# Cup clarity



## the_partisan (Feb 29, 2016)

I've noticed when I'm drinking a V60 or Kalita in cafes, the brewed coffee seems much more transparent or clearer than the brews I make at home. Is this related to grinder (less fines?) or something else I'm not thinking of?


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## Riz (Oct 19, 2015)

What about water? What are you using?


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## the_partisan (Feb 29, 2016)

I have tried quite a few different ones, including RO with very low mineral content, and it doesn't seem to make much difference in this regard I believe.


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## garydyke1 (Mar 9, 2011)

Food for thought - to gain wort clarity when mashing water and grains for beer you NEED calcium in the water.

Perhaps these cafes are using harder water?


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## MWJB (Feb 28, 2012)

Grinder would be first port of call, what grinders are the cafes using?

Going coarser with your current grinder may help.


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## the_partisan (Feb 29, 2016)

They are using EK43s, of course.

I wish I could have a bulk grinder home, but the WAF factor is pretty low on those


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## the_partisan (Feb 29, 2016)

This popped up on my mind again after visiting a few cafes around here and trying their batch brews. My brews at home have very good flavours, but it just doesn't compare in terms of clarity - same flavours but significantly cleaner/pure mouthfeel. I'm suspecting this is certainly due to grinder (EK43) and their batch size. Maybe sieving out fines on bigger brews might have similar effect? Although I believe lot of fines still stick to big particles, so you can't get completely get rid of them.


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## MWJB (Feb 28, 2012)

How about grinding coarser & stretching out the pours?


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## the_partisan (Feb 29, 2016)

MWJB said:


> How about grinding coarser & stretching out the pours?


I don't really have control over pouring speed with Moccamaster (might try Scott Rao's cold water advice..), but I think you can only stretch the pours so much. I already grind as coarse as I can without the coffee tasting too thin / watery 29% > 1200um and only 6%


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## MWJB (Feb 28, 2012)

the_partisan said:


> I don't really have control over pouring speed with Moccamaster (might try Scott Rao's cold water advice..), but I think you can only stretch the pours so much. I already grind as coarse as I can without the coffee tasting too thin / watery 29% > 1200um and only 6%
> 
> Sure, the Moccamaster won't be as flexible on this front, I was thinking more about Kalita & Aeropress combo (not with a pouring kettle), bloom then add say 10% of your brew water every 20s, or even every 30s...grind as coarse as you can, whilst maintaining EY?


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## the_partisan (Feb 29, 2016)

MWJB said:


> Sure, the Moccamaster won't be as flexible on this front, I was thinking more about Kalita & Aeropress combo (not with a pouring kettle), bloom then add say 10% of your brew water every 20s, or even every 30s...grind as coarse as you can, whilst maintaining EY?


Yes that's probably the best way to get a most clean up, however using AP cap requires using quite a fine grind anyway, otherwise you get some channeling and end up with a quite thin. I think in bigger brews the coffee bed itself acts as a kind of filter preventing fines from getting in the cup? The cafe in question was using 2L Bunn brewer. I believe those also have a flat bed..


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## Scotford (Apr 24, 2014)

Might be obvious, but have you tried making v-60/kalita at home and comparing?


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## the_partisan (Feb 29, 2016)

Yes, it's more of a mouthfeel thing than strictly flavour. I mean same flavours, but it just seems more amplified and clean in the cafe setup. I'm almost certain it's due to grinder, but of course it's impossible to know for sure as I don't have an EK43 at home


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## the_partisan (Feb 29, 2016)

I did a brew using flow restrictor + aeropress cap but using V60 instead of Kalita since I'm out of filters for the latter. I used a quite fine grind (finer than my normal) and then after blooming normally, poured all the water in one go - still quite slowly because of the restrictor, but I finished pouring around 1:15. The water was completely transparent in the top and drained very fast and was completely drained at 2:00. This resulted in the lowest extracted coffee I have managed to brew so far with a V60, with a TDS of 1.00% and 15.6% EY. However very transparent and similar in terms of clarity to what I had at the cafe. Still very drinkable, and didn't taste particularly sour or underextracted and there was some sweetness to it, but the whole thing was very thin of course. Next thing to try is maybe to grind finer or pour in stages. I was using only 13.5g of coffee which probably didn't help either.


