J. Gagne

Scientific Material

Menu

Skip to content

Home
BANYAN Σ Web Tool
Publications
PhD Thesis
***Material from Papers***
The BASS Survey
Figshare
The SIMP survey
The Ultracool RIZzo Spectral Library
The Montreal Spectral Library
List of All UltraCool Dwarfs
- List of M6-M9 Dwarfs
Data Reduction Pipelines
- Red Flamingos
- FireHose v2
Coffee

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

December 11, 2018

Posted under

Coffee

Comments

Improving the Bloom of your V60 Coffee

All the coffee stuff has moved to my new website www.coffeeadastra.com !

Share this:

Twitter
Facebook

Like this:

Like Loading...

Post navigation

← How to Brew Better Coffee with a V60

Water for Coffee Extraction →

2 thoughts on “Improving the Bloom of your V60 Coffee”

Pingback: How to Brew Better Coffee with a V60 | J. Gagne
Pingback: Water for Coffee Extraction | J. Gagne

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Enter your comment here...

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Email (required) (Address never made public)

Name (required)

Website

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out / Change )

You are commenting using your Google account. ( Log Out / Change )

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out / Change )

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out / Change )

Connecting to %s

Notify me of new comments via email.

Notify me of new posts via email.

Search

Scientific Material

The BASS Survey
The Ultracool RIZzo Spectral Library
The Montreal Spectral Library
List of All UltraCool Dwarfs
List of M6-M9 Dwarfs
BANYAN II Web Tool
Material from Papers

Contact Information

Institute for Research on Exoplanets (iREx), Université de Montréal. 2900 Boulevard Édouard-Montpetit, Montréal, QC H3T 1J4 Email :
gagne (AT) astro.umontreal.ca

All Info
Curriculum Vitae

Website Stats

18,092 hits

Twitter stream

Recent Posts: Coffee Ad Astra

The Physics of Fines Migration

The Struggle for a Steady Kettle Flow

Sprudgie Awards Nomination

Moving Away from Instagram

The Hardness of Green Coffee

What is Astringency ?

What Affects Brew Time

Extraction Uniformity and Channeling

Measuring Coffee Concentration with a 0.01% Precision

An Investigation of Kettle Temperature Stability

Instagram

I'm happy to announce I'll be giving a ~1 hour-long talk about the physics of coffee percolation in Portland, April 23 during the SCA event ! This will be part of @mattperger and @whereisscottrao’s "coffee palooza" event, for which there will be a ticketed entry for the full day. Tickets are available in @whereisscottrao ‘s bio ! #coffeegeeks #coffeescience #coffeeadastra

I just publicly released my latest blog post about getting a more consistent kettle flow for pour over coffee (link in bio) ! In that post, I discuss a weird flow valve called the Mandritech Hand Drip Water Valve and a flow restrictor only available in Asia that fitted my @mybrewista artisan 0.6L kettle. I also just released the next post on Patreon (link also in bio) which discusses the physics of fines migration. I discuss some physics papers that detail some very counter-intuitive ways in which fines and boulders flow around in the presence of vibrations. These papers blew my mind and changed how I view fines migration ! By the way, if you enjoy my blog don’t forget to vote on my Sprudgie Award nomination before January 3, 2020 ! The link to the voting page is in my bio.  #coffeegeeks #coffeescience #finesmigration #pourover #coffee #coffeeadastra #brazilnuteffect

I just put a Q&A page online on my website ! You'll find in it several questions I receive often by DM, email or in various chatrooms. They are mostly about filter brewing and brew water crafting. See the link in my bio for more. Also, if you haven’t voted yet there are only 4 days left to vote on my Sprudgie award nomination for best coffee writing ! Link is also in bio, any help is super appreciated ! #coffeegeeks #coffeescience #pourover #coffee #coffeeadastra #waterforcoffee #sprudgie

