The recipe used in competition, explained step by step — and the detail almost nobody applies: dialling in the grind by watching the drawdown rather than the total clock.
What makes it special
The V60 is a cone with a large hole at the bottom and spiral ribs on the wall. That geometry stops the water pooling: almost all the control is yours, in how and when you pour.
Which makes it simultaneously the most expressive method and the easiest to get wrong. An automatic drip machine forgives your errors; the V60 shows you every one of them.
What you need
- A V60 and paper filters in size 01 (1-2 cups) or 02 (2-4).
- Scales accurate to 1 g. Essential, not optional.
- A grinder that produces an even grind. This makes the biggest difference of anything.
- A gooseneck kettle — greatly improves control, but you can start without one by pouring slowly from any jug.
- A thermometer, or simply boil and wait a minute.
Recipe for 2 cups
This is the structure popularised by James Hoffmann, and it works very consistently:
- Coffee: 30 g, medium grind (like coarse table salt).
- Water: 500 g at 93-96 °C. A 1:16.6 ratio.
- Rinse the filter with hot water and discard it. This removes the paper taste and preheats the cone.
- Bloom: pour 60 g, stir gently to wet all the coffee and wait 45 seconds.
- First pour: up to 300 g, spiralling out from the centre, over about 30 seconds.
- Second pour: up to 500 g, over another 30 seconds.
- Final swirl: gently rotate the V60 to level the coffee bed.
- Total: it should finish draining between 3:00 and 3:30.
The bloom isn't a ritual
Freshly roasted coffee holds CO₂. Wetting it releases that gas, which pushes water away and prevents it soaking the grounds evenly. The 45-second bloom lets it escape before extraction proper begins.
It's also the best freshness test there is: if the surface swells and bubbles vigorously when wetted, the coffee is fresh. If it barely moves, that coffee has been roasted too long ago and no technique will save it.
Dial in the grind with the clock
Here's what separates someone who improves from someone who's been making the same mediocre coffee for a year. Don't judge by the total time: judge by how long the water takes to drain after the final pour.
| What you see | What it means | Correction |
|---|---|---|
| Finishes before 2:45 and tastes sour or weak | Water passed too quickly | Grind finer |
| Past 4:00 and tastes bitter or drying | Over-extracted | Grind coarser |
| Stalls, barely drips | Too many fines clogging the paper | Coarser grind; may be the grinder |
The three common faults
Pouring too hard and at the edges. It pushes coffee up against the paper wall, where water no longer touches it. Pour in concentric circles without reaching the rim.
Coffee stranded on the filter walls. That coffee is out of the extraction. The final swirl returns it to the bed; that's why it's done.
A blade grinder. It doesn't grind, it shatters. It produces large fragments and dust at once, and in a V60 that means bitterness and a clog simultaneously. It's the real ceiling on many setups — covered in the grinder guide.
Temperature by roast level
Light roasts are denser and less soluble: they want hot water, 94-96 °C. Dark roasts are already very soluble and over-extract readily: drop to 88-91 °C and you'll gain sweetness and lose bitterness.
It's the adjustment most people ignore and one of the most noticeable.
Which coffee to use
The V60 is built for light and medium single origins, where the acidity and fruit notes have something to say. Our Colombia, with its acidity and caramel and red fruit backbone, is a good place to start.
If pour-over feels too demanding for everyday, the French press gives similar results with half the attention, and the AeroPress is the portable version. And if you want the beans that work best in pour-over, they're in our selection of coffee for filter and V60.
