I don’t know when you first learned about Pour over(V60) coffee. Front Street entered a coffee shop one day and saw the barista pouring water into the coffee powder in the filter cup, and then got a cup of fragrant black coffee. I felt very magical, so I fell into the charm of Pour over(V60) coffee.
What does Pour over(V60) coffee mean?
After coffee beans are roasted at high temperatures, a series of chemical reactions will occur to generate various aromatic substances. When we make coffee, we use water and equipment to release these aromatic ingredients. To make Pour over(V60) coffee, the coffee beans are first ground into powder, and then hot water is injected into the powder layer to "dissolve" the substances in the coffee. In fact, you use a filter cup with filter paper or other tools to filter the coffee grounds and prevent them from entering the lower pot together, so that you can get a clear cup of black coffee.
You must know that from bean selection to extraction, every link and step has a greater or lesser impact on the flavor of Pour over(V60) coffee. Therefore, if you want to brew a cup of Pour over(V60) coffee, speaking from Front Street’s brewing experience, in addition to high-quality coffee beans, Front Street believes that at least the following equipment is needed: a Pour over(V60) pot for filling water, a filter cup and filter paper for filtering coffee grounds, a sharing pot, a grinder for grinding coffee beans, an electronic scale to record the amount and time of water injection, and a thermometer to measure the water temperature.
Of course, good coffee cannot be separated from good raw materials - high-quality coffee beans. Front Street recommends that you choose coffee beans that are in the best tasting stage 4-30 days after the roasting date. This is more conducive to stable extraction and the flavor of Pour over(V60) coffee is fuller. In order to ensure the freshness of the coffee beans, the coffee beans delivered by Front Street are all freshly roasted within 5 days, and usually can be received in 1 to 3 days. In this way, the coffee beans that everyone gets are almost within the best tasting period, and they can start studying how to extract them.
What is the ratio of hand-pour powder to water? How is it calculated?
The so-called powder-to-water ratio is the ratio of coffee powder to the total amount of water, which can directly affect the concentration of coffee. No matter which brewing method is used, the powder-to-water ratio will be determined before Front Street extraction. For example, Front Street stores generally use 15 grams of coffee powder per cup and a powder-to-water ratio of 1:15, which means a total of 225ml of hot water needs to be injected.
When other parameters remain unchanged, the more water is injected, the lower the concentration of coffee and the more dispersed the flavor will be; the less the amount of water is injected, the higher the concentration, the more concentrated and thick the coffee flavor will be. In addition, the greater the amount of water injected, the higher the coffee extraction rate and more soluble substances will be obtained. (The extraction rate is the proportion of soluble substances in the coffee to the weight of the coffee powder.) The further water is added, the extraction efficiency will continue to decrease, and bad bitter substances will be released, thus affecting the taste of the final coffee. Therefore, we need to find the appropriate powder-to-water ratio of coffee to adjust the optimal concentration and extraction rate.
Why water injection in sections?
Usually we see that when the barista pours water by hand, he will pause for a while and wait for the water level to drop before continuing to add water. This is staged extraction.
In the first stage, a small amount of hot water is injected to moisten the coffee powder. The purpose is to discharge the internal gas and avoid affecting the extraction in the subsequent stages. This step is called "stewing". The most common method of steaming is to inject twice the amount of water as coffee powder and steam for 30 seconds. For example, if Front Street has 15 grams of coffee powder, use 30ml of water to steam it. This is also the easiest "simmering and steaming formula" for novice brewers to master. Segmented water injection is calculated by whether there is a pause in the water injection after the stew and steaming stage. For example, if the water injection after stew and steam is divided into two stages, then including the stew and steaming, the total is "three-stage water injection", and so on; if there is no pause in the water injection after stew and steaming, but is completed in one go, it is called "one-step flow".
The reason why baristas use staged extraction is because during the hand brewing process, different material components in coffee are extracted at different rates. The order of flavors released through high-temperature hot water is sour, sweet, and bitter. In the segmented water injection extraction, except for the steaming stage, under the same ratio of powder to water, the more segments are divided, the amount of water injected in each segment is reduced, the number of times the powder layer is flushed and stirred is greater, and the extraction rate is higher.
In addition, the increase in the number of stages will extend the total extraction time. The more coffee substances released in each stage, the richer the flavor level will be. However, Front Street would like to remind everyone that the more segments there are, the longer the operation will take, which increases the risk of over-extraction. In the later stage, the macromolecules in the coffee are more easily released, and the sweetness is masked. It can be seen that the more water injection stages, the better. So how should segmented water injection be calculated?
