V60 pour-over

What you need

A size 02 V60 dripper, V60 paper filters, a scale that reads in grams, a kettle (ideally gooseneck, so you can control the stream) and a grinder. Grind right before you brew: ground coffee loses aroma within minutes. For choosing beans, see our guide to buying fresh whole-bean coffee.

Why this recipe works

A 1:18 ratio, 20 g of coffee to 360 g of water, gives a light-bodied cup with clear sweetness that doesn't taste watery. It's the same ratio we use on the Orea O1, so you can compare both cups with the same coffee.

The 60 g bloom wets all the grounds and lets out the CO₂ that freshly roasted coffee still holds. If you pour all the water at once, that gas pushes it aside and some of the coffee stays dry. When you wait for the bloom to drain, the next pours move through a bed that is already wet and even.

Splitting the water into three pours, up to 160, 260 and 360 g, keeps the level in the cone roughly steady. The V60 has a wide opening and drains fast, so shorter pours help the water pass through all the coffee at a similar pace, which keeps extraction even. The gentle swirl at the end flattens the bed so the last drawdown doesn't leave grounds stuck to the walls.

Following the drawdown rather than a clock makes the recipe work across coffees and grinders: if the bed has drained, pour again; if not, wait.

Adjusting for Toluca's altitude

Toluca sits at about 2,660 m. At that height water boils at around 91 °C, so the recipe's 93 °C is a ceiling you won't reach here. Use water right off the boil and don't let it sit: every minute off the heat costs you temperature, and at this altitude you have none to spare.

Slightly cooler water extracts more slowly. If the cup tastes flat, grind a notch finer before changing anything else. Preheating the cone and server with the rinse water also helps you hold on to heat. Our note on water temperature for brewing explains how the boiling point changes with altitude.

Is your coffee bitter?

It is probably over-extracting. Grind a little coarser and check that the final drawdown isn't dragging on. Look at the roast too: a dark roast turns bitter more easily than a medium one. Change one variable at a time and brew the same cup again to compare.

Is it sour or watery?

It is under-extracted. Grind finer, use water straight off the boil and make sure the bloom wets all the grounds. If it's still watery, check your amounts on the scale: 20 g of coffee to 360 g of water. A sour, thin cup almost always needs a finer grind.

Is it taking too long to drain?

The grind is too fine, or too many fines are clogging the filter. Go a notch coarser and pour more gently, without drilling into the bed with the stream. A filter that isn't seated well in the cone also slows the drawdown. If a puddle sits on top of the coffee at the end, open up the grind. To see why this happens, read about the science of grinding.