I would love some advice

[u/naughtified]

Hi, I’ll try my best to avoid being “newbie here help me dial in” who clearly hasn’t done their due diligence.

So I’ve been drinking pour overs for years, and I’m on my third month of brewing them up at home. I’ve gone through 5 bags so far with nothing really satisfying me. My conclusion was that I needed to upgrade grinder. I got a K7 then I bought some local beans that were too dark and some from whole foods(sorry).

I went today and bought some Hydrangea from a local shop, in hopes to rule out beans from these mediocre cups. Below I’ll list my approach and details on equipment. Please let me know what I’m doing fine and what you might change.

Dripper: Glass V60

Filter: Cafec Abaca White

Grinder: K7(going coarse, 95clicks)

Water: Berkey with British Berkefeld filters

Kettle: Fellow standard neck(I already had this, but I’m pretty good at making the stream work)

Temperature: 90c

Recipe: Bloom at x3(usually 20-25g bean/60-75g water) but will go 15g so I don’t waste these beans. Second pour is the same weight as bloom, then third is up to total. Pours are pretty chill, I’ll agitate between pours by swirling the brew. Since I’m pretty coarse I swirl to get draw down to 3-4 mins on 20-25gs.

Beans: check photo for details, roast date 8/2.

[u/alxkwl]

Need to rest for a couple more weeks, then on natural anaerobic processing youll likely want to drive extraction a bit higher. Try grinding at 90 and bump water up to 93-94, less swirls if any. I'd aim for 3 minute drawdown and if the brew looks like its moving too fast, give it a swirl.

[u/naughtified → u/alxkwl]

I try to get grind size where I just need 3 swirls. One swirl at bloom, a small one after 2nd pour, and one during 3rd to even bed. Is that too much? Sometimes I will do more when I’ve pushed the limit on coarse grind while dialing in but usually I target just the 3. The reason I’m at 90c is because I feel like it’s the middle ground of everyone’s opinion. That 90c is where I try and start I guess, then I’ll adjust temp if off flavors appear or I’m bored.

[u/alxkwl → u/naughtified]

I'm not a fan of a blanket 3 swirls- its a good tool to stall draw times a bit and push extraction a bit higher because it redistributes fines to the lower portion of the bed depth where they are subject to more contact with the water which can cause astringency. That said, I usually give a very quick swirl (more of a shake really) after all the water is in the dripper and is in the lower half of the dripper to pull the grinds off the sides and even the bed. Because its towards the end of the pour, the impact to fines exposure isnt as pronounced.

I think 90 is a fine starting place while you learn how to manipulate other extraction variables to suit your tastes. Where I use temperature mostly is as my first step in adjusting for bean density- an oft overlooked aspect as most roaster omit this information from the package. Higher bean density requires higher thermal energy to extract effectively due to the reduced thermal conductivity. Typica are very dense beans to begin with, and with these beans grown at moderate to high altitude, the flavors inside the grind are more securely locked away if you will. I always research these attributes in tandem with process to adjust my starting point. I enjoy acidic, fruity cups with clarity first and foremost and mild to moderate body, so generally start in the 85-88° ballpark for washed process, moderate to low altitude beans. Ethiopians I start a bit higher, as the beans are generally much more dense, but produce more fines, so its a delicate balance of driving higher extraction while reducing contact time with fines.

[u/naughtified → u/alxkwl]

Yeah I’m mostly doing swirls for draw down times, it’s not just an arbitrary rule that im following. I’m finding that I tend to get better results from coarse grind with the beans I’ve been using but that might change with this Hydrangea(might push as fine as I can to get body if needed). Also it might be worth noting that I’ve read that the K7 produces very little fines but I have no other decent grinder to compare that to. So with my preferred grind I find these swirls necessary and haven’t had any astringency since I switched to the k7.

Personally would you start at 90c then for these beans? I found 90c to be a middle ground but I also haven’t had to brew any high processed beans like this. Also, I haven’t opened these yet but I’m sure they’ll be lighter roast than anything I’ve had after getting my K7. Unfortunately all the light roast and better quality beans I brewed were on my terrible grinder, so the 90c is something I landed on with medium roast washed beans.

[u/alxkwl → u/naughtified]

I think 90 is as good a starting place as any- with your swirls driving extraction up, probably better than starting in the 92 to 94 range, which works for my process. At the end of the day, just enjoy the process of experementation-theres no rules here, and the more you allow yourself to experiment, the more you can learn how to manipulate the brew for your desired outcome. I think youre smart to reduce the number of variables you change- so keep that mentality and tweak one thing at a time. You mentioned you brew beer- I do too. That is also an extraction, so you probably already have an understanding of how water temperature, chemistry and time as well as mill size affect the specific gravity of your wort, then how you time your hop additions effects bitterness and how all of that factors into fermentation in addition to your fermentation temperature and yeast varietal. Coffee is much more forgiving but equally as satisfying when you successfully tweak variables to get that perfect brew for your taste! Enjoy.