Ok, this is something else entirely. I just received some of the latest air roasted batches from @heartroasters, and I am almost lost trying to interpret what I’m drinking. I first tried the Ethiopia Worka with my usual recipe, and it feels like I am drinking grapefruit juice, with a ton of floral aromas on top of it. It barely registers as coffee in my brain, and I am enjoying it so much. I probably never drank a 320 mL of coffee so fast. The head roaster at Heart was telling me that when they cupped their air roasts next to their drum roasts they found new taste defects they had just never noticed in their drum roasts because they were always there, and I must say my experience fits this. The taste feels a lot more even, with much less noise to appreciate the subtle origin characteristics. I’m now really excited to taste more of these batches. I’m really hopeful this could be the first glimpse of a new standard in roasting. The extraction yield was pretty normal on this coffee, 1.44% TDS for 319g with a 22g dose so 20.8% EY, about the average I get for washed ethiopians. I’ll try grinding finer and see what happens, I’m curious to figure out if astringency kicks in slower with these more even roasts ! Disclaimer: While I paid for a Heart order, they sent me several extra bags for free, including this Worka (batch 48270, roasted on Dec 10) #coffeegeeks #coffeescience #coffeeadastra #coffee #pourover

I’m super excited to announce that my blog Coffee Ad Astra was nominated for a 2019 Sprudgie Award for best coffee writing ! An online voting poll was just started by @sprudge to determine the winner (link in bio), any help is appreciated 😊 The poll closes at midnight PST on January 3 ! #coffeeadastra #coffeegeeks #coffeescience #sprudgie #sprudge #sprudgieawards #sprudgieawards2019 #sprudgies

My friend @apaxos is doing a coffee giveaway in collaboration with @kaffebox, have a look at his latest post to participate ! #coffee #coffeegeeks

Alright, today I realized that all links in my bio mysteriously stopped working only when clicked from here right after I added a link to another social media site that competes with Mr. Robotface. And it mysteriously started working again once I removed it. As I am not exactly happy about this, I propose that we play a little game. The prize of this game will be more regular posts from me, because I will now randomly hold on from posting a fraction of my content here, and only post it on the destination this game will lead you to. To win this game, you just need to figure out this simple charade: My first half is the same as a small box with moving images in it. My second half is the same as the website you are currently on. If you go one alphabet letter further for each character in the complete answer, you get this word: Ufmfhsbn. PLEASE do not post the answer in the comments. It is a word that got other content creators’s IG posts hidden for a couple days. Once you solved it, just go to my blog and click on the answer in the website’s header menu. I will be waiting for you there. Let’s see if this gets past Mr. Robotface’s triggers :) #coffeeadastra

Heart, you’ve blown my mind once again. This Kenyan Spikes AB is so well roasted that the origin characteristics come out incredibly vibrant and juicy, in a balanced sweet and fruity cup. This coffee is almost creamy in texture and reminds me of very sweet raspberry candies. I never like to go as precise as “raspberry candy” in my description but this really lacks any hint of sourness or astringency that one would find even in a fresh raspberry. This is liquid gold. I brewed it with my usual V60 recipe (link in bio), 3:28 drawdown, 1:17 ratio, 321g beverage and 1.51% TDS for an average extraction yield of 22.0%. If Trump can only remove these stupid tariffs on roasted coffee (which Trudeau mirrored) you’ll find a very regular client in me. I know the photo background is depressing, but the weather is even more depressing today 😅 #coffeeadastra #coffee #pourover #coffeegeeks

I just publicly released my blog post about the hardness of green coffee (link in bio) ! This is a small experiment where I used a Shore D durometer to show that different varietals and origins of green coffees can be distinguished with a durometer much better than with the typical methods used to measure their mass density. A big thanks to Andy Kires at @canadianroastingsociety for providing the green coffee ! My next upcoming blog post is also already available on Patreon (link also in bio). In it, I detail my latest attempts to get a more steady kettle flow for pour overs using the Mandritech Hand Drip Valve and a custom flow restrictor from Asia. I ended up succeeding, but it was not without hurdles ! #coffeeadastra #coffee #pourover #coffeescience #coffeegeeks #coffeeroasting #greencoffee #greencoffeebean

The orbital shaker experiment has started ! 😁 It seems quite promising, I made one pretty good brew with it, and another one where I left the bed slanted. If I can get this right every time, then that’s one less source of noise that can affect my investigations of how various variables affect the quality of brewed coffee ! #coffeegeeks #coffeescience #coffeeadastra

