# Brewing Large Volume V60s - low extraction?



## teaeff (Nov 26, 2013)

I have been trying to find a quick and easy method for brewing a fairly large amount (~880ml) of coffee, with as little cleanup as possible. I would like to introduce more people at work to specialty coffee, but it has proved difficult to find a method that works.

Since I generally use v60/AP I thought the V60-03 size would allow me to do this, without the need to buy a Chemex/drip machine.

However, the brews I am getting are consistently as a much lower extraction and I'm not sure what to do to correct this.

I am aiming for 1.50 TDS 21% EY as that is generally what I aim for with brewed coffee.

*Method with V60-01*

12.5g @1.10 medium grind on Feldgrind

190ml filtered, soft water at 97c

30s bloom with 24ml water

Filled up to 100ml and topped up twice; all water in at 1:30

Drained at 2:05

TDS 1.47 EY 20.34% (not far off!)

Tastes good

*Method with V60-03*

66g @1.10 medium grind on Feldgrind

1000ml filtered, soft water at 97c

30s bloom with 130ml water

Quickly filled up to just below top of filter

Constant spiral pour, maintaining brew level

All water in at 2:00

Drained at 3:20

TDS 1.32 EY: 18.48%

Tastes thin and dull

I was expecting to have to grind coarser with the larger brew volume and time, but this is making me think I need to grind finer? Does anyone have any ideas on how to fix this?

Incidentally, the other potential methods I have tried are:


1000ml french press (Espro) - good results, but too much cleanup between brews

Pouring 1000ml french press into v60 for better clarity - filters just drain at 500ml

Brewing a double strength french press and adding the same about of hot water as the yield volume - didn't work out very economical since a lot of double strength brew is wasted at the bottom of the Espro, or absorbed by the grounds

Pouring 1000ml slurry straight into a v60-03 after 4min brew - works pretty well but fills up at around 500ml due to the volume of grounds, so would require two v60s and carafes.


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## Mrboots2u (May 10, 2013)

Brazen Brewer would be your ideal solution


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## the_partisan (Feb 29, 2016)

With 1000ml water I would expect the brew to drain at around 5 or 6 minutes. 3:30 sounds quite short. For 500ml brews I aim at 4-4:30. Try pouring in 6 pulses (ca. 150 each) maybe every 30sec and stretching the brew to around 5:30-6:00?


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## MWJB (Feb 28, 2012)

How many of the 66g brews have you done? Is that 18.5%EY an average? To extract more break up the pours into pulses, but you likely will have to grind coarser too.

I suspect it will be tricky to keep those big brews consistent, how about 2x 33:500g brews?

If you're filtering a French press brew, don't pour the grounds into the brewer, just the liquid & start around the top of the cone/paper filter to reduce clogging on draw down. I preferred Chemex paper for this use, but these days I brew longer & finer with French press & get relatively little solids in the cup, I don't feel the need to filter the brews (though I only realistically expect to get a brew 2/3 the weight of the brew water).


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## teaeff (Nov 26, 2013)

Mrboots2u said:


> Brazen Brewer would be your ideal solution


Agreed, I'm trying to convince my workplace to get one of these, but I'm not sure if there would be enough interest.



the_partisan said:


> With 1000ml water I would expect the brew to drain at around 5 or 6 minutes. 3:30 sounds quite short. For 500ml brews I aim at 4-4:30. Try pouring in 6 pulses (ca. 150 each) maybe every 30sec and stretching the brew to around 5:30-6:00?


I'll give this a go next. For some reason I thought that I should be sticking to



MWJB said:


> How many of the 66g brews have you done? Is that 18.5%EY an average? To extract more break up the pours into pulses, but you likely will have to grind coarser too.
> 
> I suspect it will be tricky to keep those big brews consistent, how about 2x 33:500g brews?
> 
> If you're filtering a French press brew, don't pour the grounds into the brewer, just the liquid & start around the top of the cone/paper filter to reduce clogging on draw down. I preferred Chemex paper for this use, but these days I brew longer & finer with French press & get relatively little solids in the cup, I don't feel the need to filter the brews (though I only realistically expect to get a brew 2/3 the weight of the brew water).


I did 3 with the same type of beans, all coming out in that name.

Yes I have tried that method of filtering french press a few times but always get clogging issues with large volumes; didn't think the Feldgrind was producing a lot of fines, but maybe that might have something to do with it?

I had another go today taking some of these ideas on board, which turned out much better:

*Method with V60-03 - version 2*

66g @1.12 medium/coarse grind on Feldgrind

1000ml filtered, soft water at 97c

1:00 bloom with 130ml water

Quick spiral pour, filling up to 500ml water

at 2:00 - filled up to grounds level

at 3:00 - filled up to 1000ml water, washing edges of filter (at ~top of grounds level)

Stir at top of slurry + tap of V60

Drained at 4:50

TDS 1.50% EY 21% (lucky first try?)

I'm hoping that by seeing what grind size works for a 200ml V60, then adding 0.02 to the setting and keeping to these parameters I might be able to get something fairly decent at large volume... time will tell!


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## MWJB (Feb 28, 2012)

teaeff said:


> Yes I have tried that method of filtering french press a few times but always get clogging issues with large volumes; didn't think the Feldgrind was producing a lot of fines, but maybe that might have something to do with it?


All grinders make fines, going coarser reduces the proportion of fines, but too coarse will limit your French press extractions. When you brew in the v60 the grounds bed assists with the filtering, not just the paper, when you pour a brew with suspended solids into an empty filter, those suspended solids clog it more easily...it will drain eventually, but might not be particularly hot.


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## teaeff (Nov 26, 2013)

MWJB said:


> All grinders make fines, going coarser reduces the proportion of fines, but too coarse will limit your French press extractions. When you brew in the v60 the grounds bed assists with the filtering, not just the paper, when you pour a brew with suspended solids into an empty filter, those suspended solids clog it more easily...it will drain eventually, but might not be particularly hot.


Ah ok, I might experiment with filtering a coarser grind french press at some point, but a large v60 seems like the most convenient for what I am trying to do at the moment. Thanks, that makes sense.


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## the_partisan (Feb 29, 2016)

I did this brew today:

30g Kibirigwi, Kenya, Light Roasted Cofffee, on a V60 02 with the Dutch filters

Ground with Feldgrind 2+4, 80g bloom and stir for 30 sec, and then 70g added every ~20 sec for a total of 500g. From my recent testing I seem to get quite consistent results and even extraction with 6 pours.

The brew ended at 4:30 and let it drip for another 1-1.5 min, and the TDS was 1.45, with EY of 22.81% - quite a bit stronger than I was expecting, but tasted quite good nevertheless. I would probably try 2+6 next time.


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