This is a recipe that should result in a sweet & balanced cup of coffee. If you are not achieving that, check that you are ending up with the desired brewed weight (a brew stand, with a second set of scales under the cup to measure brewed weight, is a great help here).
If you have any doubts about the suitability of your water for coffee brewing, use Volvic. Boil twice as much water as you will need for the brew (450g in total).
Grind & then weigh out your 13.5g coffee dose. Grind size should be that which results in the target brew time, err on the coarse side. Alternatively, aim for 13% (+/-3%) passing through a Kruve 400 sieve, after 2 minutes of side-to-side shaking, with occasional vertical shakes & taps.
Place the coffee dose into the brewer & filter paper (Japanese, bleached white, V60 papers recommended).
Preheat your pouring kettle (if not using it to heat the water), start the brew with boiling water, or water that is still rolling when added to the preheated pouring kettle.
Start timer & pour 15g of brew water onto the dry grounds & quickly stir to wet all the coffee. Wait until 30 seconds shows on the timer, then add another 35g of brew water every 20 seconds. Each pour should take around 10 seconds. Pour in spirals, not lingering in any one spot, wash down the filter walls with the tail end of the pour.
If you overshoot/fall short a little on the weight for a pour don’t panic, or throw out the timings by trying to nail water weight exactly to the gram, just make up the weight difference at the next addition of brew water. Ultimately, hitting 225g total (+/- a gram or so) around 2:20 is more important.
Stop the timer when you see the last of the liquid drain from above the bed of grounds, but do not disturb the brewer until the dripping has all but stopped, maybe another 40 to 60 seconds? You should see around 195g to 205g in the cup.
(EDIT: Final weight in the cup may vary slightly depending on your scales’ response characteristics, so I’d only expect to see a gram or two difference between brews with 225g of brew water & the same scales, brew to brew. The larger +/-5g tolerance allows for use of different scales, you shouldn’t see a 10g spread of brewed coffee weights if the same scales are used throughout).
Try Not!...Brew, Or Brew Not. 
Hi, why do you only bloom with water around the same weight as the coffee?
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Hi Ben,
2 reasons. First, you don’t really need to use more than that if you pour gently & stir quickly. Second, because 225-15 = 210g, which is easy to divide by 6 (or 3). You could just as well bloom with 20g or 25g if it’s easier for you & aim for 50g total at the first pour after the bloom.
Best regards, Mark.
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Thanks for the reply. Have you tried 2:1 and 3:1 blooms and concluded you prefer the slightly more than 1:1 ratio? So there is enough water there to wet everything? I ask this because as you know ground coffee approximately absorbs twice its weight. Is the gentle pour for the bloom so you don’t lose too much into the carafe and then are unable to wet it sufficiently? Finally why did you go for 13.5g and not 15g. I like slightly more coffee. In fact I would like a 20g recipe. Would you just scale up this recipe but extend the time a bit?
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Hi Ben,
Ground coffee doesn’t absorb around twice it’s weight at the start of the brew, in fact even at the end of the brew it might only hold 1.4 times it’s own weight in some circumstances. Yes, I tried different bloom weights (small conical burr hand grinders) and do use up to ~2 times the dose weight if I use say 4 pours of 50g, or 8pours of 25g, then a bloom of 25g allows easy division of the remaining brew water (200/4, or 200/8). I wouldn’t get too hung up on precise bloom weight, focus more on an intuitive pouring regime & consistency of pour. For 15:250g try a 40g bloom & keep everything the same, look for dry bed a little later, maybe 3:25 to 3:30 – or do about 100 brews with a mix of different coffees & see what time gives you an average EY of 20% like I did :-). I used 13.5 to 225g because 200g sits in the 7-8oz cups I use nicely & because of the easily divisible pour weights.
Cheers, Mark.
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With your pouring technique are you pouring from quite high up or with quick flow to try to churn the coffee bed so the particles from the bottom swap places with those at the top as extraction will be different at different layers/depth, or are you trying to be as gentle as possible, or a combination? Specifics would be good or even better a video! Thanks for your time and for sharing your hard work! Although I don’t find preparing and drinking coffee hard work (unless frustrated at the results which can happen!)
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Hi Ben, I’m pouring gently, from just above filter/brewer wall (no significant change in results whether using 01 or 02 brewers) the water stream dropping straight down from the spout as much as possible, each pour a spiral. I think of it as pouring the water onto the slurry (in reality though, you can’t avoid churning the bed some), rather than hosing down the bed. The only deliberate churning is the stir at bloom stage. Indeed, I have been meaning to do a video for a while, will try and get around to it soon (soon probably being a week or two, rather than days). Best regards, Mark.
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