Universal three-stage hand flushing method
Based on past brewing experience, Front Street recommends that new players who are just getting started use the three-stage water filling method. The three-stage extraction is conducive to more fully dissolving flavor substances during extraction, increasing the taste level, and at the same time avoiding over-extraction of coffee caused by soaking for too long.
If there are 15 grams of coffee powder, a powder-to-water ratio of 1:15, and a total water volume of 225 ml, the three water levels are divided into: 30 ml, 95 ml, and 100 ml. The weight on the electronic scale will show: 30 g, 125 g, and 225 g.
Front Street here uses home-roasted washed Yirgacheffe Dingding cooperative coffee beans and brews them with a Hario V60 filter cup. The spiral design of V60 can better exhaust the coffee powder and maximize the volatilization and dissolution of sour and aromatic substances. Since Yirgacheffe uses light roasting, the coffee beans are hard in texture and require high-temperature hot water of 92°C-93°C to bring out the floral and fruity flavors in the coffee.
Grinding Front Street recommends medium-fine grinding (Chinese standard No. 20 screen pass rate 78%), which is about the same thickness as fine sugar. If the grind is too coarse, the mellow and round flavor cannot be extracted, and the brewed coffee will appear thin; if the particles are too fine, it will be over-extracted under high water temperature, and the brewed coffee will be prone to bitterness.
In terms of brewing ratio, Front Street believes that 1:15 to 1:16 is acceptable. If you want a richer taste, use 1:15. If you want to feel the floral sweetness more clearly, you can use 1:16 to make the flavor more spread out.
First, place the folded filter paper into the filter cup, pour 15 grams of ground coffee powder into the filter cup, and clear the weight of the electronic scale.
Inject 30g of water into the first section and steam for 30 seconds. Start timing while injecting water. Inject small water flow at the center point throughout the process and start to circle outwards. Pay attention to the need to moisten the entire powder layer.
After 30 seconds, start to steadily inject the second section of 95g water with a larger flow of water. The purpose is to lift the entire powder layer. The water column needs to be injected vertically and evenly. At this time, the timing scale shows 125g, and the injection is completed in about 55 seconds.
When the liquid level drops to half of the level, start using a small flow of water to inject 100 grams of the third section in a small circle. Try to control the water flow not to be too large, which will easily disperse the coffee powder layer and cause insufficient extraction. The final amount of water injected is 225 grams, and the completion time of trickling filtration is about 2 minutes. After removing the filter cup, shake the coffee liquid in the sharing pot evenly and start tasting.
The amount of water injected in each section is not fixed. We can adjust it based on our accumulated hand brewing experience and our understanding of coffee beans. Front Street believes that there are thousands of ways to brew a cup of delicious coffee. As long as we learn more and practice more, it is not difficult to easily grasp the various parameters of hand brewing.
Professional coffee knowledge exchange. For more coffee bean information, please follow Coffee Workshop (WeChat public account cafe_style)
For more specialty coffee beans, please add FrontStreet Coffee on private WeChat, WeChat ID: qjcoffeex
You can now buy the above coffee beans online at the Taobao store “FrontStreet Coffee” (前街咖啡). FrontStreet Coffee is a long-established specialty coffee roaster in Guangzhou, China, and its Guangzhou retail shop sells coffee beans only. The shop carries dozens of coffee beans from different origins around the world, including carefully selected single-origin beans for V60 pour-over and espresso. Guangzhou’s FrontStreet Coffee shop is recommended by many coffee lovers.
The FrontStreet 2013 Yunnan coffee beans sold in the store come from the Typica variety grown at FrontStreet Coffee’s own plantation in Yunnan. The name comes from the year the brand and the plantation were founded. You can buy these beans from China’s Yunnan origin at the Guangzhou shop and at FrontStreet’s Taobao store.
FrontStreet coffee beans are freshly roasted within 5 days and deliver consistently excellent quality and great value. Orders placed before 17:00 are shipped the same day, and most areas within Guangdong Province receive them the next day.
FrontStreet Coffee Taobao store: https://qianjiecoffee.taobao.com
Or search for “前街咖啡” (FrontStreet Coffee) on Taobao
Important Notice: FrontStreet Coffee has moved to a new address: 315, Donghua East Road, Guangzhou (coffee beans only)
Tel: 020 38364473
