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When making pourover coffee (e.g. V60), do you re-heat the kettle between pours in order to have a more constant temperature? For example, if you started blooming at 98 °C, and you wait 45 seconds, the temperature may already be one or two degrees less. So does it affect the taste in the positive way if you re-heat the kettle between pours, so you try to make every pour at same (or close) temperature?

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    98°C is too much for my taste. I bloom at 95°C and after 30s have passed the temperature of the water in the kettle is usually slightly higher than 94°C. Which is really a perfect temperature for extraction. Sometimes I put it back on the still hot plate if it's cooling down too quickly, but I keep an eye on the thermometer in the water so it doesn't get too hot. Everything passing 96°C I consider too hot.
    – avocado1
    Apr 26, 2020 at 11:12
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    @avocado1 There is some research on this done by James Hoffman, you can learn more on his YouTube channel.
    – Arseny
    Apr 26, 2020 at 22:57
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    Don't get me wrong please. It is not wrong to brew at different temperatures. In fact I usually brew each new coffee at different temperatures to determine the best recipe. However I usually end up around 94 degrees. It's just my experience that I gathered after years of working in competitive specialty coffee environments, besides my "normal" career (although to be fair I never had the ambition to compete, coffee is just a passion that I pursue but it's not my main career). Which video specifically are you referring to from Hoffman? I can't really imagine he makes 98°C a hard rule.
    – avocado1
    Apr 27, 2020 at 14:42
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    Usually these "rules" are meant as guidelines for people to achieve consistency and comparable results. I'm pretty sure most coffee people would agree though that there is no absolute temperature value, or extraction time or grind size that is perfect for every coffee and taste. Do you want more acidity? Decrease temp a little bit. Is the roast very dark? Decrease temp. It depends on your taste, on the beans and the roast profile (besides variables regarding efficient workflows when in a professional environment).
    – avocado1
    Apr 27, 2020 at 14:49
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    However, if you check winning (and actually also losing) recipes from the national and world brewing cups during the last years. There is hardly a recipe that uses water above 95°C. Now that doesn't mean it can't taste good, it just means that the collective opinion of professionals in the specialty coffee industry, gravitates towards a consensus of using water a few degrees below the boiling point. That said, it's usually quite hard to even tell the difference between a couple of degrees and you should really just use what works well for you and gives you consistently good results.
    – avocado1
    Apr 27, 2020 at 14:54

1 Answer 1

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Short answer: No

By reheating your kettle between pours you introduce another variable which can mess with the consistency of your brew. The reason we measure everything when brewing coffee is to be able to isolate a single variable, adjust it, and determine its impact on the taste of the brew. Consistency is the most important thing here. Losing one or two degrees in your kettle while brewing shouldn't have much of an impact on the taste of your brew if it happens consistently. Also, the water drops in temperature significantly when it reaches the grounds, as explained in James's video you probably meant.

Both James Hoffmann and Matt Perger recommend using boiling water for brewing because seeing water bubble (and therefore knowing it's exactly 100°C) is more reliable than having a thermometer telling you the temperature. "25 degree water looks exactly the same as 85 degree water".

My recommendation is to let the water come to a boil and as soon as it starts boiling, start your brew and don't reheat it between pours. Even though the water might cool down a little, it will do so similarly from brew to brew. If you reheat your kettle between pours, you'll have to put in on the stove the exact same way each time, which is difficult (maybe not difficult but surely finicky) to achieve, especially if you have a pour-over to worry about.

Now, before anyone comments with "100°C is too hot, you'll burn the coffee":

Coffee is roasted at temperatures around and above 200°C, you're not burning anything.

"It will taste burnt and bitter because the bitter compounds will be extracted more easily."

In that case, over-extraction is your problem which can easily be solved by adjusting your grind size.

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