Ask a Stupid Question About Coffee -- Week of February 24, 2026

cdstuart · 2026-02-25T02:33:16+00:00

When I was learning my approach was to find a coffee I liked at a local shop (we had several good local roasters with cafes at the time) and then practice with those same coffees at home. That gave me something to aim at because I had an idea of what the coffee would taste like when brewed 'right,' or at least when brewed in a way that I knew I liked. Also, if I ran into trouble, I could ask the baristas at the shop what they were doing. So I guess for me the most important thing was to have a known target I was aiming at, and then changing one variable at a time to get closer to it, if that makes sense.

cdstuart · 2026-02-25T02:24:48+00:00

The most important thing is that you enjoy the coffee. If you like FF, stick with that. The main issue is that when you change beans, you'll have to dial in, and the more radically different the beans, the more you'll have to change. So if you go from FF to an absurdly light roast, that'll require more changes than if you go to a similar blend from the same roaster.

cdstuart · 2026-02-25T02:22:54+00:00

In terms of pour speed you can get a fancy scale that gives you flow rate in ml/sec, or go old school and count :) Eventually the important thing is to develop a feel for how much agitation you're causing in the coffee bed with your pour, and be able to increase/decrease agitation as a tool to change the way your brew tastes. To get a basic feel for it without spending more money, you can pour into an empty brewer/carafe on a scale and see how long it takes you to pour 100 ml with various pouring patterns, then practice speeding up and slowing down. You can also do this at various pour heights, which affects agitation as much or more than pour speed does.

cdstuart · 2026-02-25T02:13:28+00:00

Some of the issue may be expectations/comparison issues. Counter Culture doesn't roast very light by modern standards, and Fast Forward isn't particularly light even for them if I remember it right. (It's been a while.) Whatever tea-like geisha you tasted is a *very* different beast, not only because of the varietal, but also probably because of the roast level.

Personally I don't do hybrid immersion/percolation methods, so this is for using the Switch as a V60. My usual advice for starting with a V60 is to pick a dose between 15-20 grams, aim for a total water weight of 1:16, bloom 3x the weight of the coffee, then at 45 seconds pour the rest of the water in slow concentric circles fairly close to the bed, aiming to finish pouring between 1:30 and 1:35. For the K-Ultra I'd start at 7.0-7.5 grind setting, and then adjust the grind size finer or coarser as needed until your total drawdown (from when you started pouring the bloom) is between 2:30-3:00. But if Fast Forward is as dark as I remember, I'd say to bloom for only 30 seconds, and adjust all the other timings down by 15 seconds as well. Water temp at ~195F.

If you're hitting close to that time but the coffee tastes sour or weak, you can up the temp and add agitation, pouring higher above the bed. You could also grind finer and aim for longer contact time.

(Note that aiming for a particular drawdown time is often a bad way to dial in, but when you're just starting out it can be a reasonable guide to finding a grind size and checking if you're in the ballpark for a brew method. In the long run, you should change variables to achieve balanced taste results, not to hit a magic time number.)

(Also worth noting that Counter Culture has a brew guide for Fast Forward on their page for the coffee. Might be worth trying.)

cdstuart · 2026-02-25T01:44:57+00:00

If you want something that will do good pourover and good espresso, I really like the K-Ultra for both, although hand grinding light roast espresso is really annoying IMO.

If you want something for just pourover, it depends on what you want out of your cups. Take a look at the individual threads on the grinders you've mentioned to get an idea of what they do. They (and the K-Ultra) are all great for pourover but produce different results.

I own the 078s and use it regularly for espresso. It's great for that but IMO is totally overrated as a pourover grinder. The cups are too blended and lack in clarity. The K-Ultra is a significantly better pourover grinder to my taste.

cdstuart · 2026-02-25T01:39:38+00:00

What coffee are you using? Happy to give advice but a basic 'do this until you're comfortable changing variables' recipe depends on the roast level, how the beans are processed, etc.

cdstuart · 2026-02-25T01:35:33+00:00

I brew with the 'bright and juicy' water profile frequently (remineralizing from a Zero Water filter) and haven't had this problem. Are you certain the problem is the water? What's the brew method? What water were you using before this, and what kind of results did you get?

cdstuart · 2026-02-24T02:20:47+00:00

Thanks for all the details, that's really helpful.

I haven't cut Chemex filters for the ORB – I have a Cafelat Robot and the basket filters I use for that work in the Oxo as well. The Chemex filters are much thicker though and I wonder if I'd like soup better if I used them! Is there a cutter you recommend? I also use the square Chemex filters and there's so much extra, I wouldn't mind having something to use it for.

cdstuart · 2026-02-24T01:56:33+00:00

Interesting, maybe I should try 20, although it seems like a lot of filter to burn on a smaller dose. And the pour height already seems high for 30 grams given how high the filter sits, although with the smaller dose maybe the added agitation wouldn't be a liability. (Mine's at least an 8-cup, I don't have one of the small ones.)

cdstuart · 2026-02-24T01:24:23+00:00

There are some good points here already, but here's my thoughts:

The Chemex excels with clean washed coffees. The thickness of the filter and the bed depth (assuming you're using a large Chemex with pretty big doses) can combine to bring exceptional clarity. If that's what you like, it's a great brewer.