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## Step21 (Oct 2, 2014)

My experience with AP cap and V60 lead me to doing bloom and first short pour without AP cap then the rest with AP cap. Found it difficult to get into a decent extraction range otherwise. Like you say, some of the low extraction cups were quite drinkable but very thin.


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## fluffles (Sep 4, 2012)

The melodrip chap uses many very small pours in order to stretch the contact time beyond the usual limits for a pour over, presumably to overcome what you described

In fact one of the stated aims of melodrip is to increase clarity so this approach might work for you


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## MWJB (Feb 28, 2012)

fluffles said:


> The melodrip chap uses many very small pours in order to stretch the contact time beyond the usual limits for a pour over, presumably to overcome what you described
> 
> In fact one of the stated aims of melodrip is to increase clarity so this approach might work for you


Not sure you can go beyond limits for pour over & still extract normally, even with a kettle you can pour very infrequently & stretch out brew time with dead spaces of no flow between pours. My Kalita wave brews with AP (pre Melodrip) or the OXO pourover tank don't take any longer to hit a similar extraction, just the low agitation helps with clarity. My 40g Chemex with colander brews take over 6:30, but again there is dead time with no flow (clarity is better than pouring with a kettle, but not better than the smaller Kalita brews).

More pours & coarser grind can help with clarity though, whether pouring with a kettle, or using something else as a dispersion screen.


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## MWJB (Feb 28, 2012)

The way I see it is...

Deeper the bed, the more silt can get into the cup.

A shallow bed can be more prone to flushing silt out with a kettle & using a dispersion screen can increase clarity.

Going coarser can increase clarity, as long as you maintain EY.

So, shallow bed, pour with kettle = a few pours.

Shallow bed coarse, pour with kettle = more pours.

Shallow bed coarse, pour with dispersion screen = even more pours.


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## the_partisan (Feb 29, 2016)

I think the risks with too many pours could be that the slurry is too low temperature?


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## MWJB (Feb 28, 2012)

the_partisan said:


> I think the risks with too many pours could be that the slurry is too low temperature?


I tried @StusBrews Kalita recipe, with kettle, 5min brew time for 15g dose, good result & 19%+ EY if I recall right.

Water in the kettle will hold temp pretty well & then you're replenishing the cooling water in the slurry with hot.

If you have constant flow, no dead spots, then brew time will be similar (let's say ~3min total, ~2:30 of flow)...temp in the kettle will be similar?

I don't see a drop in extraction doing 25g bloom & 8 pours of 25g in a Kalita Uno (all water in by 2:30), compared to all water in by 1:30 in a Melitta 102.


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## the_partisan (Feb 29, 2016)

Another try with same grind, but 6 pours (35g every 20 sec) , but still quite low TDS, 16.7% EY this time. It seems like some agitation is key to getting a decent extracted V60? For the record I bloomed without the cap and stirred as usual.


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## MWJB (Feb 28, 2012)

the_partisan said:


> Another try with same grind, but 6 pours (35g every 20 sec) , but still quite low TDS, 16.7% EY this time. It seems like some agitation is key to getting a decent extracted V60? For the record I bloomed without the cap and stirred as usual.


How about trying bloom then 20g every 20sec?


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## the_partisan (Feb 29, 2016)

Kind of success! I ground even finer, something like 3% >1200um on Vario, (3F, vs 5F which was my usual), but still doing 35g every 20 sec. Now I hit 18% EY, and most of the woody flavours are gone and some sweetness, still quite clean and no bitterness. Most enjoyable of the few past brews. Still lacking a bit of sweetness, but getting there.. Next I might try stretching the pours even further.


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## thepiecesfit (Nov 29, 2017)

Have you thought about utilizing a Bonavita Immersion cup? It's fully ceramic. It also has a lever which lets you switch to pour over mode and uses regular no 4 filters. The drain hole is much smaller than a v60 and is a lot more forgiving. I've gotten some good clarity using that combo and its quite easy to get a 3:00 or 3:30 minute brew time.


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