# v60 Christmas conundrum (underextraction)



## HBLP (Sep 23, 2018)

Hi, so background is both my brother and I brew coffee using multiple methods, both mostly v60, we've been getting tasty brews for months.

He recently (maybe 5 months ago?) bought a Wilfa Uniform, an upgrade from his Svart. I run a Hedone Honne these days but not so relevant here. He's brought his Uniform to our parents' house where we've been the last week and a half or so. We've been brewing mostly v60s, 3 coffees from coffee collective and 2 from La Cabra (which we both subscribe to).

We started with our usual method, 13g to 200g, 4x50g pours spaced by 30s, all drained by roughly 2:30 a la April Coffee.

Result on every coffee was very clear underextraction. Sour, flat. Not completely unpleasant but nowhere near a decent cup and far below what we're used to.

So, both being relatively experienced, we adjusted and experimented. First just moving finer and finer, hitting 4 minute brew times, 45 seconds instead of 30 to allow full draining between pours for higher extraction. No astringency, slightly more extraction, but still way off. We kept going finer until things either clogged massively to the point they basically never drain or until we got clear channeling, but there was no point in between where we got good extraction. We tried 2 pour methods to allow a finer grind with less agitation, we tried 7x30g separated by 30s. Everything's the same. No matter what we do we cannot extract enough. I should say we're basing this all on taste, we have no refractometer.

I don't think it's the roasting, we use la Cabra every month and coffee collective are well respected, I can't imagine them getting it wrong on 3 different coffees. The La Cabras are naturals whilst the CC ones are all washed.

I don't think it's the water, we filter hard East Yorkshire water through a BWT which usually works just fine, and it almost seems like the water would be too soft to create these flavours if anything which seems unlikely (I know MWJB says it's difficult to be too soft with filter coffee). Anyhow, we have some Waitrose Lockhills which we'll give a spin this morning and I'll report back with. Otherwise, my main suspicion is grinder alignment? Anyone know about how to check this with a Wilfa? Even still, I'd think this would result in a muddled horrible cup rather than one that tastes almost evenly underextracted.

Thanks for all your help and merry Christmas!


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## MWJB (Feb 28, 2012)

Grind about setting 31/32. Pour 20g every 20s, each pour takes 10s. When you have standing liquid above the bed move to centre of the cone, otherwise you are pouring in spirals.

Don't be afraid to use 13.5 or 14g, especially with harder water/more bicarbonates.

This assumes a V60 01 & low, gentle pours. With an 02 you night want to pour all down the middle after initial pulse/prewet.


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## HBLP (Sep 23, 2018)

Hi Mark, thanks a lot, we tried your suggestion and it was a big improvement but I think we struggled with the precision of such a pouring routine. We've since though realised we just go in our heads a little and somehow the finer and finer grinding wasn't helping to make tasty coffee whilst not really giving much in the way of astringency. We're now somewhere between 34 and 38 depending on the bean and getting tasty coffee once again! Both with our filtered tap water and the Waitrose Lockhills.

Thanks again!


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