Grind Colombian Beans on a Baratza Encore at Setting 15 for a Balanced V60 Pour

The Baratza Encore uses 40 stepped settings on its collar, and setting 15 sits inside the pour-over range Baratza lists on its published grind chart. Treat that chart as the first mark to test. Encore burrs vary from one unit to another because the collar can be recalibrated, and a grinder that has handled a few hundred kilograms of coffee will behave differently from a fresh one. Setting 15 becomes meaningful only after it is tied to a measured water ratio, a timer, and the taste of the cup.

Washed Colombian coffee, often sold by roasters as Huila or Nariño single origin, usually brings apple and caramel notes with medium body. Those flavors need enough extraction to round out. Without it, the cup can taste sour and thin. A mid setting on the Encore earns its place when the coffee needs that extra development without turning heavy.

Where setting 15 stops being precise

On many Encores, setting 15 puts the main mass of particles roughly in the 700 to 900 micron range. That is a plausible middle ground for a single-cup V60 using 15 to 18 grams of coffee, close to table salt by sight and touch. Turn the collar finer and the bed usually slows as more surface area is exposed. Open it coarser and the V60 often empties before the sweetness has filled in.

The Encore is a conical burr grinder, and its particle spread is broad. A dose from the chute includes larger chunks along with fines. Those fines tend to settle low in the paper cone during brewing, where they can choke parts of the filter and drag out the last stage of drawdown. Two brewers can use setting 15, the same Colombian beans, and 250 grams of water, then see one brew finish at 2:30 while the other runs to 3:45. The collar number is only one part of the brew.

Time the total drawdown. With a 1:16 ratio, meaning 15 grams of coffee to 240 grams of water, a total brew time around 2:30 to 3:15 usually means the grind is close. A finish before 2:15 often brings under-extraction, which tastes sharp and lemony. A brew drifting past 3:30 can turn flat and drying, the usual sign of over-extraction. Move the Encore one or two steps per test.

Lock the ratio before chasing the grind

Fix the pour-over coffee ratio before moving the collar. The common range is 1:15 to 1:17 by weight, coffee to water. For washed Colombian beans, 1:16 is a sensible default: 15 grams of coffee and 240 grams of water make a single mug with room to adjust.

Weigh both inputs. A scale that reads to 0.1 gram, such as the Hario V60 Drip Scale or an Acaia Pearl, removes the biggest source of variation. A scoop can swing by several grams, enough to swamp any adjustment from one Encore click. Once dose and ratio stay fixed, the grinder is the variable that changes, and setting 15 becomes a real reference point.

Water temperature belongs in the same routine. The working range is 92 to 96 degrees Celsius. Colder water under-extracts a mid grind, while near-boiling water can scorch and add bitterness. With a kettle that lacks a thermometer, boil the water and wait roughly 30 seconds before pouring.

Bloom and pour shape the result

Setting 15 assumes the coffee gets a bloom. Skip it and even a well-calibrated grind can taste sour.

Start by pouring twice the coffee weight in water, so a 15-gram dose gets 30 grams of water. Wait 30 to 45 seconds. Fresh Colombian beans roasted within two weeks will dome and release carbon dioxide during this pause. Gas left inside the bed pushes water away from grounds and makes extraction uneven. A bean that barely blooms is old, and no grind setting rescues it.

After the bloom, pour in two or three additions. Keep the water level steady and leave the bed flat. Aim to finish all pours by about 1:45 so the drawdown lands near 3:00. Pouring hard agitates the bed, pushes fines downward, and can stall the flow in a way that looks like a grind set finer than 15. If brews stall at setting 15, look first at the pour.

The spent bed gives a quick read

A flat spent bed, without a deep crater or a ring of grounds stranded high on the filter wall, points to even extraction. A steep crater usually means the pour was too central and forceful.

Dialing one bag over three brews

Take a 250-gram bag of washed Colombian Huila, roasted light-medium and bought one week off roast. Brew it first at setting 15 with 15 grams of coffee, 240 grams of water at 94 degrees, and a 1:16 ratio. Bloom with 30 grams of water for 40 seconds, then finish with two pours. The total drawdown lands at 2:10.

That brew runs fast. In the cup, the acidity is sharp and citric, and the finish feels hollow. Under-extraction is the likely read. Move the Encore two steps finer, to 13, and brew again with the same dose, water, temperature, bloom, and pour structure. The drawdown reaches 2:50, the apple note fills out, and the sharpness recedes into cleaner acidity.

If the cup at 13 turns slightly drying on the finish, extraction has gone a touch too far. Try setting 14. A drawdown around 2:35 can bring the caramel sweetness forward without the dry tail. For that one bag, the process took three brews and about 45 grams of coffee.

For this particular Huila and this particular Encore, the printed reference was one step coarse. That is a normal result for a reference point. Another Encore, another roast date, or another lot from the same origin could land differently.

Keep notes on the setting that wins for each bag. Roasters change lots, and a new bag of the same Huila can want 13 or 16 depending on roast date and density. Beans also lose carbon dioxide as they age, so a bag brewed at 14 while fresh may need 15 or 16 three weeks later as the bed becomes more permeable.

Static, retention, and Encore quirks

The Encore can hold back roughly 1 to 2 grams of coffee in its burr chamber and chute between grinds. It can also throw static that scatters grounds and clumps fines, especially in dry winter air. The Ross Droplet Technique is a common fix: add a single drop of water to the beans before grinding, or spritz them lightly. The tiny amount of moisture dampens static, reduces mess, and cuts clumping without measurably changing a single-cup brew.

Retention changes the ratio in the cone. If 15 grams of beans go into the hopper, only 13.5 grams may reach the filter. Some brewers grind a small purge dose to push out retained grounds from the previous grind. Others weigh the ground output to account for retention. Weighing the coffee after grinding, directly into the filter, removes that variable from the brew calculation.

Burr alignment and wear shift the meaning of setting 15 as well. Baratza sells replacement burrs, and burrs that have processed a large volume of beans grind coarser at the same number than a fresh set. If a dialed-in setting drifts finer over months with no other change, the collar or burrs may have moved. Recalibration involves loosening the collar screws and resetting the zero point, a procedure Baratza documents on its support pages.

Beans that push the dial around

Dense, high-grown Colombian beans resist grinding and extraction more than softer, lower-grown lots. At setting 15, a denser bean can brew like a softer bean at 17 because the burrs fracture it into a coarser, more uniform particle. Roast level pulls in another direction. A darker roast is more brittle, shatters into more fines at the same setting, raises extraction, and often needs a coarser number to compensate.

A single collar number fails across bags unless it is adjusted for the coffee in front of it. The number carries assumptions about density and roast that only hold for the bag used during dialing. A brewer who treats setting 15 as gospel will get balanced cups from some Colombian bags and sour or bitter cups from others.

Roast level pulls one way, density can pull the other, and both are hiding behind the same click on the collar.