I love coffee.

Still, I tried to stay away from “fancy” coffee (or, as my friends like to call it, “fussy coffee”) for as long as I could. I tend to obsess about new things and I did not need another distraction in my life.

But there’s only so much instant coffee you can drink before you start thinking “maybe the coffee at home should be better than this?”.

So, about two years ago I gave up and decided, finally, to go down this rabbit hole.

I’ll save you the details of my descend to madness, and fast forward to February 2023 to give you the recipe I’m using to make what I consider a very nice cup of coffee.

My v60 recipe

This brews a very nice cup of black coffee (around 200ml). You can mix it with 150ml of milk for a large latte that’s also pretty good.

Tools:

  • Hario v60 cone, size 02. I use the plastic version because it’s cheap, light, and good enough.
  • Hario filters, size 02. I’m using the “Made in Holland” version because that’s what I have around, but I have no idea how much that impacts the brew versus the “Made in Japan” ones.
  • A gooseneck kettle. I use a Hario Buono stovetop kettle, but there are multiple options out there.
  • A coffee grinder, or ground coffee if it’s relatively fresh and ground at the right size (i.e: not supermarket coffee). I’m using a Comandante C40 grinder.
  • A scale. You can use a fancy one, but a basic kitchen scale will do.

Recipe:

  • Fill your kettle with 350 grams of water and bring it to a boil.
  • While the water heats, grind 16 grams of coffee at 20 clicks on the Comandante C40.
  • When the water starts boiling furiously, take the kettle off the stove, and rinse the filter with hot water.
  • Put the kettle aside and let it cool down for 60 seconds.
  • Start a timer.
  • At 0 seconds we’ll do a bloom phase: pour 40 grams of water, swirl your v60 cone vigorously to make sure all grounds are wet, and wait 45 seconds for all gases to escape. If your coffee “burps” at the end of this stage, that’s a very good sign.
  • At 45 seconds, pour 60 grams of water and don’t touch the cone.
  • At 90 seconds, pour 150 grams of water, swirl the cone to flatten the coffee bed, and wait for drawdown.

Notes

  • Pour slowly, mostly in the center, with a continuous, smooth pour. If you see bubbles, you’re going too fast. You know you have a good rhythm if you finish pouring the last 150 grams around the 2 minutes mark.
  • Depending on the coffee, total extraction time is anywhere from 3:35 to 5:00. It looks like that’s too much, but the coffee is good (for my taste, at least, coffee is a very personal thing).