Notes for better brew v60 and detailed knowledge!

I’ll discuss here will only produce an increase in cup quality of a few % (e.g., “now let’s sift our coffee
grounds for 5 minutes and remove 5 g of the grinds with a 350 μm sieve to achieve a tighter particle size
distribution”), but there are some other aspects of brewing that, despite sounding insane, can have a
profound impact on your cup quality (e.g., “oh no, this tap water has 200 ppm alkalinity”).

The main difference between percolation and immersion arises from the fact that fresh water is a better
solvent than coffee. In an immersion brew, the speed of extraction decreases as the coffee gets more
concentrated, but in a percolation brew, the water in contact with the coffee grounds is almost fresh, so
the extraction is always very efficient.

There are several brew variables that will affect the taste (e.g., extraction yield) and strength of your
cup:

 Coffee to water ratio

 Coffee beans quality
 Roast profile and quality
 Grind size
 Grind uniformity
 Coffee freshness
 Filter quality
 Brew temperature
 Water agitation
 Uniformity of extraction and repeatability
 Water quality
 Contact time between water and grounds

It is useful to describe two relevant ways in which a coffee cup can vary: (1) strength, and (2) extraction
yield. Strength is basically just how concentrated your coffee is, e.g. an espresso is much stronger than a
filter coffee.

Coffee to water ratio and we can also measure by brix meter or

refractometer devices.
By graph we can measure is our cup coffee is too concentrated or weak (mean under or overextractions,
also mean if too much
water or less). Most
people prefer a strength
of 1.15–1.35% TDS.

Grinding
Here’s table chart that shows us difference
between two grinders that was set up for same
grind; MK60 and LIDO3(hand grinder). The
purpose of this experiment was to compare
how big difference can it be:
Grinding “cold” coffee cause us smaller
particles than it should be, so for us is better
to do not grind for filter coffee
The four big enemies of coffee beans are oxygen, humidity, heat and UV light, so you should make sure
that you shield your beans from these four elements.

Store cloth filters properly:

I think using them properly would require boiling them with a strong odorless chemical (e.g. Oxiclean)
after every use, then abundantly rinsing them with fresh water (potentially boiling them a few times in
clean water), and storing them in a closed container in distilled water, in the fridge (for no more than a
week or so before their next use). Just a bit extreme.

Brew temperature:
Matt Perger, an influential coffee expert, suggested that the highest possible brew temperature is great
too, because you can’t burn your coffee. While I agree with this (roast temperatures are much higher than
brew temperatures), you need to keep in mind that different chemical compounds in the coffee bean
extract at different rates, and these rates depend on the water temperature.
(COLD BREW) Ever wondered why cold brew coffee has absolute zero acidity? It’s because acidic
compounds only extract at high temperatures.

Water
1. Total alkanility
This is the total mass fraction of HCO3– negatively charged ions (anions) in your water. This is
often called a buffer because it will react with free H + radicals, and prevent water to become more
acid (smaller pH). Therefore, a high total alkalinity makes your water more stable against changes
toward more acidity. If this is too high however, the HCO 3– anions will start to react chemically
with your coffee flavors, and it will taste dull and flat. The Specialty Coffee Association (SCA)
recommends ~ 40 mg/L total alkalinity.

2. Total hardness
This is the total mass fraction of Ca+ and Mg+ calcium and magnesium positive ions (cations) in
your water. These cations are responsible for bonding with coffee flavours inside the coffee cells,
and bring those back in your coffee cup. They don’t bring the exact same stuff back, so it’s good
to have both, but this is still an active area of research. The SCA recommends a total hardness
of 17 to 85 mg/L.
3. pH
You don’t want free H+ or OH– radicals to start reacting with your coffee, so you’ll want to have a
pH near 7 (neutral). The SCA recommends a pH between 6.5 and 7.5.
4. Cleanliness and good taste
This shouldn’t pose any problems if you started from distilled water, but basically you don’t want
chlorine, too much sodium (SCA recommends less than 10 mg/L sodium), or more generally
dirt in your water.

Scott Rao recommendation: Scott Rao recommends grinding finer and finer (not changing any
other variable) until you can taste astringency, and then go back one notch on your grinder. Another way
to do this is to brew a few cups and blind taste them.
Pic of turbulence, white goes right, black goes left

Water recipe
First, you need to get yourself some magnesium chloride (MgCl2), calcium chloride (CaCl2), potassium
bicarbonate (KHCO3), distilled water and a regular-sized mason jar or something similar to it (don’t
worry, we won’t be preparing triple distilled mason water). Please make sure you are ordering food-grade
(not lab-grade, of pharmaceutical-grade) products. Lab-grade may seem great because it has less
contaminants, but the contaminants can be very nasty for your health (e.g., heavy metals). You’ll also
need a pipette (a small spoon might do) and a precise scale, ideally something at 0.1 g precision or better
(e.g. this thing). Another perfectly acceptable buffer would be the more readily accessible sodium
bicarbonate (NaHCO3) – you’d need to use 1.68 g instead of 2 g of it  to get the same amount of
HCO3– anions (see below), but then you’ll be adding sodium (Na+; ~23 mg/L of it) as well as
HCO3– buffer in your water, which could affect the taste of your coffee (the SCA recommends having less
than 10 mg/L sodium in your water). On the other hand, adding potassium (K +) in your water is not a
problem because coffee beans are already full of it, so it’s unlikely that will affect the taste of your cup.
First pour 194 g distilled water in the mason jar (you can use a Hario scale to weight that if your precise
scale cannot go this high). Add 2 g CaCl2, then 2 g MgCl2, and 2 g KHCO3. Bubbles should appear and
the solution should become white and opaque. Shake it well with a spoon, then let it sit still for a few
hours, with the mason jar top on it, but not screwed (so it can degas without blowing). After a few hours,
you can stir it up to make sure it doesn’t degas too much anymore, then screw up the lid. This is your
minerals concentrate, which you can keep in your fridge.
Now get yourself a large container of distilled water (e.g. 4 liters), and put 10 g/L of concentrate in it (for
a 4 liter container, you need 40 g of concentrate). To do this properly, you can place the concentrate on a
scale, tare it, then take out some concentrate with the pipette until the scale reads -40 g. Every time you
take out some concentrate, you should stir the solution with the pipette, because it quickly precipitates,
and you don’t want to preferentially draw concentrate that is too diluted. Shake the water container well,
and keep it in your fridge. This is your water for brewing coffee.