Recipe Overview
An overview of the set of parameters we typically use for our pour over coffee:
Brewing ratio: 1:15 (coffee grounds to brewing water ratio)
Coffee grounds: 15g
Grind size: Medium
Brewing Water: 225g, but let's round it up to 230g
Water temperature: 83°C - 94 °C (we'll get to this in another blog post!)
Brewing Device: HARIO V60
A checklist of equipment can be found here.
Grind Size
We will be using a medium grind size for this recipe.
Brewing Method
There are many variables in brewing coffee and everyone has their own preferred brew method depending on what works best for them. At Tiong Hoe Specialty Coffee, most of us start off learning the "4:6 method" invented by World Brewers Cup 2016 Champion, Tetsu Kasuya. We will not go through in depth the brewing theory in this blog post, we'll save that for later.
The 4:6 method divides the total water used into 40% and 60%. For our recipe of 230g brewing water, we will be doing a total of 4 pours:
1. Start by heating up your water to 90°C. If you do not have a variable temperature kettle, you can boil your water to 100°C and let it cool for 2 minutes.
2. Next, place your decanter (or coffee mug) and V60 drip brewer on top of the scale and put your folded filter paper inside the Hario V60 dripper.
3. Rinse your filter paper with hot water first to pre-warm the decanter (or coffee mug) and V60 as well as to get rid of the papery taste that might linger in your brew. If you’re using brown filter papers, rinse it for a few more times. We will touch on the paper filter differences in a future post.
Remember to pour the water away from your decanter (or coffee mug)!
4. Weigh out your coffee to 15g, grind to medium and add the grounds into the filter.
5. Gently tap the Hario V60 dripper against your palm to settle the grounds and even out the bed of coffee.
6. Tare your scale to 0 at this point so that you can easily track how much water you are pouring in. We’ll be doing a total of 4 pours throughout this process. If you are using the timer on your mobile phone to time the process, get your phone ready at this stage.
7. Once your water is boiled up to 90°C, start your timer and steadily pour in 30g of water for < 10 seconds in a circular motion, from the inside of the filter and outwards in concentric circles and ensure the coffee grounds are saturated with water. Wait for approximately 30s to allow blooming. This is known as the pre-infusion phase.
8. When your weighing scale and timer hits 30g and 30s respectively, start your second pour with 60g of water for 10s, again in a circular motion. Wait 15s to allow some draining.
9. After 15s, start your third pour with 70g of water in concentric circles within 10s. At this point, your weighing scale and timer should read 160g and 1m 05s respectively. Wait for 15s to allow some draining.
10. We are almost done! For the final pour, gently pour in 70g of water in concentric circles within 10s again. At this point, your weighing scale and timer should read 230g and 1m 45s respectively. This time, wait for water to be completely drained.
11. The total pouring time should be around 1:30-1:45m. Give your coffee brew a good quick swirl before serving. Enjoy!
Here's a quick summary of what we have gone through, in this recipe card that we have prepared. If you find this post useful, do share this with your friends!