The v60 is a staple in specialty coffee; it’s used at home, in coffee shops, at brewing competitions, and just about anywhere else that you find great coffee. It’s a fickle beast, not nearly as forgiving as the Chemex, and deceptively simple when you first try it out.
Brewing in the v60 takes time and practice, but once you get it down it’s really not difficult to throw together your morning cup of coffee. I talk about the highlights in the below video, but here are a few other things to keep in mind.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vndGMlvAs9s&feature=youtu.be
- Use fresh beans – There’s nothing worse than going through the trouble of manually brewing coffee only to remember that you’re using month old stale beans. Freshly roasted coffee beans have a shelf life of about 2-3 weeks before they start losing the tastes that make them unique (read: go stale).
- Grind your beans properly – You’re going to want to use a burr grinder set to a medium grind (also often called a drip grind). Too course and the water will fall straight through, too fine and you’ll be left wondering why it’s taking so long to brew while the water pools. To hit that sweet spot, try a few different grind settings hovering around medium to find what works best for you.
- Bloom – Let your coffee breath. The bloom is critical and essential when doing any manual pour-over brew method, but I can’t stress its importance enough with the v60. I start with 60g of water and let the coffee bloom for 30-45sec. What’s a bloom? Basically, you’re letting the coffee grounds release the unwanted CO2 that’s trapped inside.
- Coffee-to-water ratio – The brew method I use is 415g of water to 28g of coffee. There is an endless supply of brew methods online (here are a couple from Intelligentsia and Stumptown).
- Don’t be afraid to play – Figure out what works for you, then run with it. If you don’t like the product that my recipe turns out for you, change the coffee-to-water ratio or the bloom time. Play with it until you get something you enjoy drinking.
Get brewing!
The Coffee Guy
You can buy the Hario v60 for about $16 on Amazon as of this writing. Now you have no excuse.
