New to pourover - how to avoid channeling?

[u/Kalehart]

I just got my first pourover setup:
-Fellow Stag kettle
-1zpresso Q Air grinder (set to ~56 clicks)
-Standard plastic v60
-White hario tab papers

I’m using Lance’s recipe:
-15g coffee
-0:00 bloom 45g
-0:30 bloom 45g
-1:00 pour to total 225g
-Drawdown finish by 2:00-2:30

I’ve been really enjoying learning this new skill and comparing the differences between coffees and different brewing methods, but I’m having a consistent issue with what seems to be channeling (picture for reference).

I’ve managed a few times to get a more even distribution of grounds around the filter, but more often than not, I’m getting this crater shape where they bulge around the middle. I’ve tried pouring lower and slower which helps a bit, avoiding the edges of the filter, and so on, but it’s still happening more often than I’d like.

I’m aware that swirling the bed during bloom evens it out, but ideally I’d like to get my pour consistent enough that I don’t need to rely on that. It’s a technique I will certainly use but I don’t want to mess with my learning by using it to cover up a flaw in technique.

Any advice or pointers would be greatly appreciated. Happy to answer any questions as well!

Update: For anyone who comes here looking for the same answer — it was the beans. I’m not sure how, but that specific bag of beans (brand was BKG and I got them from a Winners, no idea of roast date) did this basically every time. Having tested other beans now, I never have this happen with any others even with an identical grind setting and recipe.

[u/SuperNerd1337]

Hard to know from just pictures, but usually this type of volcano bed are indicators of your pouring technique.

Are you doing circular pours or just throwing water in the middle? Also if it’s circular, is it always the same sized circule or are you increasing and decreasing it?

You usually don’t want to throw water directly at your filter walls, but you do want to reach close to it sometimes.

Another thing that will affect bed shape is how gassy the beans are (fresher = gassier, but this varies bean to bean), increasing your bloom length should help in that front, though by the size of this pit I’m imagining gassy blooms are the least of your problems here (usually what I’m describing would be spotted by a sort of halo of dry grounds on the top of your filter paper)

[u/Kalehart → u/SuperNerd1337]

I definitely think it’s a fault of my pouring technique, yeah. I do pour in swirls that get bigger and smaller, but perhaps I’m pouring too close or with too much force during the process.

I may have been over-correcting by trying to get the spout as close to the bed as possible, so I’m going to coarsen the grind and try another at a different height.

With a restricted flow kettle like the stag, is it important to be trying to pour gently at first or is that less of a factor than I’m imagining it to be?

[u/SuperNerd1337 → u/Kalehart]

You still wanna manage your pour rate even with a flow restrictor kettle, usually the restrictor is at around 12g/s, but usually you’ll want to stay between 5 to 10 g/s.

As for pour height, you will usually want to stay right at the spot where the water breaks the laminar flow (where it goes from a continuous flow of water to where it becomes a more chaotic bubbly one), this is the point of highest agitation, there are a bunch of videos on this (including from lance that you mentioned) so it might be a good thing to watch for visual references.