13 Oct 2026
The Hario V60 is a cone, a paper filter and a jug. There is nothing to adjust and nothing to blame, which is exactly why a bad V60 feels personal. The good news is that four habits take care of almost every fault, and none of them cost anything.
Habit one: rinse the paper, then weigh
Put the filter in the cone and run hot water through it until it is soaked, then tip that water out of the jug. This does two jobs. It washes off the papery taste, and it preheats the cone and the jug so your brew water does not lose five degrees the moment it lands.
Then weigh. The ratio that works almost everywhere is 15g of coffee to 250g of water, which is one generous mug. Scale it up by doubling both. Kitchen scales are fine; you do not need a brewing scale to start.
Water should be just off the boil, around 93 to 96 degrees. If you have no thermometer, boil the kettle, take the lid off and wait thirty seconds.
Habit two: let the clock set your grind
Grind medium fine, about the texture of sand. Then time the brew from the first pour to the last drip. You are aiming for roughly three minutes.
The clock tells you what to change:
- Finished in under two and a half minutes and tastes sour: grind finer.
- Took over three and a half minutes and tastes bitter or dry: grind coarser.
This is the whole feedback loop. Change the grind, not the recipe, and give each change one full brew before you judge it.
Habit three: bloom, then pour in stages
Start with about 45g of water, just enough to wet all the grounds, and wait thirty to forty seconds. Fresh coffee releases carbon dioxide trapped from roasting, and if you pour straight through it, that gas pushes the water away from the grounds and the extraction goes uneven. A proper bloom will rise and crackle.
Then pour the rest in two or three additions rather than one long stream, keeping the water level roughly steady and pouring in small circles away from the edges. Water that runs down the paper has skipped the coffee entirely.
A gooseneck kettle makes this easier, but a steady hand and a normal kettle will do.
Habit four: give it fresh coffee and decent water
Filter brewing hides nothing. There is no milk and no pressure to cover a tired bean, so coffee more than a month past roast will taste flat no matter how carefully you pour.
Buy whole beans, grind them as you brew, and keep the bag sealed and out of the light. Sydney tap water is good enough for a V60, though a basic filter jug helps if your water tastes of chlorine.
The full recipe, in order
- Rinse the paper with hot water and tip it out.
- 15g medium fine coffee, levelled flat in the cone.
- Pour 45g of water, wait 35 seconds for the bloom.
- Pour to 150g in slow circles.
- Pour to 250g once the level drops.
- Drawdown should finish around three minutes.
Taste it black before you add anything. That is where you find out whether to move the grinder next time.
What to brew
Lighter, fruitier coffees reward filter brewing most, because the method keeps the acidity and the aromatics that milk would otherwise cover. Bondi Blend is the lightest roast we make, with raw cacao, raspberry and almond butter in it, and it is the one we would put in a V60 first.
If you do not own the brewer yet, the Hario V60 Craft Coffee Maker comes with the cone, the jug, a scoop and a starter pack of filters.
