Testing the V60 Drip-Assist by Hario | Coffee with April
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- Опубліковано 25 тра 2022
- This week, we're testing a brewing device; the V60 Drip-Assist from Hario.
The V60 is a legendary coffee dripper, producing wonderfully clean cups and capable of producing very consistent results. The Drip-Assist has been produced to work in combination with the V60, helping to make your brews even more consistent and reducing the need for a gooseneck kettle when pouring.
To make this video a little bit more interesting, we decided to use this device with our own plastic April Brewer. The April Brewer is a flat bed dripper that is a similar diameter to V60, making this a very interesting experiment.
If you would like to see more about this brewing device, you can find more information by following this link: global.hario.com/drip-assist....
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Produced by April Media - 2022
![[HARIO] V60 Drip-Assist Recipe - Matt Winton (World Brewers Cup Champion)](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/1EblQV_TaC0/mqdefault.jpg)
I really like it as part of my travel kit, with plastic V60 (and commandante). At home with gooseneck kettle I dont use it, but it really makes pooring water more consistent in hotels/airbnb places where I can only find standard kettles.
Melodrip might be a good option for something that distributes the water but gives you a little more control over the pouring structure and allows you to agitate by pouring around it, or pouring more aggressively through it. I've used mine with the April along with a number of other brewers with success.
One of the things that Pete Licata advises is making sure to increase your water temperature by 2 degrees. So if you brew with say 96 degrees then you would raise it to 98 degrees and brew from there. I believe this is to combat the temperature exchange that occurs whilst water passes through the drip-assist. Hope that's helpful :)
As someone who was gifted a kit that included a Hario drip assist, and had to function for a time without a gooseneck kettle, I really liked the device, as it allowed me, a beginner, to see the advantages of having a precise flow control.
Now that I'm more experienced, and have fallen deeper in the coffee rabbit hole and purchased a cheap gooseneck kettle, I don't use it as much, and actually gave it to my cousin who has expressed interest in pourover coffee.
As always, Patrik and April provide great food for thought with regard to our coffee brewing adventures. At what point do we reach a point of diminishing return…RDT, WDT, distribution tools, this brewer, that brewer, puck screens, puck filters, this burr, that burr, immersion, percolation, $4,000 grinders, $6,000 espresso machines…does any of this really deliver a ROI - and more importantly, an improvement in our coffee - or are we, in fact, at the point where we’re cutting facets on turds? Are we at the point that we’re allowing “perfect” to get in the way of “good?” Does that $4,000 grinder or that $6,000 espresso machine make coffee that is really that much better? Or anything of this other stuff? My grinder upgrades have made for a marked difference in the enjoyment of the coffee I’m making, as has my exploration of home roasting, but beyond that, I wouldn’t trade my $169 U.S.D. Bonavita batch brewer for anything I’m seeing out there be it a pour over or espresso machine. To my tastes (and that’s the important thing - my tastes may not align with other folks), I just haven’t found a better coffee experience. At what point is good coffee, a decent grinder and a decent brewer enough? OK, maybe a temperature controlled kettle….
Save money on equipment and buy more interesting and varied beans is my approach. I have some some amazing Finca Takesi beans at the moment. Expensive, yes - but my cloth filter Chemex, Encore+M2 burr&NFC Disk, and temperature controlled kettle - not so much in the face of the Espresso world.
EDIT: April brewer has replaced the cloth Chemex.
Just watched this and reckon Jonathan gagne's theory makes sense.. which is lowered fines migration due to lower agitation.. that explains higher flow rate and also more uniform extraction which could be causing the flatter profile.. I also notice this when using the drip assist
After a initial turbulence pour place a disk of filter paper on the surface of the coffee slurry to enter into a laminar flow.
Tested and daily used with chemex paper ~ 6 cm diameter. (Cut from the edge of the square filter FS-100). The disk will float despite water is poured directly onto it. Other papers likely will also work.
I can make some interesting 200ml cups with the Drip-Assist and the April brewer using coffee ground quite finely by April standards (5 on the 1Zpresso K-Plus).
Great review!
I think the coffeebed temperature is a potential confounder. My guess is that it's much decreased due to the distribution tool, possible explaining the lack of complex flavours. Was the extraction lower compared to your regular brew?
Another potential confounder is the draw down time. I couldn't follow your explanation why it's decreased. I'd actually expect it to be increased due to decreased bypass and decreased water temperature. How different where the draw down times?
This also raises the question how we need to compare these recipes. Perhaps the distribution tool enables a finer grind size enabling higher but still homogeneous extractions, which might be beneficial. Perhaps we should normalize for the brew temperature by decreasing the brew temperature of the regular recipe without distribution tool. The main disadvantage of te distribution tool, however, is probably the influence it has on the coffeebed temperature, which will remain difficult to overcome; a quantification of the impact it has on the coffeebed temperature would be interesting to test still.
Thanks again! Always very interesting video's!
Have you ever used it?
Shorter draw down time is expected as with the drip assist there's way less disturbance of the coffee bed and this allows the water to flow more easily. Less turbulence also allows to use much hotter water, even boiling water (available everywhere and doesn't require a temp control kettle) and still get pretty consistent results without any hint of bitterness. The creator of the drip assist, Pete Licata, suggest to increase water temperature to compensate for the evaporative cooling effect that takes place when the water is exposed over the tool. But the dripper itself also acts as a heat retention cap, so that bed temperature stays high for longer.
