HARIO V60 DRIP SCALE REVIEW: BREW COFFEE WITH CONFIDENCE

The Hario V60 Drip Coffee Scale is beloved by coffee amateurs and professional baristas alike.

How much ground coffee do you need to brew your morning joe? One scoop? How much is a scoop, anyway? Would you be surprised to learn that even two carefully leveled scoops can contain totally different amounts of coffee?

Once you get serious about making the best coffee at home, you realize that measuring your coffee by weight rather than volume is the only way to achieve consistent results. That’s why you need a coffee scale.

The V60 scale is accurate, affordable, easy to use, and includes a built-in brew timer. I’ll walk you through the details in this review.

The Full Review of The Hario V60 Drip Coffee Scale 

Hario products have a strong reputation in the specialty coffee world, and for good reason. While they’re best known for their glassware and the iconic Hario V60 dripper, accessories like the V60 Drip Scale also warrant attention.

My experience with this scale was overwhelmingly positive. It’s not the best coffee scale on the market, but its performance far exceeds its price point, making it a great option for a large majority of coffee drinkers.

Key Performance Metrics

If you are among the many coffee lovers eyeballing your amount of coffee grounds, you are doing yourself and your coffee a disservice. Consistency requires a weighted measurement to control for the varying densities of the ground coffee (1).

It’s easy to confuse precision and accuracy if you’re not a coffee nerd, so let me clarify. Precision refers to the smallest increment a scale measures. The Hario V60 Scale is precise to 0.1 gram, which is standard for most coffee scales. 

Accuracy refers to how close the actual measurement is to what the scale reports. According to the brand, the V60 scale provides accurate readings of +/-0.2 g when you weigh less than 200 grams of coffee. So when you weigh 15.0 grams of coffee for a pour over, it could be anywhere from 14.8 g to 15.2 g. 

I picked up a calibrated 20-gram weight to test it out and measured 20.1 g. Honestly, the vast majority of us will never taste the difference. But if you’re a coffee super-geek, a more expensive scale will provide higher accuracy.

Response time isn’t something that you need to care about with a basic kitchen scale. But making coffee is a dynamic process, so it’s an important parameter if you plan to brew directly on your scale. 

I was impressed with the response time of the V60 I tested. I’ve read older reviews that suggested it was slow or inconsistent, so I suspect Hario has addressed the issue in the latest model. It takes well under a second to register when I add as little as a few coffee beans.

What Is The Range Of The Hario Scale?

The Hario scale features a range of 2 of 2000 g (2 kg), which is equivalent to roughly 2 liters of coffee – more than you are ever likely to brew at a time. Capacity shouldn’t be an issue. 

Using The Scale And Helpful Features

The feature that sets a coffee scale apart from a typical kitchen scale is the built-in timer. Sure, you could buy a basic scale and set your phone or microwave timer, but the 2-in-1 is incredibly convenient in this case.

The Hario V60 Coffee Scale has two touchpad buttons separated by a digital display. The righthand button is On/Off/Tare for the weight, while the left is Start/Stop for the timer. Correspondingly, the right side of the display reports the weight in grams (and only grams; you can’t switch it to imperial), while the lefthand side shows the elapsed time.

To brew a drip coffee with the scale:

1. Turn the scale on.
2. Set your brewer and filter on the scale and press the Tare button to zero it.
3. Add your ground coffee until you hit the appropriate dose for your recipe.
4. Tare it to 0 again.
5. Start the timer and begin pouring water at the same time.
6. Keep adding water until you’ve hit the coffee-to-water ratio for your recipe while monitoring the brew time.

The only finicky part is starting the timer and pouring at the same time. Fancier coffee scales start the timer automatically when they detect added weight. I didn’t find this too much of a challenge, although I can see it being more annoying for a left-handed user.

An automatic shut-off feature engages after 5 minutes of inactivity, but it is disengaged while the timer is in use. The timer runs up to a maximum of 100 minutes, which is far more than you’ll ever need.

My Biggest Complaint

I hate buying batteries, and I am confident I’m not alone in this opinion. They’re expensive, and they always seem to die at the least convenient time. The fact that the Hario V60 Drip Scale relies on two AAA batteries rather than a rechargeable battery is by far my least favorite aspect of this device. I’m shocked that Hario hasn’t released a rechargeable version yet.

That said, the batteries are included with your purchase and last a long time – about 80 hours of use. The screen flashes a “LO” warning when power is running short, so you won’t be caught entirely unaware.

Size, Shape, And Design

Hario’s products are generally minimalist, showing a dedication to simple elegance. This sleek coffee scale is no different (2).

It comes in two versions: a black plastic model made from ABS resin and a metal model with a stainless steel weighing platform that can be removed for cleaning. The plastic model is the more popular of the two as it’s substantially cheaper and nearly as durable. Neither scale is fully waterproof, but they’re water-resistant enough to survive if you spill a little coffee during brewing.

The scale stands just 1.14” tall, and its low profile makes it easy to store in a drawer or on the countertop. It measures 4.72” by 7.5”, which is a comfortable size for all pour-over brewers, including the largest 10-cup Chemex model. However, it’s too big to sit comfortably on the drip tray of most espresso machines. The V60 drip scale is designed primarily for filter coffee fans.

Is The Hario V60 Scale Worth The Money?

The Hario V60 Drip Scale is not without flaws, but it’s important to put them in context with its price. At less than $50, it’s one of the cheapest scales on the market to offer 0.1-gram precision and a built-in timer. You can certainly find a better scale if you have a bigger budget, but I can’t think of another scale I’d recommend at this price. 

The same doesn’t quite apply to the Hario V60 metal version, in my opinion. It’s a bit more expensive, usually around $80, at which point I think your money could be better spent elsewhere unless you’re so clumsy that you demand the durability of a metal surface.

Don’t Buy The Hario V60 Scale If…

• You want something with a rechargeable battery: If you’re a battery hater like me, consider the Timemore Black Mirror Basic Coffee Scale. Its size and functionality are similar to the Hario, but it includes a USB-C Rechargeable lithium-ion battery. 

• You want something smaller: If you want a scale for espresso rather than drip coffee brewing, it makes sense to get something designed to fit on an espresso machine’s drip tray. If you have the budget, the Acaia Lunar is the best of the bunch – a truly commercial-grade model (3). But for those of us with normal-sized bank accounts, the Timemore Nano is a fantastic alternative at a reasonable price.

• You want a smart scale: There are advantages to having a scale that can communicate with your smartphone. For example, you can save brew recipes and share them with other coffee lovers. The Acaia Pearl is a beautiful coffee scale designed for pour over brewing and equipped with Bluetooth connectivity.

The Verdict

The Hario V60 Drip Scale is a top-notch coffee scale with a well-deserved popular following. If you’ve been measuring your coffee with a spoon, adding this inexpensive tool to your coffee kit is a surefire way to improve the quality and consistency of your brews. 

It may not be the flashiest scale on the market, but it’s a solid workhorse from a reliable brand. And it packs the key features and performance required to help you brew a perfect cup of coffee.

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