Today, as part of our ongoing series of Home Brew Guide blogs and videos, we are going to go over our V60 brewing method. Similar to the Kalita pour-over, the V60 is one of the easiest brew methods available, and one that has become a feature at our cafes, beloved by fans of our Brew Bars, and our preferred method for serving our premium coffees such as our Nicaragua.
So, to begin, we will first weigh out our coffee for a 1:16 ratio of coffee to water. At the shops this is 22g of coffee to 350g of water.
Next, we will set our grind to achieve a brew time of about 2 ½ mins. Depending on your grinder and how it is calibrated, this setting may vary. On our EK43 we use a grind of 8, whereas when we use a Barrazza Encore or Virtuoso, our grind setting is in a range of 12-14. Yet again, these numbers will vary. Overall, what is important to remember is the goal is to set the grind to give us a brew time of 2 ½ – 3 mins maximum.
Once we have ground our coffee, we will use water heated to 210* to quickly pre-rinse our filter, eliminating any paper taste and making sure our V60 is heated.
After doing this we will pour our ground coffee into our V60 then add our bloom water using a 1:3 ratio of our dose to our bloom. Therefore, if we use 22g of coffee, we will aim to use 66 to 70g of water. We also may wish to begin timing ourselves using a smartphone to ensure the proper brew time is achieved.
When adding our bloom water, we will do so quickly, then give a stir to evenly saturate all our coffee. Then, when we go to pour the next round of water, which is going to be all of the water, we will want to pour aggressive but in control, keeping the kettle at the same height the entire time. Afterwards we will give a little North-South-East-West and one little stir, to help avoid any high and dry grounds. What we want to see is everything go down to the bottom with a nice even bed of coffee on top.
Once this is achieved, we are ready to enjoy our cup.
Hope this this helped. And, for more info on making your V60, please checkout the video below.