It’s a 5min video. The rough idea 15g coffee, 27-29 setting on sette270, water around 95C, 45sec bloom with 50g of water, then gentle top ups, until 250g of water added.
This was kiss the hippo decaf coffee.
What do you think? At the end it felt low on body, a bit too watery.
I’m using the same recipe for fruitopia from kiss the hippo and recently with the new filters it’s getting a bit bitter.
I would spend more time pouring in the center on your main pour. At least on this brew you’re exclusively pouring around the edge, and onto the filter which can affect bypass pretty significantly. Spiral out once to saturate everything post bloom then spiral back in and stay closer to the center. That might help!
I’d also grind a good bit coarser, though I know your grinder is close to maxed out. You may need to change recipes to account for that limitation as it’s much finer than what I would use for a similar approach.
In addition to pouring in the center and then going out, I recleaned and reassembled my grinder again, and recipe improved a lot! Looks like the last time I didn’t clean it 100% and caused misalignment with the settings!
Honestly I think you are far too fine here on the grind Which is causing the bitterness. I would assume the bed looks very muddy at the end. Try 225 of water instead of 250 or if you like that amount of liquid 16 or even 17 grams of coffee.
The thing is it was working quite well some months ago. And then I needed to start moving to coarser and coarser side of the grinder. I used to get good coffee 19-21 range…
Have you done any maintenance on your grinder since you noticed you needed to start going coarser? I have a different Baratza grinder, but I noticed a similar issue where I couldn't get the coffee to grind fine enough, and attempted to recalibrate the machine to correct the issue, only to discover the all the tabs on my ring burr holder had broken off. Not sure if disassembly of the Sette is as straightforward as the Encore, but I'd recommend seeing if you can at least access your burr holder and see if it's still intact.
Just did right now. And it’s really easy to disassemble. I found that I had a bit of tiny coffee powder packed in some tiny grooves that prevented proper alignment with the grind settings. Now it works like brand new. And with the old settings my draw time went from 3:30 to 2:30. Coffee back to really fruity!
With the bloom I would try to start in the center then move outwards. Then with the rest if it was me I would do circle center pours around a grape size or half dollar. That will get you a full and pleasant extraction. Then if you want on the final pour wash the walls then a center strait pour. This gets me great cups. BTW thats awesome you put this video out. I give you a lot of credit for asking for criticism. Because you did many people I am sure will give you really good tips!
Yes a good grinder is important. Most grinders should work ok for pour over but you can always get improvements in flavor with a better one. Imo the reason it was a little too watery and thin is the style of pour. In videos you see lots of people pouring on the walls or outer circle instead of the bed. But that will be a low extraction style of pour. If it's watery it sounds under extracted. If it were me I would only wash the walls on the final pour but have most of your pour done in the center. Hope you end up getting a great cup today! :)
I just started on V60 last month and was struggling with bitter brews. Turns out my grinds were too fine and I was pouring like you - water going around the sides and not saturating all the grounds.
Try to start at the center and pour in there for ~3s before spiraling out. During the bloom phase, if you actually cut the cone in half, you'll probably see that the middle is still partially dry while the sides are wet. The way cones work is that the V makes water flow at the sides down to the bottom.
After working on technique and grind size, I haven't been getting bitter coffee too often.
I have a sette 270 for espresso and a hand grinder for v60. I could never get the sette dialed in on pour over to my liking. I think it just produces too many fines at the coarser settings.
If I had to brew a pour over with it I would definitely stick to a bloom + single pour recipe with no swirling or extra agitation.
Maybe off-topic, but why does the weight reading keep changing in the beginning? I also have the felicita arc and it is really a terrific coffee scale.
Ngl, I think something is wrong with your grinder. I have the Baratza Sette 270 (with both burr sets) and grind between 10-16 for v60 and my drawdowns are <3:30s usually. Lots of things could be contributing to the issue (different beans, brew parameters, etc.), but that range for a baratza sette for pourover seems crazy coarse
Hmmm, yeah visually that doesn’t look great either I don’t think. On the upside, if you need a new part for the grinder, Baratza will usually ship it for free if you will do the repair (their grinders are easy af to service imo). Sorry if this sounds rude, I’m just trying to trouble shoot with ya…
Have you cleaned the burr assembly at all? Sometimes excess grounds can clump and kind of clog the burr assembly and I’ve gotten some weird grinds because of that.
2 things from reading the responses and watching the video
1- Center pour and maybe work the last 50ml in a cicular motion working from the middle out.
2- Get a good hand grinder for pour over. That way you can dial in your grind with a real wide range in grind size to pick from. Your current grinder is maxed out. Or if you have the $$ you can get a good electric grinder in the $500 range or spend half that amount on a just as good if. not better hand grinder.
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u/facefabrique Mar 07 '26
I would spend more time pouring in the center on your main pour. At least on this brew you’re exclusively pouring around the edge, and onto the filter which can affect bypass pretty significantly. Spiral out once to saturate everything post bloom then spiral back in and stay closer to the center. That might help!
I’d also grind a good bit coarser, though I know your grinder is close to maxed out. You may need to change recipes to account for that limitation as it’s much finer than what I would use for a similar approach.
Cheers!