# Very long drawdown on V60, even on coarse grind??



## rgoodcoffee (May 25, 2016)

Hi all,

I've really gotten into using my v60 filter again recently and I'm using a Wilfa Svart grinder. However I'm not getting great results on it, I'm finding that even when I have the grind set to 'FILTER', I.e pretty coarse, I'm still getting much longer drawdowns than I'd like, and the coffee just tastes a bit sour too.

Im using the Perger technique, so just 12g into 200g over 2:20s.

The problem is that at the end of the final pour the water seems to get stuck and just drips through very slowly and barely draws down at all.

Is this a problem with my grinder maybe making too many fines or is it something else?

Thanks!

Rory


----------



## Jony (Sep 8, 2017)

Could be your setting and filter papers. What letter is your dial on, and what coffee you using


----------



## MWJB (Feb 28, 2012)

How long do your brew take to drain out on average?

Don't obsess too much about brew time, grind setting is the most important aspect, brews will normally fall in a range, maybe +/-15s. African coffees may fall at the upper end of brew time.

Be careful not to hose down the bed with a very aggressive pour, let the water drop straight down from the spout.


----------



## rgoodcoffee (May 25, 2016)

I'm on the 'R' of FILTER at the moment. I'm just using an Ethiopian from Long and Short, first time using them. What could be the issue with the filter papers?


----------



## rgoodcoffee (May 25, 2016)

MWJB said:


> How long do your brew take to drain out on average?
> 
> Don't obsess too much about brew time, grind setting is the most important aspect, brews will normally fall in a range, maybe +/-15s. African coffees may fall at the upper end of brew time.
> 
> Be careful not to hose down the bed with a very aggressive pour, let the water drop straight down from the spout.


Its taking about 3 mins 20s even on a coarse setting. Okay I will try and be a bit more gentle maybe. Do you think maybe my grinder is making too many fines that are clogging up the filter paper?


----------



## MWJB (Feb 28, 2012)

rgoodcoffee said:


> I'm on the 'R' of FILTER at the moment. I'm just using an Ethiopian from Long and Short, first time using them. What could be the issue with the filter papers?


You said "Ethiopian", that might be the whole issue right there? These can take longer to brew than the average over a bunch of origins - do not base your target brew time on Kenyans & Ethiopians.

Dutch made V60 filters have a longer draw down than Japanese.


----------



## rgoodcoffee (May 25, 2016)

MWJB said:


> You said "Ethiopian", that might be the whole issue right there? These can take longer to brew than the average over a bunch of origins - do not base your target brew time on Kenyans & Ethiopians.
> 
> Dutch made V60 filters have a longer draw down than Japanese.


interesting! I'll bare that in mind, thanks!!


----------



## the_partisan (Feb 29, 2016)

3:20 doesn't sound that long especially if you have the Dutch filters. I think drawn down time has more to do with how/when you pour than grind coarseness and quality to some extent, assuming the grinder always produce some amount of fines.

But the Wilfa is more than capable of making very tasty cups.


----------



## mcrmfc (Sep 17, 2016)

Would be intersted if @MWJB has any theories on "why" this happens with light roasted African beans...but it is defo a thing.

https://www.home-barista.com/brewing/pourover-pooling-for-light-pro-roasted-coffee-why-t46066.html

I often see the "sludgy" slurry with these coffees.

But taste is everything remember!


----------



## MWJB (Feb 28, 2012)

mcrmfc said:


> Would be intersted if @MWJB has any theories on "why" this happens with light roasted African beans...but it is defo a thing.
> 
> https://www.home-barista.com/brewing/pourover-pooling-for-light-pro-roasted-coffee-why-t46066.html
> 
> ...


I could only really speculate. These coffees can be very soluble, therefore may not need to be roasted as long. I often find Ethiopians, especially, are hard to grind, suggests the beans are harder/denser, maybe less permeable & more prone to shattering into smaller fragments?

At the end of the day, I don't really spend too much time thinking about it (as long as I can grind the beans), as it seems normal & time is not a very precise way to gauge brews.

