So, you want to brew pour over coffee the right way — by hand. You’ve tossed aside your regular old coffee machine because you want to be better than everyone, we get it!
Welcome to our Hario V60 recipe and pour over brew guide — everything you need to know about how to make pour over coffee with the Hario V60. Let’s walk through how to make this artisanal, totally-worth-the-effort pour over coffee and why Hario V60 is so great for it!
What’s a Hario V60?
The Hario V60 is a superstar dripper in the world of pour over coffee! Its clever design puts you in control of every step, helping you brew a cup that’s just the way you like it—smooth, flavorful, and oh-so-satisfying.
Why the Hario V60 is Awesome for a Pour Over:
- Cool V Shape & Spiral Ridges: These keep the coffee flowing smoothly, preventing bitterness and giving you a perfectly balanced brew. No water pooling, just pure coffee magic!
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Big Single Hole: This handy feature lets you control how fast and hot your brew is. Want a bright, zippy cup? Pour faster for a shorter brew. Craving something rich and bold? Take it slow to give your coffee more time to bloom.
Why You’ll Love It:
The Hario V60 lets you be the boss of your coffee! With its smart design, you can tweak everything—water temperature, pouring speed, and more—to make your perfect cup every time. It’s perfect for anyone who loves experimenting and discovering new flavors in their coffee.
Ready to brew like a pro? Grab a Hario V60 and let’s get brewing!
What You Need for a Hario V60 Pour Over Coffee (AKA Our Amazon Faves):
To get the most from your Hario V60, there's some fancy equipment you’ll need to make you look like you know what you’re doing! These tools let you get the perfect grind size, temperature, and pour technique.
- Hario V60 dripper (V60 01 or V60 02)
- V60 paper filters
- Laidrey Coffee Beans (Not the pre-ground stuff…please)
- A gooseneck kettle for precision (or just a regular kettle)
- A scale and timer (optional but recommended for better tasting coffee)
- Water heated to 195ºF to 205ºF (water temperature is very important!)
Hario V60 Pour Over Brew Guide Steps:
So how do you achieve the perfect cup of pour over with this handy dripper?
Step 1: Choose Your Coffee Beans Like They’re Fine Wine
With a Hario V60, the coffee beans are the star of the show. Get coffee beans that are high quality and have flavor notes that appeal to you the most! Some say the fresher the beans, the better, but if you get good quality beans this doesn’t matter as much. Just make sure they are not stale!
Going with light roast or medium roast beans doesn't matter; just go with what makes you feel superior. Here at Laidrey, we always have a coffee we recommend for pour over. Go for these to get a deeply rich and complex flavor in your cup!
But don't feel like you can't experiment with other selections. For example, if you want a chocolate-forward flavor, medium roast is the way to go, like our Guatemala Coffee.
Pro tip for Hario V60 pour over coffee beans: buy your coffee beans whole and grind them fresh!
Step 2: Grind Your Coffee Beans
Getting the grind size right is very important for a Hario V60. Too bitter? Too sour? It all comes down to how your grind size impacts extraction time.
Here’s the scoop: If your grind is too fine, the water takes forever to flow through, over-extracting your coffee and leaving you with a bitter brew.
If your grind is too coarse, water zips through too quickly, skipping the good stuff and leaving you with a flat, boring cup.
You want to go for a medium grind, like sea salt. Not table salt, and certainly not powder. If you’re confused, join the club! The goal is to achieve that “just right” zone where it’s not too fine and not too coarse. We recommend using any burr grinder, like the Fellow Coffee Grinder, for cafe quality grinds every time. Trust us, your taste buds will thank you!
Step 3: Master the Brew Ratio of Your Hario V60
Getting the brew ratio right is a game-changer for your Hario V60 pour-over. It’s what sets the strength and balance of your coffee—no guesswork, just pure coffee bliss. Time to measure your coffee and water like you’re conducting a science experiment. You need a close-to-perfect brew ratio when making pour-over coffee.
