calculators.coffee

Pour-over · Hario V60

V60 Calculator: Coffee, Water, Bloom & Brew Time

Hoffmann-style pour-over recipe for any V60 size, instantly.

What do you want to enter?

1 cup = 240 g brew water (a standard mug — not the Hario cup mark).

Brewer size

Hario size — 01 is the small single-serve cone, 02 is the larger cone most home setups use.

Strength

1:16.5 ratio · 2 pours after bloom · clean, well-developed

Your recipe

29.1 g coffee · 480 g water

1:16.5 · V60-02 · 94 °C · 3:30 total

Bloom
60 g for 45 s
Pours
2 after bloom
Grind
medium-fine
Time
3:30 target

Pour schedule

  1. Bloom — pour 60 g

    Pour onto the grounds; swirl to wet every particle.

  2. Pour 1 — pour to 270 g total

    Slow spiral from the centre outward — don't pour onto the filter wall.

  3. Pour 2 — pour to 480 g total

    Top up to your full brew weight.

  4. Drawdown complete

    If you're far off this time, see the grind notes below.

Time the drip stopping, not the kettle stopping. Drawdown is part of the brew.

Recipe: 29.1 grams coffee, 480 grams water, 3:30 total. Temperature 94 Celsius (201 Fahrenheit).

Last updated

Tell the calculator how many cups you want and which V60 you have. It gives you back the dose, water weight, bloom, pour schedule, target brew time, and grind cue — all calibrated to Hoffmann's three-pour technique and the SCA brew control chart.

The defaults are good. The advanced override is there for the day you want to dial things in further — most mornings you'll never open it.

How to Use This Calculator

  1. Pick your cup count.One cup is 240 grams of brewed coffee — about a standard mug. Ignore the printed “cup” marks on the V60 itself; those are 120 ml each and have nothing to do with how anyone actually drinks coffee.
  2. Pick your V60 size.The 01 is the small single-serve cone (1–2 cups). The 02 is the bigger one (1–4 cups, comfortably) and is what most home setups have. If you're not sure, look at the size stamped on the bottom of the dripper.
  3. Set strength. Balanced is the right starting point for almost everyone. Move to lighter if you want a brighter, more tea-like cup; stronger if you want body and concentration.
  4. Brew. Follow the pour schedule on the right. The numbers update live as you change inputs.

If the result tells you to switch brewer sizes or split the batch, take it seriously. The cone geometry has real limits — a 500-gram brew in a V60-01 channels and tastes thin no matter how good your pour is.

About the Recipe Basis

The default recipe is James Hoffmann's Ultimate V60 Technique: a bloom of roughly twice the coffee weight, two pours after the bloom, and a target drawdown around 3:00–3:30 for a typical 30-gram dose. It's become the default for a reason — it's forgiving across grinders, kettles, and water, and it gets a clean, sweet cup more reliably than anything else in regular rotation.

We use a default ratio of 1:16.5. Hoffmann publishes 60 g per litre (close to 1:16.66). The SCA brew control chart centres on roughly 55 g per litre. Splitting the middle at 1:16.5 lands inside both targets and rounds cleanly for whole-cup math, which keeps the numbers on the result card readable.

The other recipe worth knowing is Tetsu Kasuya's 4:6 method — five equal pours, where the first 40% of water controls flavour and the last 60% controls strength. We don't branch the calculator on it because the v1 UI doesn't need that complexity to be useful. The “lighter” strength preset borrows Kasuya's pour-count idea (more pours = brighter) without forcing you into the full 4:6 framework.

Pour-by-Pour Explainer

Each step in the timeline on the right exists for a specific reason. None of them are decorative.

Bloom (0:00, ~2× dose, 45 seconds). Pouring twice the coffee weight in water and waiting 45 seconds lets the CO₂ in fresh beans escape. Skip the bloom and you fight an expanding bed for the next two minutes — channels open, extraction goes uneven, and the cup tastes hollow.

