I just love the way this brew looks.

I’ve been experimenting with a brew I watched recently on a Lance Hedrick video. I don’t think it’s a particularly new video but it was my first time watching it. Anyway, he mentioned a V60 recipe he had been enjoying a lot so I thought I’d give it a go. I tried it yesterday for the first time with the last of my Ana Sora beans (I’ve picked up another bag now though). It was really, really good. And I’m not usually a massive pour over fan, I tend to prefer espresso.

I thought I’d try it again today, but with the Black Moon beans I posted about a few days ago. I made it in a glass carafe and when I held it up to the light, I realized how beautiful it looks. Usually I’m chasing a bit of a higher extraction and the coffee ends up being more brown and usually a bit darker, but with this lower, almost tea-like extraction, it’s got this beautiful red hue to it. It’s so much nicer to see in person, but I did my best to capture it in a picture.

I tried to make a very red picture, with a red mug and an oxblood leather coaster, but the lighting wasn’t playing nice (and also I can’t take pictures to save my life), so I prioritized the coffee instead and the rest just looks too dark to tell. But just know, everything is red.

Anyway, for the brew, it’s basically as follows:

• Coarser grind. I went for around a 65 on my DF54
• Cooler water. Usually for light roasts I’d go just off boil, but for this I went with 91.5°C. I also didn’t preheat my brewer, so the bloom was rather cool
• Very low agitation. Rather than a standard 5-pour technique à la James Hoffmann or something like the 6-4 technique, just a bloom and then a long pour

For the full recipe:

• 15g medium-coarse ground
• 240g water @ 91.5°C
• 0:00 - 45g bloom, pouring in a circular motion
• 0:45 - pour rest of water (up to 240g) at around 6-8g/s straight in the middle. Do not swirl. Allow fines to cling to filter paper. You should have a bit of a cave, not a flat bed when it’s done

That’s basically it. He probably includes more info but that’s all I did and it turned out really nice. It’s a low extraction for sure. You’re not getting every super strong flavour out of the beans. But you’re also not getting anything unpleasant out of it. There’s absolutely zero bitterness whatsoever. It’s also not sour at all. Really lovely, super complex flavour. Light body. None of the flavour notes are particularly strong, but you can taste them all still. It’s quite well balanced.

Just for fun I tried it with medium roast commodity coffee. Specifically, Lavazza Oro. It obviously wasn’t nearly as good as Black Moon or Ana Sora but it was still better than my usual Oro pour over I take to work with me. This, I think, is my new pour over recipe for the foreseeable future.

If you have a really fruity or floral bean, and haven’t experimented with lower extraction brews, maybe give this one a try. My past experience with lower extraction brews have tended to be quite sour, but this one isn’t sour at all. Still some acidity for sure, but it’s more juicy. I also can clearly taste all the tasting notes that are on the bag.

Some more pictures from the brew:

I did stop pouring part-way through to take a picture, in case you’re wondering why it’s only 180g at 2 minutes. My other brews were the full 240g by that point and yours should be too, I just wanted to get a picture while it was brewing and got carried away and lost track of time. Whoops.