We recommend a 1:15 brew ratio for a beautifully balanced cup. For every gram of coffee, use 15 grams of water. So for 20 grams of coffee, you’re going to use 300 grams of water. Easy right? Just make sure you use a scale when measuring everything out because we want to be overachievers!
Step 4: Prepare the V60 Like a Pro
Here’s where the Hario V60 pour over brew starts to get exciting. Pop that paper filter in your Hario V60 and rinse it with hot water.
Why? To get rid of the paper taste, and to preheat the brewer. You don’t want your coffee tasting like recycled notebook paper. After your filter is nice and warm, dump the rinse water and put the V60 on top of your mug or server.
Step 5: Add the Coffee, You Coffee Snob
Now, measure out 20 grams of your freshly ground, artisanal coffee. Use your burr grinder because a blade grinder is a huge pour over no no. Dump the coffee into the filter, and give it a few little taps on the side of the V60 to level it out, and to look cool. This helps with even extraction.
Step 6: The Bloom
This is where things get exciting—let’s talk about the bloom! If you’re wondering, “What’s a bloom?”, it’s when the coffee grounds release gas, making room for water to fully soak up all those delicious flavors in the beans. Here’s how to nail the bloom.- Start Your Timer: Timing is key!
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Pour 50 Grams of Water: That’s about double the weight of your coffee grounds. Use slow, gentle circles as you pour to evenly saturate the grounds.
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Let It Bloom for 45 Seconds: This step is crucial for unlocking the full flavor potential of your coffee.
- Enjoy the aroma and watch the magic happen: Your coffee is waking up, and your cup is about to be amazing!
Step 7: Pouring with the Hario V60
Now comes the fun part— pouring the rest of the water! You can’t just dump it in the rest of your water and call it a day. No, you have to pour it slowly and evenly, in circles, as if you’re performing some kind of ancient ritual. This method helps extract all the delicious flavors from your coffee by evenly saturating the grounds. So how do you master the pour?
- Grab Your Gooseneck Kettle (because of course you bought one): It’s your best friend for even pouring.
- First Pour (45 Seconds): At the 45-second mark, pour 100 grams of water in slow, steady spirals, starting at the center and moving to the edges, then back to the center.
- Second Pour (1:00): Once the timer hits one minute, repeat the motion and pour another 100 grams of water. Don’t rush this. After all, you’re here for the slow and painful joy of manual brewing, right?
- Final Pour (1:30): At one minute and thirty seconds, finish with the last 50 grams of water.
By the end, you should have poured a total of 300 grams of water. The entire brew process should take about 2:30 to 3 minutes.
Step 8: Bask in Your Coffee Glory
Once the water has dripped through, sit back, relax, and think about the fact that you just spent 10 minutes making the perfect pour over coffee. Now the best part. Taste your pour-over coffee and enjoy basking in sipping a high-quality cup of coffee.
Final Thoughts: Is It Worth Making a Pour-Over in a Hario V60?
Yes, pour-over coffee takes more time, effort, and equipment than pressing a single button on your coffee machine. But that’s what makes it special! Sure, you could get an automatic coffee maker and save yourself the hassle, but don’t you want to be more sophisticated than that? If you’ve made it this far, you’re clearly dedicated. Enjoy your hard-earned cup of artisanal brewed coffee.
Our Hario V60 Recipe: Make the Perfect Pour-Over at Home
Recipe:
Dose: 20g ground coffee
Ratio: 1:15
Yield: 300g water
Temperature: 195ºF to 205ºF
Grind Size: Medium Grind
- Choose your Laidrey Coffee Beans
- Grind your coffee beans with a burr grinder on medium grind
- Place filter in your Hario V60
- Rinse filter
- Dump rinse water
- Place ground coffee in filter
- Tap sides of Hario V60 to level grinds
- Place Hario V60 on mug (10-12oz)
- Place Hario V60 and mug on scale
- Tare and start timer
- At 0:00 pour 50g for 45 seconds to bloom the coffee
- At 0:45 pour to 150g
- At 1:00 pour to 250g
- At 1:30 pour to 300g
- Let water drip through completely
- Remove Hario V60
- Enjoy!