From the video, if all variables remain equal, you just shouldn't compare a brew with the tool against a brew without it. I've had sweeter, layered, vibrant cups using the drip assist but brewing really hot and using much finer grounds. I always use pulse pouring to enhance extraction efficiency.
Manual pouring is a romantic ritual but we can't deny the advantages on consistency, sweetness and balance when using the drip assistant device.
As a note, kalitta filters induce lots of bypass. Would highly suggest to use a Kono or V60 dripper instead to bring out even more potential out of this drip assist device.
Many things to highlight here:
1. Coffee bed temperature: highly dependant on how good you preheated your dripper, ambient temperature, air flow, elevation and water mass of course. Now please keep in mind that the hotter the water the faster it cools down (evaporative cooling is fast)
2. When you put the drip assist device on your dripper it also helps to keep temperature more stable. It can't avoid evaporation (cooling) but can certainly help to retain the heat.
3. Low turbulence doesn't detach the fines from the bigger particles. Without fines migration you'll get much less filter choking. This alone speeds up the drawdown flow. And as water gets hotter and hotter its viscosity also decreases which in turn enhances drawdown rate.
4. To compensate for faster drawdown rate you can grind significantly finer and still avoid channelling, filter choking and bitterness in your cup. All this in exchange for better extraction and much more complexity, Sweetness and overall mouthfeel.
5. Purists tend to demerit drip assistant devices and think that pouring from the kettle is the only (and better) way to achieve a really awesome cup. But this ain't true. I've had the chance to talk with Pete Licata and he's a knowledgeable expert, champion and featured inventor with Hario. He's clear in pointing out that the drip assist is designed to be a helpful tool for amateurs and professionals. It's not just a fancy gadget and the theory behind it is really interesting and fascinating. This dude is a world champion and no need to mention who's Hario.
6. Pulse pouring is always an option with this device. But now you can use even more short pulses and still avoid bitterness. So don't be afraid to dive deep the rabbit hole!
7. Would have loved to see a real comparison here, using TDS data as a guideline.
just like it that i don't have to put a gooseneck kettle in my luggage during travel, and no worry for ruining some good coffee beans with pouring...
Not as much turbulence as using a goose neck kettle alone, but the center holes are larger, and you can achieve more turbulence by changing the ratio of water of center pour vs outer pour. Perhaps 50/50 instead of 30/70. Not saying it is better, just an interesting avenue of experimentation.
Definitely try out the melodrip.
Melodrip ain't for anyone. It requires knowledge, practice, patience and skill. It's is fully flexible and this flexibility is something that should be taken seriously. Yeah you can tweak the height, the position, but this is not easy for most not well trained people.
On the other hand, the Hario drip assist is much more friendly to use, easier to master and results in the cup are just great.
Does this mean the plastic brewer is about to be available again?
The 2.0 version is on the way. We have upgraded the plastic to be more durable. We will communicate on social media once it will be available again.
If using a distribution tool without additional stir, it's become really hard to transfer enough heat and get enough extraction in the deeper part of the bed, especially when you brew with a v60 which has a deeper coffee bed. So, using this tool with v60, it becomes worse, not better.
Stirring and swirling serve as extraction boosters. With distribution tools like this, it's really important to keep water temperature as close to boil as possible for your roast level. As you and everyone may know, temperature is kinetic energy. In other words, you can always brew cooler and stirr or swirl to compensate OR brew really hot. Two different ways to get similar results.
With the tool, there's also the benefit of higher temperature retention (it acts as a lid keeping the heat inside, lowering evaporative cooling)
Unless you're a real pro using a very nice kettle, chances are you get varying results from your pour overs. So this is where tools like this one come to play. You can grind finer and brew hotter and also play with the ratio to achieve your extraction levels. Terms like "vibrancy" "brighter cup" and so on make reference to a somehow unbalanced extraction that happens to taste GOOD. But with an even water and temperature distribution it's NOT logical to expect unbalanced (bright) tasting cups UNLESS so manipulate your variables to achieve so.
As a final note, you can use the distribution tool for the blooming, then pour without it, then out it on and pour some more water to flatten the bed. Just an example. Possibilities are endless but saying this tool isn't great without further understanding of the variables isn't fair. Just my 5 cents.
@@mprz8188 Coffee bed in v60 is deep, it's easy to get a lot of trapped air pockets and channeling in the deeper part without adequate agitation. It's almost impossible to compensate for those channeling by higher temp. Pouring from kettle or stirring is very crucial for v60 brew, no matter using boiling water or not.
@@stnvs you can easily prepare your grounds and make a divot to ease the pre wetting phase. No big deal. And another nice gadget I use and works great with drip assist is the Lily, which makes the coffee bed more even, less deep and more paper surface helps to increase the draw down flow. So I can grind finer and get high extractions much faster.
Pouring from my kettle is very nice, romantic and as a ritual I find it pleasing, but I stay always open minded so that I can certainly accept there are other, maybe new, ways to get amazing cups of coffee.
Pete, the creator of this device, is a knowledgeable man. Following his instructions you can certainly understand why this device is great.
@@mprz8188if you need making a divot or using Lily, why don't use a flat bottom brewer? V60 is just too deep for this drip-assist tool. Actually it's a Hario problem. They put everything on v60.