The extraction method matters when picking the ideal temperature for brewed coffee.

The extraction method matters when picking the ideal temperature for brewed coffee.


After Scott Lush’s surprising and insightful post about water temperature (no it was not surprising that he was insightful – it was just a post that was insightful with a result that was surprising to me) about water temperature for brewed coffee, which you can find here…

http://www.roaste.com/CoffeeBlogs/scott/2-Surprising-Finds-about-Coffee-...


I blogged about the fact that my results further supported his suggestions here…

http://www.roaste.com/CoffeeBlogs/wakeknot/Lush-experiment-coffee-and-wa....


I recently was given a Hario V60, which has knocked off my Timolino (clever-like) dripper as my favorite method of making brewed coffee.


Today was the first time I decided to test it for the ideal water temperature.  I made two cups of an Ethiopian coffee that a friend (the same one) who is a home roaster extraordinaire had given me.  The first was prepared with the V60 using water just off the boil and the second was done using water at 175 degrees, closer to my ideal temperature for the Timolino.   This time the results were reversed.  Both cups were quite good as you might expect, but the lower temp cup was not as complex and was just a little flat.  It was pleasant to drink, but just did not reach the heights that the other cup did.  


I speculate that the difference here may be that the V60 has such a large hole and extracts so much faster that it is prone to extracting a little less from the coffee.  Now, perhaps a finer grind should be used in turn to reverse this but given how good the coffee is at the higher temperature it may not be the right strategy.


I will have to brew a pot at 185 or so and see if that hits the spot, but for now I think I have enough coffee in my system so that experiment will simply have to wait for another day!