I just publicly released my blog post about astringency (link in bio) ! It includes a description of what it feels like, the underlying chemistry and what can cause it when we brew coffee. I'm hoping that improving our understanding of astringency will help us avoid it. The next blog post is already available on Patreon (link in bio), where I show the results of a short experiment about the surface hardness of six different green coffees and how they differ more than their mass densities. Maybe the hardness of green coffee could help roasters predict how expensive batches of coffee will behave during roasting ! #coffee #coffeescience #coffeeadastra #coffeegeeks #coffeeroasting #greencoffee

First snow of the year with a delicious coffee by @gardellicoffees, the Alemu Bukato natural Ethiopian. It’s a truly delicious, sweet coffee with plenty of ripe fruit notes. As typical of many Ethiopians, it generates a lot of fines so it’s a bit harder to prevent clogging ! This is my first brew of it, so I prepared it with my usual recipe at 1:17, 22g dose in a plastic V60 and Hario tabless filters, Rao/Perger water at 212F, poured at 5 g/s from about 8-9 cm from the top of the V60-02 wall. My grind size was 7.0@700 RPM on the @weberworkshops EG-1, and I got a drawdown time of 3:40, a beverage weight of 314 grams and a concentration of 1.43% TDS, for an average extraction yield of 20.5%. Next brew I’ll try going a tad coarser because my brew started clogging near the end. #coffee #pourover #coffeegeeks #coffeeadastra #GardelliSC #GSC

Today I’m drinking @timwendelboe’s Fahem washed Ethiopian 74110 & 74148 varietal. It’s a really unique rich and complex coffee that I very much enjoy ! Tasting rhubarb in coffee is kind of weird, but I somehow love it. I also really like being able to see varietals on these Ethiopian coffees ! It’s also one of the most soluble coffees I have ever seen, even more than the Tatmara natural 74112 and 74110. I’m starting to suspect @timwendelboe is onto something maybe with good farming practices ! I brewed it at 1:17, with my usual recipe (see blog for details, link in bio) 22g coffee, 319g out, 1.58% TDS (!) for an average extraction yield of 22.9% and a brew time of 3:40. I used Rao/Perger water at 212F in a plastic V60, the Hario tabless filters, I poured at a fixed ~12 cm from the initial dry coffee bed with a kettle flow rate of 4-6 g/s. I had no signs of filter clogging or astringency even when it cooled, so I might try using more water next time to get a more reasonable concentration 😆 #coffee #coffeegeeks #coffeeadastra #pourover

Stop using oxygen absorber packs with coffee ! I previously recommended using oxy-sorbs to keep coffee fresh in addition to other methods like vacuum sealing and freezing, but I recently realized they can hurt coffee quite badly. It took me a while to realize it because it happens faster with some coffees and not others, and it takes a very long time for it to happen in the freezer (that’s not too surprising). For more than a month now I have had issues with my coffee tasting weirdly harsh after storage, and I was struggling to identify the issue until Matt Perger told me about a suspicion they have at Barista Hustle that oxy-sorbs may interact chemically with coffee aromas. You’ll see some more in-depth blog posts coming out about this soon, but I immediately wanted to stop recommending their use with coffee. I found that it can result in a harsh and metallic taste, less sweetness and less volatile aromas in the coffee. It also doesn’t seem to affect the acidity profile much. It’s a defect that is very distinct from roast, brew and green defects once you learn to identify it. Matt found that 100% of bags in which he used them ended up losing significant aromatics. In the first image above, I show the contents of a brand new oxy-sorb pack. In the second one, I show the contents of a similar pack after two weeks of being vacuum sealed with 80 grams of coffee at room temperature; there is no way enough oxygen was present to react almost the whole pack, as they are rated to absorb most oxygen from a liter of air. It’s pretty clear they react with CO2 (that’s a known fact) but I suspect they may also react with coffee volatiles, while also imparting a bad taste on the beans. Even worse, some packs include moisture to allow oxidation of the oxy-sorb iron and remove oxygen from the food, but moisture is extremely bad for enclosed coffee. I couldn’t find out whether oxy-sorbs have a moisturizer in them. #coffeegeeks #coffee #coffeescience #v60 #coffeeadastra

I’m excited to start reading this book ! Thanks @christopherferan or the suggestion ! #coffee #coffeegeeks #coffeescience #coffeeadastra

