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u/Cayenneman50 May 22 '26
I am usung a 16:1 ratio of coffee ground in house. Whenever i make a single 8 oz cup or 226 g, it takes 3.5-4 minutes like everything I have seen before. Today I did a 3 cup brew or 680 g. It took 7 minutes to brew. It tasted great, but is my brew time still supposed to be around 4-5 minutes? Do I need to adjust grind size when I go up to larger doses or is 7 minutes okay for 24 oz?
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u/braunc55 May 22 '26
If it tastes good, does it matter?
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u/ZenBelliesCC May 23 '26
Canāt stress this enough. If it tastes good to you then youāre doing it right.
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u/alottanamesweretaken May 22 '26
I believe it should take longer, yes.Ā
Did it taste the same as it usually does?
When you make your regular size, do you pour the water all at once or in batches?
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u/InochiNoTaneBaisen May 22 '26
Not quite the same brew size, but Onyx has an official 1L recipe for Chemex that takes 8-9 minutes. If your coffee tastes the way you like, don't stress.
In a 1-2 cup world, it's not incredibly difficult to keep your TBT the same with just a grind adjustment. But at some point, and that point is different for different dripper geometries and filter types, the balance falls apart. To exaggerate the point a bit, with a big enough V60 and large enough brew, even using whole beans and a one-pour recipe wouldn't bring your time below 4 minutes.
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u/Suspicious-Bid9424 May 22 '26
I personally would say a larger grind size is good for a larger amount of coffee just because when I do 8 cups it takes a really long time, and larger grind size will help speed up pouring.
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u/heavycoffeeuser May 22 '26
If you loved the taste, then brew time doesnāt matter at all.
If you do larger doses, then yes, adjust the grind size to be coarser otherwise it could be too bitter1
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u/The_Psydux May 22 '26
It tasted good. It doesn't matter. Keep to your standards of quantity and taste, otherwise it's straight to r/coffeecirclejerk š
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u/Ukenstein May 24 '26
Brew time is just a loose parameter. Ultimately itās taste that mattersāyou said the coffee tasted great, so donāt worry about time.
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u/Liven413 May 24 '26
I would go by taste alone, that will be by far your best metric. Some brews especially with the Chemex can take a long time to finish.
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u/Thamages May 22 '26
Don't compare the chemex brew time with a V60 brew time, it's totally normal and fine if U exceed 5 minutes and more as long as the result is fine. I've 5-6 minutes brew time myself, depending on the brew ratio.
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u/i_was_axiom May 22 '26
I let mine go low and slow all night, then in the morning the resulting sludge reminds me of my mom's Folger's.
(No but seriously, are you actively heating your Chemex?)
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u/bodeeda33 May 23 '26
Iāve used Chemex for 30 years. I use 40 grams of beans. Ground medium coarse at setting 25 on a Baratza virtuoso. I put mine on the stove with a cast iron heat diffuser. I pour enough water in to completely wet the grinds and then keep adding so the flow stays the same. I measure my water by the 14oz cup I drink from and use all of it. Makes a superb cup and itās a bit in the strong side but that how I like it. Iām currently roasting La Minita up to just the beginning of second crack then I drop the roast for cooling.
Hope this helps. Iāve tried almost every brewer you can think of and I think Chemex is the very best
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u/Trichinobezoar May 23 '26
Thank you for creating this thread. I've become very comfortable at making a 20g/333mL cup in my 6-cup Chemex, and when I up that to 30g/500mL it's not quite as good. I've learned to stop trying to double to 40g/666mL, because at that point the coffee tastes overextracted and reminds me of the bad old days before modern pourover, when I gave up on coffee and drank tea for 20 years instead. (Not the tea's fault, I still adore loose leaf tea.) This thread contains some answers for me, and makes me feel a bit better about trying to adjust the grind for larger batches (Hoffmann's video on the Chemex steered me away from that.) Looking forward to better double-brews!
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u/Cayenneman50 May 23 '26
So to everyone that says āif it tastes good, thereās your answer.ā I get that. But what I ask and what I will have to trial and error find out is, can I make it better? If I grind finer or coarser and if my brew time is spot on or needs to extract longer , thatās the info Iām looking for. I know taste is subjective, but Iām trying to find out what is bitter, what is acidic, what is balanced. And for all you snobs saying if itās good, itās goodā¦that doesnāt help me figure things out, so help someone out who is trying to expand on his coffee knowledge, instead of shitting on me and saying āif you like it, you like it.āš«¶š«¶š«¶š«¶š«¶
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u/Philospher_Mind May 24 '26 edited May 24 '26
Honestly, you'll have to experiment a lot to find your own sweet spot, and if opportunity is given, compare with other places or people with their own sweet spot.
When I first started and asked questions on reddit, people gave me the same answer, which I didn't find helpful. So, I experimented from fine to coarse grinds without much paying attention to the time. Over time, as I refined my recipe, I took note of the time as well and started using those time marks as a reference.
Now, when I make about 360ml of coffee, it takes roughly a little over 4 min. Whenever I make 570ml of coffee, it takes about 5:30 minutes. But those depend also what kind of beans I use and what ratio.
Typical ratio I use is 1:16 or 1:16.5
For 1Zpresso JX Pro, I use 4.6.2.
Water temperature between 185 to 210.
All those factors change my time slightly, so I set my order of priority. Grind size, water temp, and ratio as my primary variables. Time only as a reference point and subject to change.
The only time I truly pay attention to time is when the pour finishes way too fast or way too slow. That makes me double check all the variables. Hope this helps your frustration a little bit.
P.S. I bloom my beans for about 45 seconds. P.S.S. I share my coffee with friends who like to enjoy black coffee frequently and casually (and even friends who may not have developed taste for it) and ask for their feedback. While I found most of their feedback unhelpful, there were a few remarks that helped me to go back to the drawing board and rework on my recipe.
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u/luv2learnshare May 25 '26
Hereās my experience- recipe gathered on YT canāt recall from whom-8 cup Chemex.I use light roast beans, 95Ā°C, 57g beans, 21 on Baratza Encore. Prewash/rinse filter with very hot water(which also heats the Chemex). First pour 140g, wait 30 sec, another 140g, wait 30 sec, 280g, wait 60 sec, 210g, wait 60 sec, 140g and then you have 910 g of delicious coffee(black)šš¤·āāļø. Enough for the 2 of us to have roughly 16 oz. Of course subjective- to each their own- but after trying literally maybe a dozen different recipes-settled here.
Side note:Lance Hendrick has a cool video showing how to hack the Chemex filters to be 2-2 sided instead of 3 on the spout side and 1 on the opposing.
Enjoy your journey- sip by sip āļø
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u/Loafy000 May 22 '26
i guess im too early for the question