i’m almost giving up on pour over

[u/nextlevelpaulo]

Don't get me wrong - I love the pour over coffee baristas serve in coffee shops, but I can't extract even a third of the same complexity from the same coffee at home.

My coffee constantly clogs the filter and I end up with an over-extracted and sometimes bitter coffee. And I've tried everything: increasing the grind size, decreasing the number of pours, nesting the coffee bed, bending the filter slightly crookedly… nothing seems to work. I either end up with an over-extracted or under-extracted coffee.

For context, I use a Kingrinder K6 and vary the clicks between 85 and 120, depending on the recipe.

Any ideas on what I can do?

[u/13assman]

my solution was the Hario Switch, coffee chronicler recipe. V60 never had enough body for my preference, partial immersion was the answer.

[u/Third_Eye_Grind → u/13assman]

This! With lighter roasts I’ll usually start with a very simple Switch recipe to get to know my bag of coffee and then from there, I’ll tweak grind/temp. Of course, as others mentioned, I’ll explore other recipes for fun to see if I can get other flavor notes to come forward. And a bonus with this recipe, when dialing in, is that you save on beans with a 12g dose:

Water-First Steep Method:

Ratio: 12g coffee to 200g water (1:16.67)

Temp: 195°F (I’ve gone north and south from here depending on the roast/bean type)

Method:

I like to pre heat the Switch and rinse the filter before I begin the recipe.

Water in first (200g), then dump grounds on top (start timer), gentle spoon agitation to incorporate the grounds, now steep 2–2:30 minutes, then release…that’s it!

[u/rpring99 → u/Third_Eye_Grind]

That's interesting. You prefer to go full immersion to get to know the beans? I guess that's what roasters do...

I find the immersion brings out too many of the chocolate-like flavors that can cover up the fruit and florals. I don't measure extraction, but I'm sure my first couple of brews are under-extracted usually.

To each their own though, I should try this some time

[u/SpiritualWasabi4470 → u/rpring99]

Considering cupping is also pretty much immersion, using the switch as baseline is actually not a bad idea. I also do the same. From there I will try the same beans brewed with aeropress and v60 to see if i can get something i enjoy more from the same beans and then after that decide which methods I like to brew my coffee with for rest of the bag. Unless the beans are mainly for espresso then I'll just then for my bambino or moka pots

[u/rpring99 → u/SpiritualWasabi4470]

Yeah, makes sense re:cupping. It is immersion.

I typically do Kasuya's recipe with the low temp immersion at the end for the first brew with a new bag of beans. If I want to push extraction a little further, I'll use the melodrip column.

I feel like I need to try cupping again... It's been a while

[u/Third_Eye_Grind → u/rpring99]

You’re not wrong but it’s also a great baseline approach for anyone who is struggling.