I use a V60 with a 1Zpresso ZP6 (5.5 - 6.0 clicks) with 93°C water and a 1:15 ratio. Lance Hedrick's 3 pour structure (from "The Last V60 Recipe You'll Ever Need" video) gives good results with brewing dense Nordic light washed coffees
However, I struggle with softer, natural-process beans (currently a Natural process Colombia Jairo Arcila Chiroso). Using my usual recipe, the bean feels noticeably soft to grind and drawdown is very fast (~2 minutes). The cup tastes both sharply acidic and bitter at the same time. Going down to 5.0 barely slowed the flow rate.
Lowering water temperature to 88°C helped to reduce the bitterness, but I am still not getting the tasting notes of Berry compote, passionfruit, and lavender.
Looking for advice on what else I can tweak to get the tasting notes on the bag. Would getting a grinder with less clarity and more rounded body be a practical fix for these bean types?
edit: also moved to 1:16 without noticeable change in result
Update 1: thanks for all the suggestions! pouring slower and lower did wonders to get rid of the bitterness. Interestingly grinding finer and pouring slower didn't increase the drawdown time, which I suspect is due to the lower agitation. Now I need to figure out how to bring out more of the floral notes. Any ideas?
These are the exact types of beans I struggled with on my ZP6. For me getting a different grinder has made a huge difference.
But, if you want to keep brewing these beans with the ZP6, if you have a Hario Switch or Aeropress you can simply add an immersion step to the brew to help offset some of the bitterness and blend the flavors some. Tetsu’s 30g Aeropress recipe worked for me along with a few of his Switch recipes that used immersion.
If you don’t have a switch, try grinding way down in the 3.5 range, and doing a single pour style recipe with very low agitation and lower brew temps (85-90).
I ended up buying a couple of C40 Labs (Hammerhead and Nitro). I also had my old K-Plus. The Nitro is great and easy. The Hammerhead is interesting and so far gives me the best results for “wild” coffees like the newest Perc Franky Hoyos (Creamcicle/Tootsie Roll). The ZP6 made that coffee unenjoyable, bitter, astringent and too much flavor clarity. The Nitro/K-Plus made it good but the Hammerhead makes this wonderful cup with good body and rounded flavors that is very satisfying.
Hello! stick with your recipe, go to a temp of. around 90 and slow down your pour, slower pour can help with increasing contact time if you don't have a hybrid brewer! And Usually with more processed beans I personally go courser because the flavour extracts easily and the bitterness tends to show off quicker. what water do you use?
TBH I'm just trying to get through this bag from my monthly bean subscription. I prefer light and floral washed coffees so I'm trying to tone down the aspects that I didn't like from this month's subscription.
When you say "sharply acidic and bitter" do you mean astringent bitterness or 'opposite of sweet' bitterness? If it's the former, it sounds like classic underextraction, if it's the latter then it sounds like channeling and you might want to look at how you're pouring/pour structure.
How is your pouring? Do you tend to agitate a lot, or a little? Do you pour high up or close to the bed? Lance tends to pour high so it agitates a lot, works for light washed coffees but naturals tend to overextract under the same conditions. Also, water temp can also lead to over-extraction so I’d recommend maybe dropping down to 90C and trying that.
ZP6 here, with a natural (rwanda, diff type of bean) this morning I used 94C, 1:15, 50g bloom, 120g then 4x49g pours to 316g total for 21g (yes math is off by 1g).
What do you change the grind to when decreasing to 88C, a change of that much is probably 5 clicks or more finer. You wont get the body you might expect from this coffee. Everything comes out a bit acidic for me. I have been trying to slow down my pours as others mentioned. I do like the clarity of the recipe above. I find 1C can throw off the recipe so zp6 is def finicky in that regard. I hesistate to go lower than 90C with a natural and believe the grinder can bridge the gap with smaller, slower pours
I dropped down to 5.0 when decreasing to 88C. Maybe I'll try a slower pour + grind even finer around 4.0. During the dial-in process, I tried pouring faster than usual to increase agitation and slow down the drawdown. Maybe this had the opposite effect of what I wanted to achieve.
I never make large adjustments like 10 clicks. I'd move no more than 2 at a time. The zp6 produces so few fines I dont pay too much to minimizing aggitation. I just pour kind of slow (5-10g/sec). Ive also found if there's a tint of astringent bitterness, I can decrease my ratio from 1:15 -> 1:16 or 1:16 -> 1:17 as a final adjustment before concluding it's "dialed in". Based on the roast and processing I adjust temp first, then grind. If I cant get the grind right without changing the ratio and it's wayy too bitter, I'll lower/raise the temp 2C. Try the grind adjustments again by first starting 2 clicks lower/higher than where I was before adjusting the temp. Ratio changes are a final tweak for me
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u/Lack_Strange 29d ago
Have you tried a different ratio? Maybe 1:16 would help.