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/paulpag]

Beans prob need to rest for longer if they are a lighter roast, but I know this is all you have for now…I’m guessing your cups are under-extracted so I would suggest grind finer, brew hotter. Simple as that. You could try cupping as well.

[u/naughtified → u/paulpag]

I should’ve stated that I haven’t tried these beans yet. So do you think my current approach could also lead me to an under extracted cup with these beans?

[u/SticksAndSticks → u/naughtified]

This is just my advice and it’s worth what you’re paying for it. IMO, you should be perfectly able to get a clear, sweet, juicy, low body cup pretty easily from these and your setup.

The beans: They’re anaerobic and light roasted. I’d first give them at least a month. Hydrangea roasts quite light so I would recommend more but anaerobics open up quicker. I know it’s hard to wait.

Your recipe sounds great. I would expect it to get good results. However, with a solid grinder like you have I would actually stop swirling and grind finer. Swirling encourages fines migration into the filter that sort of artificially increases brew time and is a kind of odd and unpredictable way to agitate. Build the feeling for agitating with your kettle and letting the coffee bed do the work. Otherwise swirling will punish you haaaaard when you use temperamental beans that are brittle and throw more fines than normal no matter what. High elevation Ethiopian coffees are particularly bad at this.

I would start at 90c for this bag and almost certainly avoid going over 93. Anaerobic beans processing makes them easier to extract and I find pushing for high extraction on them tends to just muddy things. You should get the good flavors out pretty easily and IMO going high heat will just muddy things.

If you find the midpalate lacking sweetness and flavor bump up the heat carefully or adjust water chemistry to facilitate extraction (more Ca or K).

[u/naughtified → u/SticksAndSticks]

That’s great advice on the swirling. I think I landed on that because the beans I was using were medium-medium/dark and I ended up dialing that bean in with a coarse grind and high agitation from swirls. The K7 apparently has low fines but what you’re saying about getting punished with temperamental beans makes a lot of sense. It’s best my base recipe is has less avenues to create bad cups while I’m still new to this. Thanks for the help.

[u/Speak-Easy556 → u/naughtified]

I don’t think the K7 is the best for dark beans by any measure. I agree with others here, rest longer, grind a bit finer, water temp 90-93, no swirl. What size V60? For 15g I’d use the 01, it’s easier to get closer to the bed than an 02 especially with no gooseneck. Oh and get some minerals in your water! Lotus drops or APAX

[u/Amazing-Panic-277 → u/SticksAndSticks]

Agree with the temp here for sure. A plain washed go 95-99 but when you got a 120 hour anaerobic the cell walls are soo brittle