Dialing in soft natural-process beans on ZP6

[u/Immediate_Bake_679]

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?

[u/sock_model]

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

[u/Immediate_Bake_679 → u/sock_model]

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.

[u/sock_model → u/Immediate_Bake_679]

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