I just publicly released my blog post on all the variables that affect coffee brew time (link in bio) ! In it you will find an in-depth discussion of why brew time is such a poor tool to communicate recipes or grind size, and how it's only a useful diagnostic if you are extremely diligent in keeping all the variables fixed in your brewing. I also just made my next blog post available on Patreon (link also in bio): it's a discussion of the mechanisms that cause astringency in coffee, and what astringency feels like. I also discuss ideas for measuring astringency, and how we might want to learn a few tricks from the beer and wine sectors for reducing astringency in our brews.  #coffeescience #coffeegeeks #coffeebrewing #v60 #coffee #pourover #coffeeadastra

I just released my latest blog post (link in bio) in which I discuss flow uniformity in coffee brewing, based on computer simulations of percolation from the scientific literature ! It really helped me understand why small changes in grind size can sometimes result in more astringency even when no obvious or catastrophic channeling seemed to have happened. I suspect these simulations explain why; the percolation flow is naturally much less uniform in space at very small flow rates. I also think it's an important reason why all of my Buchner funnel brews to date have been quite astringent (my pump is very weak). Flow through the coffee bed is starting to look like a very important variable when we brew ! My following blog post is also available on Patreon (link in bio): in it, I discuss in great detail why I think total brew time is one of the least useful and communicable quantities for pour over ! And not only it’s already on Patreon, it’s also now available to @baristahustle Unlimited subscribers ! #coffegeeks #coffee #coffeescience #buchnerfunnel #v60 #coffeephysics

I just published a new method to make coffee concentration measurements precise to 0.01% TDS with a refractometer ! It features convenient steps to take so that you completely remove the issues of evaporation and temperature differences that could easily introduce errors of > 0.05% TDS in your measurements ! You can find out more about this protocol on my blog (link in bio). I also just made my next blog post immediately available to my Patreon followers (link is also in my bio): in that upcoming blog post, I talk about a scientific paper that carried computer simulations of percolation (last image) and I discuss the different variables that I now think affect extraction uniformity. It's not just about channels ! #coffeescience #coffeegeeks #coffeeadastra #coffee #refractometer #specialtycoffee #coffeeexperiment #coffeebrewing

This morning I’m treating myself with @gardellicoffees’ amazing Gesha Village Auction Lot 6. This natural Gesha is so floral it almost feels like drinking perfume (or at least what you’d think drinking perfume feels like haha). It has a nice and complex acidity that reminds me of pineapple and kiwi, but also of peach and lime. The taste ends with a nice, balanced sweetness that almost feels like bubble gum. I brewed this cup with my usual recipe (described on my blog; see link in bio) with Rao/Perger brew water, a 22g dose and 1:17 ratio, which got me a 323g beverage at 1.45% TDS for an avergae extraction yield of 21.3%. This is suprisingly high for a natural processed Gesha. I made some minor tweaks to my V60 recipe recently based on my turbidity measurements; I now pour a bit lower (14 cm above the slurry) with a 3-6 g/s kettle flow, and I prepare the nest shape with my finger rather than a chopstick (see photo). These modifications gave me a marginal ~0.3-0.4% increase in extraction yield but made my brews less astringent and cloudy. #coffeeadastra #coffeegeeks #coffee #pourover #GSC #GardelliSC

This morning I’m drinking a fantastic coffee roasted by @passengercoffee, the Alexis Gonzales washed Colombia varietal, from Colombia ! The tasting notes are incredibly accurate for me; it really has a bright black currant acidity with an intense and lingering sweetness that reminds me of pineapple and litchi. I brewed this one with my usual V60 recipe (see link in bio) with Rao/Perger water, a 22g dose, 1:17 ratio, 45 sec bloom with the EG-1 grinder at 7.0@700 RPM (burrs touch at 1.6) and obtained a 3:17 brew time, 1.46% TDS concentration and 320g beverage, corresponding to an average extraction yield or 21.3%. That photo is featuring @umeshiso_’s beautiful cupping spoon, thanks again ! I use it for stirring my coffee when I’m not cupping, just because it’s nice. #pourover #coffeeadastra #coffee #coffeegeeks #v60

Blog at WordPress.com.

Post to

Cancel

%d bloggers like this: