Hario V60 Pour Over Brewing Guide: Instructions and Tips
The Hario V60 is perhaps the most popular pour over on the market today, and for good reason: it makes a delicious cup of coffee, it’s easy to use, and it’s really fun! And while your local barista can make the process look intimidating, if you follow these professional tips, you’ll be making café-quality craft coffee in no time.
- Hario V60 paper coffee filters
- 25 grams of your favorite coffee
- 400 grams of water, plus a bit extra for pre-wetting your filter
- Decanter
- Timer
- Kettle, preferably a gooseneck kettle
- A Scale
- Burr Grinder (i’m using a hand burr grinder here)
At a Glance
Brew time
5 minutes
Yield
2 cups
Aside from a Hario V60 coffee dripper, you will also need the following items.
How To Brew Pour Over Coffee With the Hario v60
Once you have gathered all the items listed above, it’s time to make great-tasting coffee.
We’ve broken down the steps below, but you could always watch our in-house pour over expert Steven take you through it:
1. Heat water
You want to heat your water to 200 degrees. Use a thermometer, or if thats not available; bring your water to a boil, then let it sit for about 30 seconds to bring it down to 200 degrees.
2. Measure and grind 25 grams of coffee (medium-fine)
Choose your favourite coffee. I’d recommend a lighter roast, and something with high acidity and flavour.
A medium-fine grind will be slightly more coarse than table salt. In making coffee pour over coffee, I recommend grinding your coffee immediately before you begin brewing. If your coffee is ground too early (1), it will lose a lot of its flavor and aroma.
Measurements of weight are more precise than measurements of volume, which is why I recommend using a scale.
3. Fold V60 filter
Fold the flat edge of the V60 paper filter; place filter in dripper; place dripper on decanter.
One benefit of the V60 is that you can brew directly into any mug, cup, or decanter, which makes clean-up a breeze.
4. Pre-wet filter
Pre-wetting the filter will wash away some of the papery residue, resulting in a cleaner brew (2). Additionally, it will seal the filter to the sides of the dripper, and it will preheat the vessel you’re brewing into. Don’t forget to discard this water before you begin brewing!
“If a barista were to skip prewetting and simply pour water over a bed of grounds in a V60, the water would always wet some grounds before others. Unfortunately, once some areas are wet and others are dry, the water will favor the wet areas, and the dry areas will resist wetting.”
5. Add coffee and tare scale
Add your coffee, give the V60 a soft shake to settle the grounds into a flat surface, also known as the coffee bed. This will allow for more even extraction by avoiding pooling.
Place it on-top of your scale and tare it to zero. We are aiming for 300-400grams of water over a 2-3 minute brew time.
6. Bloom
Add just enough water to the grounds to evenly saturate them. Let this sit for 45 seconds. This is called the “bloom,” and it kickstarts a chemical reaction where gasses are purged from the ground coffee (3).
If you add all the water right away, these gasses will become trapped in the coffee and affect the taste.
As a rule of thumb, I use a 2:1 ratio of water to coffee for my bloom. For example, if I’m using 25 grams of coffee, I’ll add 50 grams of water for my bloom.
The bloom makes your coffee better in two ways. First, carbon dioxide has a sour taste that you don’t want in your cup…Secondly, as your coffee grounds expel gas, the force of that gas will also push water away from the coffee, disrupting extraction
7. Pour remaining water (like a hipster)
Once your timer hits 45 seconds, continuously add water to the coffee bed. Do this by pouring slowly in spiralling circles around the outer circumference of the circle where your coffee is sitting.
Do not pour the water directly onto the filter, and don’t let the water level get too close to the top edge of the dripper.
Stop pouring once you’ve added 400 grams of water. This should take roughly a minute.
8. Allow water to drain
Once the water has finished draining through the filter, you’re ready to enjoy your coffee!
From start to finish, this should take between 2:15 and 2:30. If the overall time is significantly outside of this range, you will need to adjust the coarseness at which you ground your coffee.
If the pour over is quicker than 2:15, your coffee ground was too coarse. If the pour over takes longer than 2:30, your coffee ground was too fine.
When you’re finished, discard the used paper filter and grounds. That’s it! Time to kick back and enjoy your coffee.
Final Thoughts
As with everything, practice makes perfect. If your first pour over doesn’t taste quite right, don’t give up! Make small adjustments to your process and recipe, and you’ll be making coffee at home that will give your local café a run for its money.
Interested in trying other pour over coffee makers? Our review round-up might just help you decide which one to experiment with next.
FAQs
If your coffee is weak, it’s under extracted, which means that there was not enough contact time between the ground coffee and the water. To fix this, grind your coffee more finely for your next batch. This will make the water pass more slowly through the coffee bed, therefore increasing the contact time.
On the other hand, if your coffee is bitter, it has been over extracted, which means there was too much contact between the ground coffee and water. To fix this, your coffee should be ground more coarsely next time, which will allow the water to pass more quickly through the coffee bed. Our guide to manual coffee brewing explains this topic in detail.
The recipe in this article will yield roughly 12 ounces of coffee. If you want to make a smaller or larger batch, you just have to adjust the amount of coffee and water in the recipe. As a rule of thumb, I use a 16:1 ratio of water to ground coffee, so adjusting the size of my batch is as simple as figuring out the weight of the ground coffee I’m using and multiplying it by 16.
References
- Ross, C. F., Pecka, K., & Weller, K. (2006, December 07). Effect of Storage Conditions on the Sensory Quality of Arabica Coffee. Retrieved from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1745-4557.2006.00093.x
- Rao, S. (2016, October 28). Prewetting: When to do it, when not to. Retrieved from https://www.scottrao.com/blog/prewetting-when-to-do-it-when-not-to
- Carrasco, N. (2018, August 03). Brew Guide: What Are The 3 Phases of Drip Coffee Brewing? Retrieved from https://perfectdailygrind.com/2017/08/brew-guide-what-are-the-3-phases-of-drip-coffee-brewing/
