# New to pour over brewing. A question



## soundsodd (Jul 10, 2014)

Hello all,

This is my first post here but I'm a lifelong coffee addict. I've run up against a problem and google pointed me here. Hopefully someone can lend their expertise.

I've been brewing my coffee, pretty much exclusively, in a cafetiere since I was fifteen but I was recently given a chemex as a gift and after some initial scepticism (read: fear of change) I've been enjoying the new method. However, I'm struggling to balance the grind and brew time correctly. As I understand it, the aim is to get all the water though in somewhere between three and half to four minutes using a medium to coarse grind. So far I've found that the only way I can achieve a brew time of under four minutes by using the coarsest grind I have available, much coarser than what I've read/viewed online.

It's not that I haven't enjoyed what I've brewed so far but I'm keen to improve my method and the inconstancy between my brews and the tutorials I've watched seemed worth investigating. Does anyone have any ideas as to where I'm going wrong?


----------



## Mrboots2u (May 10, 2013)

Hi. What are you grinding it with ? How much coffee ( weight ) to water ( weight again ) are you using ?


----------



## froggystyle (Oct 30, 2013)

Freshly roasted or supermarket beans?


----------



## soundsodd (Jul 10, 2014)

Grinding with a Baratza Encore and freshly roasted beans (usually within a week of roasting) and using filtered water at 90 degrees celsius. Ratio is about 1:15 so 40g of coffee and 600g of water.


----------



## Mrboots2u (May 10, 2013)

soundsodd said:


> Grinding with a Baratza Encore and freshly roasted beans (usually within a week of roasting) and using filtered water at 90 degrees celsius. Ratio is about 1:15 so 40g of coffee and 600g of water.


Cool.

So how much water in for bloom for how long

Then what is the pouring process after that ?

You use scales with the Chemex on ?


----------



## The Systemic Kid (Nov 23, 2012)

Have a look at the Chemex website and the FAQ section. The four minute rule is a guide only - depends how much you are brewing. What size Chemex are you using? I brew 520grm of water into 31grms of beans each morning and it can take between three and a half to four and a half minutes depending on the beans used. The filter papers used for Chemex are thicker than those used for other pour over methods so this affects extraction time. Main thing though, is be guided by taste. Would strongly urge doing a test brew where, after making your Chemex, dividing the brewed coffee into three. Leave one as it is and add 5% hot but not boiling water to one and 10% hot water to the second. Then do a taste test of all three but wait until they are all the same temp as taste and aroma change as the brewed coffee cools. You might well find you are over-extracting if you prefer the 5% or even 10% diluted brews.


----------



## MWJB (Feb 28, 2012)

soundsodd said:


> It's not that I haven't enjoyed what I've brewed so far but I'm keen to improve my method and the inconstancy between my brews and the tutorials I've watched seemed worth investigating. Does anyone have any ideas as to where I'm going wrong?


Yes, you're brewing to an arbitrary time ;-)

Stick to a brew ratio, just tweak grind, or pour style & adjust according to taste. Then record the time for reference.

As MrBoots says, ratio details will help.


----------



## soundsodd (Jul 10, 2014)

Yep, using scales. I'm letting it bloom for about 35 seconds and after that topping it up by about 100 to 150g at a time, making sure the bed never gets dry. Generally the water is never closer than an inch to the top of the glass


----------



## The Systemic Kid (Nov 23, 2012)

soundsodd said:


> Grinding with a Baratza Encore and freshly roasted beans (usually within a week of roasting) and using filtered water at 90 degrees celsius. Ratio is about 1:15 so 40g of coffee and 600g of water.


Would bet a fiver you're getting extraction yields well above 20% with that ratio which is likely to bias the coffee to body/mouthfeel at the expense of flavour profile depending on the beans and roast levels. Try 1:17 and grind coarser if necessary.


----------



## soundsodd (Jul 10, 2014)

The Systemic Kid said:


> Would bet a fiver you're getting extraction yields well above 20% with that ratio which is likely to bias the coffee to body/mouthfeel at the expense of flavour profile depending on the beans and roast levels. Try 1:17 and grind coarser if necessary.


But assumedly with more water it'll just run even longer. I'm already at the coarsest grind the machine will do. It I try that ratio should I just let it drip out no matter how long it takes or is there a point at which I should stop it?


----------



## MWJB (Feb 28, 2012)

If you stop it before it finishes draining (which you can, by all means) you're not really brewing to the ratio any more, throwing out a fixed parameter & replacing it with a variable, though in theory you could mark the carafe at a desired brew volume & yank the filter when you hit this? I'd be more inclined to brew by ratio.

If you pour in bigger portions the water will drain faster (for a given dose & grind), but again, time is just a guide...how is it tasting?

4 pours of 150g may give a different result to 6 pours of 100g.

Ratio sets the target concentration, but pour vs grind drives extraction yield.


----------



## Mrboots2u (May 10, 2013)

Ok so what would you expect the differences to be between say 4 pours and 6 ?


----------



## MWJB (Feb 28, 2012)

All things being equal (dose, grind, temp) 4 equal pours would hit a lower extraction yield than 6 equal pours.

Say I had a grind that was working well at 4 equal pours, then the next coffee I tried was underextracting, I'd break up the pour into more equal parts to see if I could push the extraction up again. If 6 pours was overextracting, I'd drop the number of pours & increase the size of the additions.

To keep the extraction even & temp up, you may prefer to grind coarser & maintain pulse pours, rather than add everything in one go after the bloom...but if you're already as coarse as you can go, fewer pours may be necessary if you are overextracting.


----------



## soundsodd (Jul 10, 2014)

I see. That's interesting, I wouldn't have considered that. I'll try larger pours in the morning and see if it makes a difference.


----------



## The Systemic Kid (Nov 23, 2012)

soundsodd said:


> But assumedly with more water it'll just run even longer. I'm already at the coarsest grind the machine will do. It I try that ratio should I just let it drip out no matter how long it takes or is there a point at which I should stop it?


I'm on the coarsest setting on my grinder too. With a ratio of 1:17 using 31grms of beans and 520grms of water in - poured in two pours (excluding bloom) and a final top up of around 40grms, I hit an extraction yield, using a refractometer, of 20% which, for me, is too high taste-wise, so I add 30-40grms of hot water to the brewed coffee to bring the measured extraction yield down to my preferred yield of around 19%. Find the beans flavour profile opens up at this level of extraction yield.


----------



## soundsodd (Jul 10, 2014)

I'll try that ratio next time I brew. Thanks for all the input. I'm sure it'll yield some improvement.


----------

