The last of three notes written for friends getting into filter coffee — after the gear and the tasting.

I found this to be a great all round method for brewing coffee. I was mainly taught this method at ONA when I went for their coffee training some time in 2023.

Recipe and method are different things

Before we think about brewing a V60, we have got to understand the inputs that go into brewing coffee in general. There are two categories of inputs, the recipe and the method.

Brew recipe

A coffee recipe is a list of variables that you can control regardless of the method or brewer that you use. They are the most impactful variables. The brew recipe consists of:

• The water temperature
• The grind size
• The water to bean ratio

Brew method

The method is how you will actually brew the coffee. Using a cooking analogy, the “recipe” is how you prepare your ingredients and the “method” is how you cook.

When you search for “coffee recipe” or “coffee method”, people on the internet frequently use them interchangeably. So it might get confusing, but you will always see a list of variables that you can use to replicate someone’s method. Here are the inputs in the brew method:

• Brewer choice (Aeropress, V60, flat-bottom, french press, etc.)
• Filter material (paper, steel, gold, cloth, etc.)
• Brew time
• Pour method (4:6, Hoffman, Hedrick, etc.) — this is actually the most common thing that you can find on YouTube because everyone wants to make their own method

A starter recipe and method

As you start with the V60, I would start by learning the 4:6 method because it’s a good introduction to how to pour and it’s quite beginner friendly. If you make a mistake, you still get a decent end result. It doesn’t punish you as much for having poor pouring technique.

Because there are so many parameters when it comes to brewing coffee, I would start with a base recipe and method then branch out from there depending on your taste.

Here’s a beginner 4:6 method and recipe.

Recipe

• Water temperature: 94°C - 96°C
• Grind size: medium-coarse (it should be close to grinded sea salt). You can use the brew time as an indicator to what grind size you are using
• Water to bean ratio: 1:15

Method

• Brewer: V60
• Filter material: paper
• Brew time: 2:00 - 3:00. If your brew time is more than this range, your grind is too fine. If it’s less than this range, then it’s too coarse
• Method: 4:6

Typically, I recommend just starting with 20g of coffee and doing 5 pours of 60g each just to make the math easier. If you wanted less or more coffee, you can use more or less coffee but keep within the 1:15 ratio.

In terms of actually pouring, this is what that would look like:

• Pour 60g (wait 30s or more)
• Pour until 120g (wait until you can see the coffee bed)
• Pour until 180g (wait until you can see the coffee bed)
• Pour until 240g (wait until you can see the coffee bed)
• Pour until 300g
• Small swirl to level the bed

If you just search “4:6 pour over method” you will find a lot of information detailing what the method is and how to tweak other aspects.

The bloom

The first pour of any method is known as the bloom. This is when the coffee expands as the hot water enters the beans. This expansion gets the coffee beans ready to accept hot water and is arguably the most important phase. That’s why for any first pour, it’s important to wait at least 30s before pouring again.

If you have fresher coffee, you can get away with 30s blooms, but if your coffee is older I would use a minimum bloom time of 1 minute. Some people even bloom for 4 minutes but I think that’s taking things too far. Because I don’t trust roasters — they can back date roast dates to make it seem fresher — I would generally bloom for 45s to 1 minute just to be safe.

Pouring

A big part of the V60 is how you pour hot water on the coffee bed. There are pouring methods that punish you less (single pour recipes, linked below) but I think learning to pour is part of the fun of learning the V60.

I recommended you pour 60g in a circular motion in 10s. That isn’t a hard and fast rule, but you generally want all your water in there as quick as possible while being as uniform as possible. 60g in 10s is just the general rule.

As you are just starting out, I wouldn’t worry about it too much. I recommend just trying to cover the coffee bed as evenly as possible while hitting the target weight. For the 4:6 method, meeting the weight target is more important than how you pour, to some extent. Just don’t pour straight down the middle.

To pour — and it’s hard for me to describe this — start from the center and then in a circular motion move outwards towards the rim of the brewer, and finally finish back in the center.

Other popular recipes and methods

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AI4ynXzkSQo
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BG5Tc8MR2_4

Read next

If you want the version that fits in a bag: 4 by 6 V60 Method (Portable) V2.