I doubled down on my strategy and went even coarser today (roughly French press size) while aiming for longer contact time. Too much agitation clogged the filter though and gave me an 8-minute brew. Surprisingly, it was the most balanced cup of this coffee yet. I was expecting bigly overextraction but the acids rendered nicely and the bitterness was only faintly detectable, just not enough sweetness for home run. I’m not sure what to make of it but maybe worth trying if you have that club in your bag. Also seems close enough to just cupping and pouring the result through a filter.
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man I tried something like that with the konga and got a bad cup that was simultaneously under and over. But nice work; intentionally clogging the filter feels like a powermove.
another thing I don’t think we’ve talked about itt is that, for me anyway, if I thoroughly preheat the mug with ~204 water then it throws everything off—I can’t taste right when the mug is also piping hot, it’s distracting. I make my mugs warm and no warmer
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I pour small amounts at a time from a Hario server into an unheated china tea cup which steals heat from the coffee rapidly. Ideally you want the temperature of the beverage to be below 155 F and down, so pouring it all into a preheated mug at once would allow it to retain as much heat as possible. The optimal range is probably somewhere between 120 F to 140 F in terms of balance, but I enjoy starting a bit higher than that because the acidity hits differently and you can’t get it back once the drink cools. The best range might be slightly different for each person, but you want to drink it while it’s cooling to experience the widest range of flavors.
Mind. Blown.
Maybe I’m drinking my coffee too hot.
Had a cup today that was nothing until the last few sips, when it was much colder.
ya i’ve been using a hario server as well and drinking toward the lower end of that 120-140 range. pleasantly surprised regularly with some of the sour/sweet notes i hadn’t been getting when i was drinking it too hot.
Yeah too hot is no good and is widely known in specialty coffee / science literature but there’s an aggressive feed-grade coffee lobby spreading lies about optimal serving temperature that lives on through people demanding scalding hot coffee. If anyone was following that convo about the overpriced steel ball brewing contraption, one conclusion you might draw is that flash cooling your coffee soon after brewing might preserve some VOCs you’d lose otherwise. I dunno if a room temperature heat sink (aka mug, carafe) is enough to preserve some of those volatiles but heating the container is certainly going in the opposite direction it seems.
yeah that’s all stuff I’ve specifically saved. I scope out stuff elsewhere then save it on my map. Generally I look for cafes that are operated by a roaster but there are a few ultra-high-end places that know what they’re doing that use others’ beans.
Been struggling with a bag for a while.
Tried the " deliberately clog the filter to slow it down" technique.
Definitely got closer to the right profile. Although not quite.
Gonna add this to the toolkit. Possibly in combination with flexing the temperature.
Thing about clogging the filter is that the variance is super high. I’m getting some that run 5:00 and others that stall several times and go for 8:00. The Chemex filters are worth having to run slower brews (bleached, pre-folded circles). I want the Hario Switch but another glass item I can break is the last thing I need. Why can’t they make it in plastic?
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would really love to have a plastic switch. The glass cone in the switch is basically the same as the glass cone I had in a “regular” v60, it has that bulge at the bottom of the cone that snaps in to the plastic ring that sits on top of the cup on the regular v60, but on the switch the thing it snaps into is a sort of semi-hard rubber. Seems like they could make the plastic cones in that same form factor without too much trouble. 
anyway, in other news, made a great cuppa this morning, two hours later go to make another cup, same exact variables, same weight, same temperature, same amount of water… but the drain took 20 seconds longer, and this cup SUCKS, totally bitter.
my wife is working from home today and happened to be in the kitchen when I made this and basically dragged me as she drank her shitty fucking whatever the hell she drinks with shittons of milk in it that always tastes exactly the same every fucking time and is exactly how she likes it, obviously she doesn’t know what she’s missing
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bogleheads forum : Riverman :: this thread : me.
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Let me know if you’re gonna do one for Prague in the future 
omg I fucking hope so
Jack at Endorffeine got the prime photos in this rundown in the LA Times
(click below for an unpaywalled version)
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People have swapped out the glass cone in the Switch for some other brewer top like the Mugen or Origami. I was just hoping they sold the complete bottom assembly separately as a replacement part but no luck. You can get the stainless steel bearing and the actual acrylic switch piece but not the rest of it. The Clever Dripper is plastic but that thing is huge and not quite the same mechanism. It would be easy for me to take shots building better mousetraps in CAD but not sure about the ramping up to production aspect.
I don’t have an origami but I’ve handled a couple of them, I guess I’d have to try it with the switch but it seems like it wouldn’t seal properly given the ridges.
I’ve seen pictures of the mugen but haven’t read much, don’t really understand what the design is trying to accomplish or if it’s any good. Seems like it comes in ceramic and plastic versions?
seems like it should be pretty easy to copy the glass form factor and just try 3D printing a prototype?
ok, wtf
This seems like a pretty radical departure from other pourover devices. 12x water:coffee ratio seems pretty crazy, 90-second total time, no bloom, and … WTF at that “bed” (if you can call it that) at the end! I guess I’ll have to try this.
I don’t know enough about 3d print materials regarding food safe applications but maybe it’s possible. After thinking about it more, I’m not sure why I can’t just build one of these from mass-produced lab equipment that’s cheap and safe. I mean a V60 is essentially just an analytical funnel. I’ll try it and report back.
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I’m not sure I’ve been following.
But. A thought. Would controlling the pace/pressure of water going through the v60 help?
If so, could you create a seal on the top?
I.e. if you place an airtight lid on the top of the cone. That would stop any water flowing until you released it.