What is a V01?

What is a V01?

Just in case you didn’t know, a “V” 60 stands for “V” shaped and 60 degrees. It’s as easy to forget as to remember.

A V01 is a one-cup V60, or a V60 for one. During Covid 19, I learned how to make a V60 well (or so I thought), and now I have a bit more time to play around with coffee, I am brave enough to question the recipes I successfully brewed back then.

This post was going to be called the V01 Recipe, until a young team member asked me what a V01 was today. I realised how daft I was assuming, as there is more I don’t know about things than I do in general.

V01 Recipe

You might read in my writing about Anni, she happens to be my rock and my smart side, as well as my partner of more than thirty-something years. We are starting to travel, after many years of holding back. We have had priorities like raising a family, a farm to run, and of course, my baby, AKA James Gourmet Coffee Co Ltd. This trip to Costa Rica has been incredible, but that’s the backdrop, the scene, of why I had to master brewing a one-cup V60.

Before leaving, I packed a C2 Timemore grinder that has been with me to Africa, Australia and Costa Rica, now too. I am a big believer in grinding speciality coffee freshly as you brew it. Anni experienced me having a few grinder issues last year, and finding great coffee in Porto and North Yorkshire (yes, two grinder deaths) left her asking for ground coffee on this trip. I ground some (Nigise Jilo) coffee on my / the/ EK  in the lab and then went to pack a further 3 bags of beans.

This ground coffee lark led me on a merry journey, and after a week, I have made the best 1-cup filter brews ever. When I am brewing a 2-cup V60, it’s really simple.  But initially, a single cup requires a lot more effort to get it spot on. The instruments I had were good Hero Scales, a foldable one-cup filter, papers, coffee and a very basic loan kettle. What I quickly learned from the fine ground coffee was that more was not more! With so many brews, “just adding a bit more coffee “ can smooth things over. This killed every brew.

Something had to change in the brews and particularly in the bloom stage. I still had to get the finer ground coffee through in time, and this meant having a bigger bloom on a one-cup than a two-cup. The outcome was outstanding, but with more to come. Remembering a conversation with Michel, the French barista, who said the maximum amount of blooms you should have is 3, and to reduce funk in the cup, we just reduce the brew temperature by a few degrees. So, without any way of measuring temperature, I deliberately let the kettle cool before doing anything. Time was my only measure, and thankfully, I had quite a bit of it!

V01 Recipe

This was the best V60 I have had.

15g coffee

Bloom 1: 85g for 45 seconds

Bloom 2: 85g as soon as possible

Bloom 3: Go to another 80g

We end up close to 60g of coffee per litre. Slightly cooler water has taken different compounds out of the coffee, and both the Nigusi and Geisha and Typica (from Volcan Azul) were the best I have tasted them. Better than the cupping bowls back at home.

Both brews sat between 3 and 3 minutes and 30 seconds.

I fear I have broken some rules here, but the quest started with coffee that was ground a touch fine for a V01, or so I thought.

Have I spent a week reinventing a round wheel?

I am happy because now I have complete confidence I can make a one-cup V60 better than I have ever before, and I used my head and palate, not YouTube, other media sites are available.

If you travel and take coffee with you, what do you take? I love the cup clarity that a good V60 can bring, way more than the aeropress and when you have a routine/ recipe, it really is simple.

I am in love with my silicone foldable V60, it’s so neat and compact, I almost couldn’t find it before travelling!

Would you like a foldable V60 one-cup filter holder in your life, too?

Just in case you weren’t aware, a “V” 60 stands for “V” shaped and 60 degrees. It’s as easy to forget as to remember.

Personally, I like to brew filter coffee with my V60.