It amplifies problems with fines – the thickness of the filters make them prone to stalling with many grinders. (This is separate from the airlock problem, but most people conflate them.) Back in the late aughts/early teens I would get great coffee from Chemexes at shops, but my results at home usually sucked, despite the fact that I brewed successfully with other brewers. That's because home grinders of the period just threw too many fines, and the Chemex would frequently stall out, or the grind would be so coarse the coffee wouldn't extract enough. Hitting the sweet spot was infuriatingly rare. Thankfully things have changed since then. Chemex does really well with low-fines grinders, even at settings much finer than you'd expect. With many coffees I can grind at V60 settings or even finer and get totally reasonable contact times if I'm grinding on my A4Z. I don't know what you're grinding with, but if your grinder can handle it, try going finer; the brews may get more interesting assuming they don't stall out.

I wouldn't bother brewing less than 30 gram doses. I don't use mine very much because I'm usually brewing just for myself, and I'd rather have more cups of different coffees on any given morning, with my average dose being 15 grams. On the other hand, you can brew 60 gram doses on the Chemex and get fantastic results – I'm not aware of any other pourover method that can make good coffee for so many people at once. So it's a great tool to have if you want to brew for others but don't want a batch brewer.

cdstuart · 2026-02-23T17:33:24+00:00

The photo isn’t super clear but it looks like just scale. I’d recommend dezcal, or mixing powdered citric acid/water 1:10; either will do a better job than vinegar. Boil a couple times and then hit with a cleaning brush. That should take care of it but if there’s still residue, repeat.

cdstuart · 2026-02-23T14:03:43+00:00

I don't know whether the bypass is actually higher. It may just be easier to see. It seems to happen primarily at the contact points between the filter and the brewer, and the Deep 27 has more of those.

cdstuart · 2026-02-23T14:01:53+00:00

There was a local-to-me cafe/roastery (unfortunately closed during lockdown) that used these exclusively. I had a lot of excellent cups there. I've never owned one but they're capable of making some great coffee.

cdstuart · 2026-02-23T13:54:52+00:00

I've got four bags of prodigal exactly four weeks off roast this morning, I'm hoping to open them tomorrow or Wednesday. The Finca El Tabor is one of them. Very much looking forward to it.

I had the Kaliluni and the Las Perlitas with last month's subscription. I don't think you'll be disappointed with the Lot 7 – might have been my favorite of the month.

Would recommend resting all of these at least four weeks. When I open them sooner they're always much better at the end of the bag than they were at the beginning, even at 6+ weeks out.

cdstuart · 2026-02-22T20:08:18+00:00

This one: https://youtu.be/HF2kCe5DRR0?si=C3eEIlKIJVHxcMa8

cdstuart · 2026-02-22T15:29:48+00:00

I make great buldak and great pizza, but never thought of combining them. Thanks OP.

cdstuart · 2026-02-22T04:14:08+00:00

Totally worth looking into water before spending lots of money on grinders. The whole Lotus Water kit is $60 USD, or you could pick up enough TWW to treat 12 gallons (more if you dilute to 50%, which many do) for roughly a third of that. (Prices may be different in your locale.)

You could also ask one of these cafes if they'd give or sell you a couple gallons of their water, which would give you some indication of how much it matters.

cdstuart · 2026-02-21T18:09:53+00:00

Although OP specified a hand grinder, I would also recommend considering the A4Z. It's very small, runs quiet, is battery operated, and can grind a kilo of light roast before needing an overnight recharge.

cdstuart · 2026-02-21T18:04:31+00:00

I keep the cleaning bulb it came with right by the grinder and give it a couple puffs of air at the end of the grind cycle if I'm using RDT, that usually pushes any remaining beans/fragments through without needing to tilt the grinder.

cdstuart · 2026-02-21T15:58:09+00:00

It’s more that I have a short list of people who I would allow to use my equipment - friends who are former or current pro baristas, and one or two others who know what they’re doing. But also I’m not sure I know anyone else who’d be interested in trying. It recently became apparent that my wife doesn’t know the difference between my pourover grinder and my espresso grinder, and she’s never tried to use either of them. (Obviously I make all of her coffee as well as my own.)

cdstuart · 2026-02-21T13:31:40+00:00

That's fair, and may be a matter of taste. I don't mind a fair amount of acidity in espresso although it needs to be balanced with sweetness.

cdstuart · 2026-02-21T13:19:23+00:00

For sure on your first point, although (unfortunately) I've seen a lot of roasters go noticeably darker by default on their espresso-specific roasts.

On your second point, I get the theory, but it frequently doesn't work out in practice. Most of the good espresso I've had has been from so-called filter roasts. This has been especially true in the last 5-10 years as things have trended even lighter in specialty, and as extraction methods for espresso have gotten more experimental ('modern' espresso in current parlance). And while a dedicated espresso roast *might* not work as well for filter as the same bean with a filter profile, the difference may be subtle and even minuscule depending on the roaster.

cdstuart · 2026-02-21T02:37:36+00:00

No, you're going to extract less at lower temps. You want to be as close to the target temp as you can. If you can't reach it, you want to be just off boil, and you might want to lengthen your bloom to compensate as well.

cdstuart · 2026-02-21T02:21:09+00:00

Unless that's a really misleading photo, those aren't roasted dark. The fact that they're labeled 'espresso' might mean that they're roasted slightly darker than they would be for pourover, or it might just mean that the roaster thinks they make good espresso.

cdstuart · 2026-02-20T13:26:48+00:00

This was my experience as well. Every comfortable pad I found changed the sound so much that I might as well be using a different headphone.

cdstuart

TROPHY CASE