How to Brew The Perfect V60: Common Problems And How To Solve Them

V60 Coffee is considered one of the best-selling items in specialty cafes, it is a way for the barista to show off his or her high skill in extracting all the notes and aroma of the coffee without leaving a bitter or burnt taste, but don’t let these skills prevent you from enjoying the experience of preparing it at home.

Today we will talk about eight common problems that baristas face while brewing the V60 and how to solve them.

1. Brewing Blonde Roast

Due to its milder taste, the blonde roast requires a bit more experience in extracting its complete set of notes, you can achieve the ultimate taste by simply using a higher degree of heat. we recommend that you brew it using water at a temperature of 96-100 ° C to ensure that the flavor is fully extracted.

2. Brewing Dark Roast

Dark roast coffee has a robust flavor, so you don't need high heat to extract its flavor. We recommend reducing the temperature to 88-87°C to eliminate bitterness and acidity without affecting the final flavor.

3. If The Grind Is Finer or Coarser Than Required

If you discover during the preparation that you have ground the coffee finer than required, reduce the temperature because high heat works to extract the flavors quickly, which affects the final taste, as the water passes through the fine coffee faster, making the flavor very light.

If it's too coarse, don't throw it away, but raise the temperature a bit to help you get the most of the coffee out.

4. Brewing More Than One Cup

Brewing a bigger batch means more ground coffee in the brew funnel, so grind the coffee more coarsely because finer ground coffee will take longer time than needed to extract, affecting the quantity and quality of the coffee produced.

5. If Brewing Is Too Slow

The extraction process for one cup usually takes three minutes, but if you notice that the drip is very slow, you can stir the coffee with a wooden spoon so that the water will penetrate faster through the grounds.

You can also extract two-thirds of the required amount of coffee and add hot water to complete the remaining third, because of the long extraction time, most of the oils and flavor will be concentrated in two-thirds, which means that the coffee is acidic and more bitter, so the water will reduce the acidity and improve the final taste.

6. If The Brewed Coffee Tastes Bitter

It is known that the temperature of the brewing water has a significant effect on the degree of flavor extraction, so lower the temperature to reduce the amount of acid extracted and thus improve the taste.

If you reduce the water temperature and still suffer from the bitterness of coffee, there are two points to pay attention to:

• Roasting date: Experts advise preparing the coffee a week after the roasting date to allow the beans to get rid of the gases resulting from the roasting process, which greatly affect the taste and quality of the coffee.
• Pre-Infusion, or what is known as the "blooming" process: When coffee is roasted, the high temperature makes the sugars inside the bean react, resulting in carbon dioxide gas, so we advise you if you are sure of the roasting date and water temperature and you still feel the bitterness of coffee to use the pre-infusion technique, which is to prepare twice the amount of water required and pour half of it over the ground coffee and leave it to soak for 30 seconds, you will notice some bubbles forming on the surface of the coffee due to the volatilization of gases, then pour the other half of the water and brew your coffee as usual.

7. If You Get a Muddy Bed

Sometimes a thick layer forms in the preparation funnel that looks like clay and makes the extraction process very slow due to the difficulty of water penetration. This problem has several reasons, the first of which is the inconsistency of the grinding size, as it may contain large and small particles at the same time due to the grinder used; you may need to adjust the size of the grinder, clean the grinder, or maintain some internal parts such as the grinding disc.

Also, the grinder used may not be of high quality, that is, it does not grind the coffee husks well and consistently, causing them to stick to the coffee filter and form a clay layer that makes the extraction process poor and slow.

The solution here is to either roughen the grind, choose a higher quality grinder, or do regular maintenance on your grinder to make sure all parts are intact and clean. You can also get rid of the coffee husks by sifting the ground coffee, as the ground coffee will fall through and the husks will remain in the sieve.

8. Brewed Coffee Is Cold

If you used  94 degrees Celsius water to brew the coffee, but you noticed that the brewed coffee is not at the required temperature or cold, we advise you to heat the tools used in the preparation, heat the brewing funnel, the server, and the cup.

You may use water at a temperature of 94 degrees Celsius, but all the other pieces are cold, so when the water touches it, it is affected and the temperature drops significantly, it may reach 65-70 degrees Celsius, which results in a cold coffee.

These were the most frequently encountered problems while making a cup of the V60 and how to solve them, don't let such simple problems prevent you from enjoying a delicious cup of coffee of your own.