V60 Video

I'm about five years late to the v60 party, but I've recently made an instructional pour-over video that I'd like to offer to readers.  Plenty of third-wave cafes offer hand pours, and of the ones I've tried, I've enjoyed perhaps 10% of them.  Uneven, low-temperature extractions are the norm. 

Ten years ago, almost every barista who watched me stir a slurry was horrified.  Five years ago, about half of third-wave baristas seemed to grudgingly accept that stirring may help extraction quality.  Recently, the "Rao Spin" has made uniform extraction even easier to achieve, and the few whom I've demonstrated it for have been instant converts. 

Most third-wave baristas seem to brew hand pours with no agitation, and their consistency is rather unfortunate.  I still hear baristas say nonsense like "if my whole staff stirs hand pours, they will be less consistent."  It's nonsense because if you don't stir, you're guaranteed a fair amount of inconsistency, because some grounds will remain dry through the entire prewet phase.  Judicious stirring reduces channeling, makes extractions more uniform, and improves repeatability.  It's not rocket science. 

I pour v60's two ways:  one pour or two pours.  I find the one-pour method ideal for cafe service, because it's fast and allows the barista to spend much less time paying attention to the coffee.  Total barista time spent standing in front of the brew should be 1:20. 

The two-pour method requires a slightly coarser grind and adds 30--40 seconds to both the barista's task and the brewing time.  I use the two-pour method when I have extra time and care about squeezing an extra 0.5% extraction out of a coffee.   

I do not recommend brewing v60's with much less than 20--22 grams of grounds, as smaller doses require finer grinds (more fines = more bitterness) and average extraction temperature is lower in smaller brews.  I'm also wary of breaking up the pour into more than two parts, as that makes the average extraction temperature much lower and may hinder extraction uniformity. 

In the video, I demonstrate the one-pour method.  With a great grinder (or sieved grounds), it's possible to extract 20% from a 22-gram v60 in less than 2:15 with this method.  It's easy to adapt this method to other pourover brewers, including Chemex and Melitta.  Just please be sure to use a ground dose suitable to the brewer. 

If more cafes would use this method, long waits for astringent, muddled, or underextracted hand pours would be a thing of the past.  But I'm not counting on that. 

Please enjoy the video here, and don't be shy about commenting.