Should You Wet Your V60 Filter Paper?
Whether you’ve seen it in a high end coffee house, with coffee enthusiast friends or tried it out yourself, wetting your filter papers can be a bit of a strange ritual. Why do we need to pour water through a filter paper to brew great coffee? Isn’t it all a bit overkill?
Well, wetting your V60 filter paper actually has a number of different benefits. From reducing that ‘papery’ taste, to warming up your brewing equipment to improving coffee extraction, wetting your filter papers is a great way to ensure consistency and a high quality brew.
So, let’s dive into how and why to wet your V60 filter papers.
What is a V60?
The V60 is a simple but incredibly effective way to brew great tasting coffee. The grind size, coffee beans and technique you use will play a big part on how the end product tastes, especially when dialling in new coffee beans.
The V60 is a manual pour-over coffee brewer designed by Hario, a renowned Japanese glassware company. Its name, “V60,” originates from its characteristic V-shaped cone and the 60-degree angle of its walls.
This cone-shaped dripper can be crafted from various materials, including glass, ceramic, plastic, and metal, each offering distinct aesthetic appeal and heat-retention properties.
The most popular V60 is the simple plastic coffee brewer, which is the easiest to clean and maintain. The classic plastic V60 is also the most cost effective and portable in the range, making it incredibly versatile.
How Does a V60 Work?
The reason this is more difficult with the V60 compared to other methods of brewing coffee, is that there is a lot of human intervention involved. You have to add the ground coffee to the V60, pour the hot water over yourself and agitate the slurry in the right way, all of which brings human error into the equation!
To make things easier, here’s a step-by-step guide to harnessing the full potential of your V60.
- Grind your coffee to a medium grind size
- Place your paper filter in your V60 and wet it with warm or hot water
- Add your coffee and make a small divot in the middle
- Pour over a small amount of water, allowing the coffee to bloom (50 g)
- Give it a stir and a swirl to evenly distribute the coffee and water
- Pour over the remainder of your water over the coffee grounds (100g at a time)
- Give your V60 a swirl, let all the water drain and enjoy your freshly brewed cup of coffee!
What is a Filter Paper?
Coffee filter papers are simply the filtration device used to separate ground coffee from the liquid that ends up in your cup. They are often made from paper rather than metallic mesh to strain out as much fine sediment and silt as possible, giving you a clean, smooth and light cup of coffee.
Filter papers are loved by coffee enthusiasts as they remove virtually all of the sediment from the bed of ground coffee, due to the very fine, densely packed holes within them. This allows plenty of delicious, smooth coffee to flow through, without allowing any unwanted silt into your cup.
This smooth, clean tasting cup of coffee is different from the more raw, intense and vicious end product that you might get from a metallic filter, such as those used in an espresso machine or french press. The holes are much wider in a metallic filter, allowing much more fine sediment to enter your cup.
Coffee filter papers are used in drip brew coffee devices, which use gravity and pouring technique to extract coffee oils into your cup. This is in contrast to immersion brewing (French Press, Cold Brew and AeroPress) or pressure based brewing (Espresso and Moka Pot) which use more drawn out and intense coffee extraction methods respectively.
Whether you use a bleached (white) or unbleached (brown) coffee filter paper is up to you. There is an argument that unbleached coffee filter papers offer a more ‘papery’ taste, but if either of these coffee filter papers are wetted before use, pretty much any residual taste will fade away.
Should you wet your V60 Filter Paper?
Whilst wetting your V60 filter papers may be a point of personal preference, here are a few arguments as to why it makes sense to pour hot water over them before you add your freshly ground coffee.
Removes ‘Papery’ Taste
The major benefit to rinsing or ‘wetting’ your V60 paper filters is to remove that ‘woody’ or ‘papery taste’. Whilst this may not be noticeable to everyone, it is definitely a common practice for a reason, especially when using unfiltered, natural or brown papers.
Whilst the paper taste is pretty mild from my experience, it is noticeable when comparing a rinsed vs a non-rinsed filter paper coffee brew side by side.
