
I’m careful during the initial pour to not drown the coffee. Success is when I can get the coffee wet without forcing coffee up the sides of the cone filter. I try to move the pouring water around around over the coffee when I pour to make sure that everything is getting directly hit by water. I stop pouring once the bubbles that form on top of the coffee are no longer brownish-looking. If that’s a method, then I do whatever that is called.
Seems very close to osmotic flow… at least that’s what some ppl call it. Ya I’ve found that not drowning the coffee, and not pouring after the bubble get to the top, tastes much better.
All other things being equal (coffee quality, brewing method, grind level, etc), underextraction or overextraction is always worth keeping in mind. I never liked my grandmother’s percolator coffee because it ran water through the same coffee repeatedly. I try to use methods that, in spite of their implementation differences, put a reasonable amount of water through a sane amount of coffee a single time.
It varies (a lot) depending on which brewer I’m using, but I always keep it simple. For a normal V60 it’s just a 1:2 bloom for 30-45s, then about 60% of the remaining water poured quickly and allowed to draw down, then the rest of the water a bit slower. It’s easy, it’s consistent, and it makes a great cup.
Currently I’m mostly doing something close to Lance Hedrick’s current recipe.
It uses a relatively coarse grind and relatively high agitation. It’s a little confusing at first but the idea essentially is that instead of doing a brew, tasting it, and adjusting your next brew to be a little better (Hoffmann style), you eyeball the drawdown rate and add more or less agitation depending on the speed. So instead of dialing entirely between brews, you are doing some correction on the fly during the brew itself, leading to fewer bad cups of coffee.
Thanks, I will try this out tomorrow morning.