With respect to the H-B thread, 4:00 185 brews seem normal to me & I only brew with 13-14g of coffee, the bed in the photos looks like the pouring was too aggressive/drawn out.


----------



## Step21 (Oct 2, 2014)

I find the worst offender is Brazilian pulped natural which is much lower grown and less dense. Definitely not just an Ethiopian phenomenon


----------



## Step21 (Oct 2, 2014)

My interest in this phenomenon was piqued again on grinding some Ugandan beans this morning and hearing that unmistakable crunch. I knew a long draing brew was coming! Brewed using a Kalita 185 filter it came in just over 60 secs longer than normal for my method but tasted great.

This is my 6th roast of this bean but the first time this phenomenon has occurred. It also happens to be the lightest roast so far (going by moisture loss).

So I looked back at my notes for other roasts and note that I have used this profile on several occasions with beans from other African origins and this hasn't occurred. Nor is there any correlation with the lightest roast for a particular bean.

The worst offenders I have noted have been a Peruvian ( where the brew stalled completely and I lifted the filter out) and a Honduran. Again with different profiles and not necessarily the lightest roast.

At the moment I can't find any correlation to base a theory on. It would appear to be complex.

Brewing with a flat bottomed filter as opposed to a conical V60 seems to aggravate the problem as does aggressive pouring but generally speaking just letting it take the time it needs to drain doesn't seem to affect the quality of the brew.


----------



## CrazyH (Jan 14, 2011)

I was going to start a new thread along these lines.

I've had a few coffees that were consistently tasting bad/overextracted and I think it was due to the weird grinding of these kinds of beans. I was doing all immersion brews but I noticed with the Clever I would often get very slow drawdown and often have a lot of mushy wet sand looking silt at the top. Another feature was that sometimes they wouldn't form a crust.

With the immersion brews I am sometimes able to counteract with coarser grind and /or cooler water. One of the costa rican's I got in a hasbean subscription was tasting overextracted even just trying to cup, I turned the feldgrinder to much coarser than I would ever use (over 3) and the CCD brew was absolutely fine.


----------



## MWJB (Feb 28, 2012)

CrazyH said:


> I was going to start a new thread along these lines.
> 
> I've had a few coffees that were consistently tasting bad/overextracted and I think it was due to the weird grinding of these kinds of beans. I was doing all immersion brews but I noticed with the Clever I would often get very slow drawdown and often have a lot of mushy wet sand looking silt at the top. Another feature was that sometimes they wouldn't form a crust.
> 
> With the immersion brews I am sometimes able to counteract with coarser grind and /or cooler water. One of the costa rican's I got in a hasbean subscription was tasting overextracted even just trying to cup, I turned the feldgrinder to much coarser than I would ever use (over 3) and the CCD brew was absolutely fine.


I doubt you cupping was over extracted. You can get bitter flavours at low extraction too, additionally they can be caused by silt/too fine a grind/too much agitation.

For manual methods, especially for immersion, you shouldn't need to be chopping & changing grind for different beans all the time.

Coarse grinds let off more CO2, so make impressive crusts, but if you go too coarse, you'll always be on the low side of extraction.


----------



## CrazyH (Jan 14, 2011)

MWJB said:


> I doubt you cupping was over extracted. You can get bitter flavours at low extraction too, additionally they can be caused by silt/too fine a grind/too much agitation.
> 
> For manual methods, especially for immersion, you shouldn't need to be chopping & changing grind for different beans all the time.
> 
> Coarse grinds let off more CO2, so make impressive crusts, but if you go too coarse, you'll always be on the low side of extraction.


yeh, i never do cupping the only reason i tried it with that coffee is because no matter what I did I was getting this totally unpalatable flavour although sometimes worse than others. It wasn't like an overextraction like if a pourover is ground too fine, more like normal coffee + nastiness.

My guess is that the grinder was not really handling the beans, rather than them breaking up it was just turning a significant amount of it to mush - if it happens again i'll have to take some photos and be a bit more scientific again. My guess is that when i went sufficiently coarse, at least on the HB costa rican, it wasn't quite as demanding and produced a more normal ground coffee.

* I wasn't using a pouring kettle so agitation might have been high


----------