Warms Up Your V60 and Cup
Another major benefit to rinsing your V60 filter papers with hot water is to warm up your brewing equipment. This is an important step in the coffee brewing process as temperature control impacts extraction, brew time and ultimately, coffee flavour.
Pre-wetting your coffee filters is a great way to get your V60, coffee cup or carafe and paper warmed up, so your brewing temperature remains consistent throughout the process, giving you more consistent results.
Better Filter Paper Adherence
Wetting your filter will also help it stick better to the V60. This helps keep everything in line, reduces the chances of spill over and can promote even coffee extraction.
Can Increase Water Flow Rate
Rinsing your filter paper ensures the pores are fully saturated, which helps to improve water flow rate when you come to pour over more water during the brewing process.
This improves the efficiency of your brew by reducing steep time and increasing flow rate, whilst also giving you a better chance of releasing those coffee solubles evenly throughout the brewing process.
How to Rinse Your Filter Paper
Rinsing your filter paper isn’t a difficult process, despite how effective it is. Simply pour your hot water over your filter paper (already in place in your V60), slowly in a circular motion.
Make sure to cover the entire filter paper evenly so the whole thing is saturated, and let all of that water drip through the V60 into your cup or carafe before adding your ground coffee.
Empty out your used water and begin your brewing process, adding approx 15 g of freshly ground coffee per serving, followed by 240 g of water poured in a circular motion.
In terms of technique, I’d suggest blooming your coffee first to release excess CO2 and bitterness, then pouring over 2x 100 g of water, letting it drip through the coffee grounds until dry each time. Make sure to swirl and stir your freshly brewed coffee before drinking and enjoy!
Does it Really Make a Difference?
Some argue that wetting filter papers doesn’t get rid of that classic ‘papery’ taste associated with filter coffee,
Below is a great video by Brodie Vissers, where he experiments with both wetting and not wetting coffee filter papers. This offers a great insight into the arguments for and against rinsing your filters, by keeping variables like water temperature, coffee dose, brew time and the coffee beans used the same.
Interestingly, he concludes that rinsing the filter paper does reduce that clear, but subtle, papery taste. He mentions the paper taste isn’t particularly significant, but it is noticeable when compared with the non-rinsed filter.
From personal experience I would also agree with Brodie and conclude that rinsing coffee filters does make a small difference to the taste of the coffee, but it is not as significant as many coffee enthusiasts would imply.
He also outlines that the rinsed filter also offers a more crisp, sweet and acidic flavour, compared to the non-rinsed filter which delivers a more mellow and dry profile.
You can watch Brodie’s video here:
Summary
Overall, rinsing V60 filter papers has a number of benefits, including removing the ‘papery’ taste, heating up your brewing equipment and improving the quality of your extraction.
Whilst that infamous paper taste may not be as pronounced as some coffee enthusiasts say, it is still worth getting rid of. Not only does wetting your V60 filter paper improve your coffee’s flavour, but it also increases water flow rate and gives you a consistent base to work from. I’d also recommend using filtered or purified water, light to medium roasted coffee beans and pouring in slow, evenly distributed circles.
V60 Frequently Asked Questions
Why Should I Wet My V60 Filter Papers?
Wetting your V60 filter paper has a range of benefits, including removing the papery taste, improving coffee extraction, increasing water flow rate and heating up your coffee brewing equipment.
Will My V60 Work if My Filters Are Dry?
Yes, you can brew good filter coffee without wetting your filter papers. However, it won’t be quite as good as it could be. You will likely get a papery, dry (perhaps astringent) and under extracted cup of coffee.
What’s the Difference Between Filter Coffee and Espresso?
Filter coffee and espresso are fundamentally different due to their extraction methods, brew time, filtration system and manual vs automatic nature.
Espresso uses highly pressurised steam, forced through a metal filter basket to drive out rich, velvety, strong coffee shots in around 30 seconds.
On the other hand, filter coffee uses paper filters, a cone shaped brewing device, gravity and pour technique to extract coffee into a mellow, balanced and fresh cup of coffee.
