June 29, 2022

New pour, old practice

The pour is a habit; the pour is a practice. For about a decade, the pour went like this:

1. Grind to the consistency of sand, approximately.
2. Boil your water to 205º. Pour it into a gooseneck kettle.
3. Get the grounds wet.
4. Wait one minute.
5. Break up the bed as softly as you can, and pour as slowly as possible, in a figure 8 motion.
6. Stop when you’ve reached a 1:15 to 1:16 ratio.

I do this all on a Hario V60, of course, because for a variety of physics reasons that is what nerds use.

This is not as scientific as most people pour, but it has worked for me for many years. The challenge is to control the main pour, and to pour everything in one go, standing there and keeping your arm steady.

My world has been rocked

When I recently bought a pound of coffee on my travels, I saw a reference to the spiral method, which they recommend for V60. I think this is traceable to this YouTube by James Hoffmann, where he advocates for a far more aggressive and extraction-heavy way of brewing the coffee. Here, in short, is what he recommends:

1. Aggressively boil as much water that you can fit into a gooseneck kettle as possible. Boil it straight in the kettle. Keep it at 212º.
2. Grind your coffee as finely as you can reasonably get away with, such that the final extraction won’t taste acrid. This may require a couple of attempts to get right.
3. Pour 2x the weight of your grounds.
4. Swirl.
5. Wait 45 seconds.
6. Break up the bed as softly as you can, but pour 60% of the water in the next 30 seconds, in a spiral motion.
7. Pour the remaining 40% of the water on the sides of the cone. Stop when you’ve reached a 1:16.667 ratio of coffee to water.
8. Stir clockwise & counterclockwise with a spoon.
9. Swirl.

Pourover coffee is already too complicated for almost everyone. People want to walk downstairs, press a button, and receive their sacred wake-up bean soup. Now you are adding a spoon to the process, and you are forcing a certain level of attention that did not really exist before. Fortunately for you, I am insane, and so I did this for science.

Notes on absurdity

• I cannot tell the difference between 205º decanted into a gooseneck and 212º boiled straight in a gooseneck, other than that one of them requires an oven mitt to hold for the pour.
• The grind is very hard to get right on any entry-level grinder under $500. (If you paid less than $500 for your grinder, it is entry-level.) Any sort of “diner” notes of bitterness or acidity mean you need to be less aggressive with your grind.
• The swirl does make a difference in terms of how much coffee ends up on the bed, versus on the walls of the cone. You generally want a flat bed, because that maximizes the amount of water going through the coffee – which means you’re not underextracting any of your coffee.
• The swirl makes less of a difference when you’re waiting for bloom. I believe the swirl is in place here to ensure your grounds are evenly damp, but really you should be handling that during your pour, removing the need for such a foolproofing gesture.
• I have no idea why you need to stir this back and forth with a spoon. I’ve omitted it entirely.
• It’s considerably faster. You are trading focus for time.

Does it result in a better cup of coffee? It definitely results in a stronger cup of coffee. You are getting the maximum possible out of your beans. For those of you who like blonder, softer cups, this is not for you. For those of you who, like me, like to eat your coffee in the morning, you are in for a very good meal.

The current practice

In short, this is what I’ve come up with:

1. Boil your water to 205º. Pour it into a gooseneck kettle.
2. Grind your coffee as finely as you can reasonably get away with, such that the final extraction won’t taste acrid. I am grinding 24g of coffee for 400g of water. I feel like this is a good starting point
3. Pour 2x the weight of your grounds.
4. Wait 45 seconds.
5. Break up the bed as softly as you can, but pour 60% of the water in the next 30 seconds, in a spiral motion.
6. Pour the remaining 40% of the water on the sides of the cone. Stop when you’ve reached a 1:16.667 ratio of coffee to water.
7. Swirl.

This is sort of an 80/20 thing. I’m sure the fussiness makes a difference, and it might be worth pursuing, but it’s not for me. After all, any extra actions I take in the pour will compound over the next 15,000+ days of coffee.

It’s important to inspect your practice from time to time to see if you’re existing with as much as ease as possible. We can all get too complacent in what we’re doing.