Pour 1 (0:45, slow spiral, centre-out).This is where most of the brew water goes in. Start at the centre and spiral outward to the edge of the bed (don't pour onto the filter paper — water that runs down the wall never touches coffee). Don't fill above the top of the cone.

Pour 2 (around 1:45, balanced strength).This finishes the brew. For balanced strength it tops up to your full water weight. For lighter strength, there's a third pour at around 2:15 that splits the difference.

Drawdown (last 45 seconds).Pour-end isn't brew-end. The bed keeps draining for 30–60 seconds after your kettle stops moving. Time the drip stopping, not the pouring stopping — see the common mistakes below.

V60 Ratio Explained

The V60 ratio is the weight of dry coffee divided into the weight of total brew water. Brew ratio is 1:N — one part coffee, N parts water.

For 1:16.5, that's 1 gram of coffee for every 16.5 grams of brew water. A 2-cup batch lands at 29 grams of coffee and 480 grams of water; a 1-cup batch at 14.5 grams of coffee and 240 grams of water. For a method-agnostic table across pour-over, press, and cold brew, use the general coffee-to-water ratio guide.

The defensible range for V60 is 1:14 to 1:18:

  • Tighter than 1:14 — under-extracted no matter how long you brew. There's not enough water to dissolve the soluble fraction properly.
  • Looser than 1:18 — thin, watery, prone to over-extraction (long contact time relative to dose).

The strength preset moves you inside that window. The advanced ratio override exposes the full range — use it sparingly.

Grind Size for V60

Aim for medium-fine— about the texture of granulated sugar. If your brew finishes more than 30 seconds early, grind finer next time. If it's still draining 30 seconds after the target time, grind coarser. Move grind first, then ratio — never both at once or you won't know which fixed it.

V60 Water Temperature

94 °Cis the default and the right answer 90% of the time. For darker roasts, 92 °C tames bitterness; for very light, washed-process coffees, 96 °C helps with solubility. Don't pour straight off the boil — give the kettle 30 seconds. For the °F-curious, see the brew-temperature converter.

V60 Brew Time

Total brew time scales with dose: about 2:30 for a single cup, 3:00 for two, 3:30 for three or four. The calculator already does this math; the target time in the result card is your number, not a generic range. If you're consistently 30+ seconds off in either direction, the lever is grind.

Common Mistakes

  1. Pouring the bloom down the side.The bloom's whole job is to wet every coffee particle. Pour onto the grounds, not onto the filter paper, and swirl gently to coax the dry pockets.
  2. Killing the timer when the kettle stops. Drawdown is part of the brew. If you're judging by pour-end you're consistently under-counting your brew by 30–60 seconds.
  3. Stirring instead of swirling. A swirl settles the slurry into a flat bed and gives you an even drawdown. Stirring crashes fines and chokes the filter — slow drawdown, bitter cup.
  4. Adjusting grind and ratio at the same time. Change one variable per session. Grind first (it's the bigger lever). Ratio second.
  5. Overthinking water temperature.94 °C is fine for almost every coffee you'll ever own. Lighter roasts can take 96 °C, darker can take 92 °C — beyond that, you're chasing rounding error.

Pro Tips

  • Weigh everything. Volume measures lie. A bathroom-grade kitchen scale with 0.1 g resolution costs less than a bag of decent beans and will outlast three grinders.
  • Pre-wet the filter.A wet paper filter sits flush against the cone and removes the paper-taste pre-rinse. Don't skip it.
  • Get water that isn't terrible. Most municipal water is fine. Anything past ~150 ppm hardness mutes the cup; below ~50 ppm gets sharp and acidic. If your kettle scales fast, your coffee is taking the same hit.
  • Stop tweaking when the cup is good. The trap with calculators is that they invite you to fiddle. Find a recipe that lands and let it land for a week before you change anything.

Want the V60 cheat sheet?

One page, printable, magnet-on-fridge ready: ratio table (1:14 → 1:18 across 1–6 cups), grind reference, temp by roast, and the brew-time troubleshooting flow. Drop your email and I'll send it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Related calculators