Today one of the rare days I had to brew for the road into a waxed paper cup with plastic lid. Obviously a totally different experience than my usual method of brewing into a glass Hario decanter and pouring 2 oz at a time into a fine china tea cup, which is yet quite different than drinking from a normal coffee mug (which I do not recommend if you’re really trying to taste everything in the coffee). The tea cup is, by far, the least forgiving imo, but the wide and thin flared lip spreads the coffee wide, which, for lack of a better explanation, allows you to taste more of it up front. That design is also better for aromatics, which normal mugs and especially closed containers do anywhere from little to no justice too. This Tanzania I brewed was way less offensive to me in the paper cup, but the flavors were considerably masked or compressed. Higher floor, lower ceiling.
The Fellow line of products seems quite good on that front. The Carter travel mugs have a screw on top to transport and keep hot but when you drink you remove the top.
The shape of the interior rounds in a bit which does enhance aroma when you go to drink. The lip is thin and tapered which helps with sipping though it isn’t flared. Non reactive metal for the lip and where the top screws in and the part that holds the coffee has a ceramic coating.
I also like their double walled glassware. These have a flared thin lip for sipping much like a tea cup. Aside from that and the double wall insulation these aren’t all that different from a normal mug.
yeah I’m a big fan of the Carter travel mugs. I have the fat “regular” version that you can aeropress directly into and I have the “move” version that is thinner, has a splashguard, and fits into standard car cupholders. Both are great, the lip is very nice, they keep coffee warm a long time, great value.
Finally got myself a V60. To be honest, I’m a bigger fan of it than the aeropress. It’s a much cleaner cup and a bit weaker (though that could be the difference in water amount).
I see the benefits of all three (also have french press). I wonder if some are better used for different beans and flavors and what they are.
The thing with the aeropress is that it’s basically impossible to fuck up. You have a very high floor, but you also have a low ceiling. I’ve gotten very few truly memorable cups out of the aeropress, but they’re always nice, enjoyable, perfectly drinkable. Never had a bad one. Minimal user interaction required other than sipping.
The v60 on the other hand can be truly infuriating, you can get undrinkable swill and mindblowlying amazing cups on the same day with the same beans/grind/technique. I mean, it’s rare to get huge swongs while keeping everything (seemingly) constant, but it can happen. It takes more attention and thought (and luck!)
I suppose better is subjective. In general, I’d say filter is for producing cleaner cups with flavor separation at the expense of body (a trade I am always willing to make). It’s also a different profile since you’re pulling relatively more of the fast-extracting compounds compared to the slower ones. If you like the V60 profile more, then you may enjoy the delicate tea-like coffees a lot.
How often do y’all clean your grinders?
Also, one thing I’ve noticed on the Vario, with the steel burrs there’s a gap between the burr and the carrier (this doesn’t exist with the ceramic burr, it’s perfectly flat on the non-grinding side). Grinds get in here, I am slightly concerned about the possibility of this nudging the burr out of alignment but they’re just loosely in there (I can literally just blow them out) so I think this is just paranoia.
I clean it about once a month, deep clean with the tablets 2-3 times per year. I haven’t read about the gap causing issues with alignment other than warping from overtightening screws. Somebody on HB made a 3d printed spacer to seal that gap though. Don’t have the link saved on my phone.
My V60 and fancy temperature controlled gooseneck kettle has arrived today.
Been struggling with the aeropress the last few days. I was getting the hang of it with a dark roast. But changed to a lighter roast and haven’t had a good cup put of it.
I think being able to fix the temperature consistently will help. I’m basically just guessing with waiting for it to cool down.
Looking forward to trying it out tomorrow
Gotta say that I’m warming up to the V60.
I normally use the espresso machine at the teacher’s lounge for convenience but that stuff is like getting punched in the face with a fist of caffeine. No subtlety or diversity in flavors. Just a caffeinated kick to the balls.
Sure the V60 doesn’t have that sort of strength but it definitely provide better overall taste even if the caffeine kick isn’t quite that great.
This weekend, I’m gonna start making Vietnamese-style coffee. Not exactly Vietnamese coffee since mine is cold brew rather than iced coffee.
This reminds of me of when I was in high school and sometimes joined a friend who was an excellent bowler. He’d throw his ball and walk back and say, “that 2nd board is a little oily” and I’d be like, “uh, okay I’m just trying to keep the ball between those two gutters thanks”
If I brewed twice a day for a 100 years, I don’t think I’d ever detect that a lower burr changed on my grinder. Are you guys serious?! lol
This is embarrassing… I’ve been brewing at least a cup a day with my v60 since my first post here. After a very rough start and a TON of help from Lawnmower_man, I began brewing a decent cup of coffee. I tried different beans and went thru just about every variable I could think of. Type of coffee. Grind setting. Water temp. Bloom time. Faster time. Slower time. Smoother pour. Rougher pour. Etc., etc. Like I said, I got to the point where I was getting a very decent cup, but it was still missing something that I couldn’t put my finger on. Too acidic? Not acidic enough? Too bitter or not bitter enough? I tried everything (or so I thought)…
Two days ago I was in the middle of a brew and for the first time ran out of water! I usually make sure I have more than I’ll need, but got cocky (takes less time to heat up) and thought I had just enough. I was almost done and wasn’t about to start over. I figured I could just add some at the end (there’s a technical name for this that I can’t remember now). Anyway, I finished about 30g or more than what I usually use and…
That was it!!! That cup was perfect for me! I had been using a 17:1 ratio because I heard that was the ideal ratio for a pour over. This wound up being less than 16:1. So after 2 months of brewing every day I found that I guess I just like stronger coffee than most. So for last couple days I’ve been enjoying what is the perfect cup of coffee for me
I guess the moral of the story is there is no right or wrong when it comes to brewing. Do what works for you and what you enjoy. It didn’t even dawn on me to change the coffee to water ratio.
