A three-minute V60 pour-over

This is the recipe we teach every new barista and the one I make at home most mornings. It is forgiving, it works with every coffee we roast, and it takes about three minutes once the kettle is hot.

Steps

1. Put a paper filter in the V60 and rinse it with hot water. This gets rid of the papery taste and warms the server. Pour the rinse water out.
2. Add the ground coffee and give the cone a gentle shake so the bed is flat. Put everything on your scale and tare it.
3. Bloom: start a timer and pour 50 g of water, enough to wet all the grounds. Swirl once. Wait 40 seconds while the coffee releases its gas.
4. Pours two to four: pour in slow spirals to 160 g at 0:40, to 260 g at 1:10, and to 360 g at 1:40. Keep the stream away from the paper.
5. Give the cone one last gentle swirl and let it drain. It should finish around three minutes.

If it does not taste right

Sour, thin or finished in under 2:30? Grind finer. Bitter, dry or still dripping after 3:45? Grind coarser. Change one thing at a time, and only a notch or two on the grinder.

Very fresh coffee can bubble up a lot during the bloom. That is normal; if it happens occassionally even with week-old coffee, try a slightly longer bloom of 45 seconds.

For a lighter, more floral coffee like our Kenya Nyeri, drop the water to 200°F. For the Sumatra, go a little coarser.