Guide · V60

Hario V60: sizes, recipes and the 4:6 method

The V60 is a 60-degree cone with spiral ribs and one large hole, so almost nothing slows the water except your pour and your grind. Hario’s own starting point is 15 g of medium-ground coffee to 250 g of water at 92–94 °C, finished in 2:30–3:00.

Updated 2026-10-16 · sources listed at the end · recipes are shown as each source published them; brand names appear only where a cited recipe requires them

Which size: 01, 02 or 03

The size number refers to both the dripper and its paper: an 02 paper will not fit an 01 dripper. Hario UK’s advice is to “get the 02 unless you know you want otherwise.”

Size	Hario’s rating	Plastic model (W × D × H)	Paper
01	1–2 cups	115 × 100 × 82 mm	01
02	1–4 cups	137 × 116 × 102 mm	02
03	up to 6 cups (1–6)	157 × 137 × 122 mm	03

Hario’s product pages do not say how many milliliters a “cup” is, so weigh instead. Hario’s basic and staged recipes below use an 02, and its guides say to double coffee and water for two people and brew into a server rather than a mug. For gram amounts at other batch sizes, see how much coffee per cup.

Material changes handling more than recipe. Hario UK notes that ceramic “pulls heat out of your first pour if you haven’t pre-warmed it properly,” glass is “lovely to watch,” and metal “survives being thrown in a bag.”

Recipes compared

Four recipes published by Hario or on Hario’s own sites. Ratios are our arithmetic from each recipe’s grams; the SCA reference of 55 g/L works out to about 1:18.

	Hario basic (one pour)	Hario staged	James Hoffmann	Scott Rao
Coffee : water	15 g : 250 ml	15 g : 250 g	30 g : 500 ml	20 g : 330 ml
Ratio	≈1:16.7	≈1:16.7	≈1:16.7	1:16.5
Grind	“Ground for filter”	Medium, like granulated sugar	Fine-medium	Not given
Water	Kettle boiled, then cooled a few minutes	92–94 °C, ≈30 s off the boil	97 °C, soft or bottled	97 °C
Bloom	Enough to soak all grounds, ≈30 s	45 g, 30–45 s	60 ml, swirl, up to 45 s	60 ml into a “bird’s nest”, spin, 40 s
Main pour	One slow pour in small circles	To 150 g, pause, then to 250 g	To 300 ml by 1:15, then to 500 ml within 30 s; stir, swirl	To 200 ml, gentle spin; at 70% drained, to 330 ml; spin
Total time	Drains in ≈2.5 min	2:30–3:00	Not given	4:00–4:30

Hario’s intermediate guide is the basic recipe on a scale, with an ideal temperature of 92–96 °C. The SCA recommends 93.0 °C ± 3° at the point of contact. Both ambassador recipes run hotter, at 97 °C. Rao’s page also gives a target extraction of 22–24.5%; the extraction calculator explains what that number means.

The 4:6 method: two published versions

Tetsu Kasuya won the 2016 World Brewers Cup with a V60 and his 4:6 method. The idea: split the water into a first 40% that sets sweetness versus acidity and a last 60% that sets strength. Two versions are in circulation from sources tied to Kasuya himself:

Pour	HARIO Europe (time · amount)	Philocoffea basic (time · amount)	Phase
1	0:00 · 50 ml	0:00 · 60 g	40%
2	0:45 · 70 ml	0:45 · 60 g	40%
3	1:30 · 60 ml	1:30 · 60 g	60%
4	2:10 · 60 ml	2:15 · 60 g	60%
5	2:40 · 60 ml	2:45 · 60 g	60%
End	3:30 · remove dripper	3:30 · remove dripper	—
Recipe	20 g coarse, 300 ml, 92 °C	20 g, 300 g (1:15), medium-coarse to coarse	—

Wikipedia’s World Brewers Cup table lists Kasuya’s competition recipe as 20 g : 300 ml at 92 °C with a 3:00 extraction; both home versions above stop at 3:30.

Steering the 4:6

Sweeter: make the first pour smaller than the second. Brighter: make it larger (both sources).
Lighter or stronger: Philocoffea splits the last 60% into one pour for a lighter cup, two for stronger, three for stronger still — three is Kasuya’s default, and two is the suggested start for dark roasts.
Temperature by roast (Philocoffea): about 93 °C light, 88 °C medium, 83 °C dark — not freshly boiled water.
Timing: pour again only when the water has almost completely passed through the filter.

Brewing a V60, step by step

Hario UK’s staged recipe for an 02 and one mug:

Heat the water to 92–94 °C — about thirty seconds off the boil.
Fold the paper along its seam and seat it in the cone.
Rinse the paper with hot water to remove papery taste and warm the dripper, then discard that water.
Add 15 g of medium-ground coffee and shake the dripper gently to level the bed. Zero the scale.
Bloom: pour 45 g, centre first and spiralling out without touching the paper. Wait 30–45 seconds.
Pour to 150 g in slow circles, then pause and let the bed drop.
Pour to 250 g, still keeping water off the paper — water that runs down the filter misses the coffee.
Drain. The whole brew should finish between 2:30 and 3:00.

Pour stream: start in the centre and spiral out, keeping water off the paper.
Paper filter, folded along its seam; the size number must match the dripper.
Coffee bed, levelled with a gentle shake before the bloom.
Spiral ribs hold the paper off the wall so air can escape as water drains. Kasuya’s signature model leaves about the bottom 1 cm without ribs to slow the flow.
60° cone: the angle that gives the V60 its name.
One large hole: it barely restricts flow, so pour speed and grind set the contact time.
Mug or server: one mug for 15 g : 250 g; a server when doubling.

Drawn by pourxlab.com for this page from Hario UK’s V60 brewing article and history page and Philocoffea’s V60 beginner’s guide (sources 1, 7, 10). Generic schematic with no brand marks. Not to scale.

How fast to pour

Hario UK sums up the design: the large hole “is the part that matters”, so your hand does the job a smaller outlet would. The published cues:

Hario staged recipe: slow circles, a pause after 150 g so the bed can drop.
Rao: a steady stream from low height, slow enough that it falls nearly vertically.
Hoffmann: 240 ml in about 30 seconds (roughly 8 ml per second, by our arithmetic), then a slower, gentler 200 ml over the next 30 seconds while keeping the cone topped up.
4:6: each pour waits for the previous one to drain almost completely.

Troubleshooting checklist

☐ Thin, sour, watery: under-extracted — grind finer; if that is not enough, pour more slowly or raise the temperature a degree or two (Hario UK).
☐ Harsh, bitter, drying: over-extracted — grind coarser or pour a bit faster.
☐ Running past 3:30: Hario UK says it is “almost certainly the grind”. Step coarser using the grind size chart.
☐ Races through whatever the grind: check for water running down the paper at the edges and for an uneven bed — signs of channelling.
☐ Balanced but too strong or weak: change the ratio, not the grind.

A short history

Hario UK says the company’s designers developed the V60 in 2004, naming it for its cone and 60-degree angle, and added spiral ribbing so water flows naturally through the cone; the aim was the taste of cloth-filtered coffee with a paper filter. The same page credits the 2010 World Brewers Cup in London with spreading it worldwide. Wikipedia lists the first official World Brewers Cup as 2011 in Maastricht, and five of the next six champions, 2012 to 2017, as V60 users. For how the V60 compares with the Kalita Wave, Chemex and Melitta-style cones, see pour-over technique and the Chemex guide.