Happy brewing!
I went from having a perfectly clean wipe to needing significantly more foil shimming to level it back up, so that means something changed. I doubted it was the upper burr since it’s stationary. What seemed more likely to me was that the moving parts under tension changed somehow. The drive mechanism in the Vario / Forte line is kind of weird compared to most grinders in that the burr carrier isn’t mounted directly to the motor shaft. Instead, it uses a tensioned belt to spin the burr carrier, and that tension can both affect alignment of the lower burr and shift since the screw that adjusts it can move. I diagrammed this problem once before:
My tension seemed to be a bit loose which wouldn’t require much movement of the screw at all. After tightening, the burr sounds like it’s spinning smoother and more efficiently. More importantly, my burrs (both of them) are still wiping perfectly clean since that post you quoted from about six weeks ago. I view hyper-alignment as a thing that may require checking and adjustment from time to time since the tolerances are so tiny. I own a lot of guitars, and it’s well known that seasonal adjustments are required on the truss rod due to changes in temperature & humidity (it’s a tensioned metal rod inside of the neck that counteracts the force of the strings) to maintain optimal neck relief, and it’s another one of these things where thousands of an inch or fractions of a millimeter make a huge difference. So that the lens I view this stuff through.
bypass
For my technique I routinely prefer 15:1, and I’m using a grind that’s on the coarser side for V60 with very low agitation. Have you ever read the provided recipe from Hario on your box of V60 filters? They recommend using somewhere between a 10:1 and 12:1 ratio!
I had been using 17:1 for a while but after a couple of experiments with acid bypass and Tetsu Kasuya’s 4:6 method, I tried backing down to 15:1 with some pretty good results. I haven’t really played with it enough yet but on the one hand it feels like I should be able to accomplish the same thing by varying the grind size but on the other hand it seems reasonable that there are some qualities that might be easier to tune with water ratio than with grind size.
Yeah, I’m firmly in the camp that changing different extraction variables doesn’t necessarily get you to the same flavor even though the EY% may be the same. In fact, I no longer even care about EY% that much for reasons I won’t get into other than to say I don’t think it’s that meaningful unless you’re clearly out of bounds.
Was watching a review of the V60 Mugen where the April Coffee guy talks about CO2 and resting coffees (link is timestamped at 4:00). Cliffs: Another Nordic roaster saying 3 to 6 weeks of rest on light roasts. Also claims blooming isn’t necessary with proper rest.
I don’t recall if the box came with a recipe and if it did, I didn’t notice it (I threw the box away). I’ll try to find it online
Question: Do you stir for the bloom? I do not, but just watched a vid where they did, I’ve been making a little divot and just saturating the grounds and letting it bloom for around 30 seconds. It’s weird… Sometimes I can see it bubbling and sometimes I can’t
After the bloom, I fill to about 66% and give the cone a little swirl (again, some people literally use a spoon to stir). I let it almost drain before finishing the pour
Is this a correct method? Definitely have been loving the 15:1 ratio. Just picked up another bean from a local roaster that I cannot wait to try!
I do not stir the bloom. I’ve tried it before and didn’t notice anything different from just spinning it around, which I also don’t do. I’m firmly in the low agitation camp. Check out that link I posted just above where he claims they don’t bloom at all but instead wait 3 to 6 weeks to allow their coffees to properly offgas (they’re in Denmark so presumably roast pretty light).
My V60 brewing philosophy is what I’d call Anti-Rao I guess. Very low agitation, fastest possible drawdown times, usually one slow and gentle pour, don’t care “pushing EY%” because I think it’s mostly sophistry. Pretty much all of my best cups, which I’d describe as balanced with flavor clarity, have come using this method. I also use relatively soft water similar to what La Cabra suggests in that link I posted a while back. The things these Nordic roasters have been saying, which really goes against the grain of what’s generally accepted as best practices, is what I’ve naturally found myself doing through trial and error.
I don’t stir the bloom, but I swirl it pretty aggressively, because 1) without swirling I am never sure the bed is actually wet and 2) with an aggressive swirl I can get everything pretty wet with only 2x water.
After the bloom I usually pour to 10x total, then to 17x, though I’ve sometimes dropped to 15x total, so something like 2x/9x/15x. I haven’t really tried a single pour but I like the idea. Are you just constantly topping off the water? I don’t think I could get a full 17x into the cone at once (idk, actually I probably could, I guess I’ll just try it and see).
I tried the 40:60 method but it just seems like too much work and it’s slow and easy to overextract.