Pourover 2: Beans too fresh?

For a while now I've been wrestling with the concept of degassing and its impact upon brewed coffee (rather than espresso). Opinions are mixed concerning whether in general you should or shouldn't still give them a few days to degas, or just use them asap ... just allowing maybe a day or two post-roast to develop.

Today I've been continuing an experiment I'm conducting over the coming weeks, using a large selection of beans from different regions and with different characteristics, and seeing if there is an optimal brew method to use. It follows on from this thread on www.coffeeforums.co.uk.

Anyway, I'm adhering to the Brewing Control Chart, and discarding any coffees I make that don't meet an acceptable range for TDS and Extraction %. It's a new approach for me, but I'm loving the insight it's providing. Today (the 9th) I opened a bag of Monsoon Malabar that was roasted by Has Bean on the 6th. I brewed 16.5g in 265g of water (16:1 ratio), through a French Press and also a Hario V60. The bloom on both was HUGE... beautiful to watch!

I gently dunked the crust on the Press.
I carefully swirled the slurry in the pourover to get a dome-shape at the end of the drawdown.

I then poured them both into cups and took measurements with my TDS meter.

French Press:
TDS 1.61%
Extraction 25.9%

Pourover:
TDS 1.81%
Extraction 29.1%

Significantly outside my target... right at the top right corner of the chart (off the chart, actually). The colour was very dark, and both tasted like treacle, which despite Monsoon Malabar's unique flavour characteristics, was not acceptable.

But WHY were the readings so high? I'm quite sure the grind was ok. The water temperature certainly wasn't too high. The contact time... 4 mins 30 seconds for the French Press, around 2 mins 50 seconds for the pourover... both are usually fine. Turbulence? Aaah...!

I could be wrong, but I think the degassing/blooming was so violent that on it's own it would have provided more than sufficient turbulence. By further agitating the slurry, even though it was only very mildly, the extraction has been pushed too far.

I'll try two things: 1. Give the beans another day to outgas before using them. 2. Avoid and manual agitation of the slurry for a few days.

If I'm right, then this potentially highlights how critical it is for baristas to use all means at their disposal to evaluate the current state of the beans and adjust their brewing technique appropriately. The TDS meter is only the start for me, as I'm aware that it is knows to have accuracy problems. An ExtractMojo is expensive, but not in comparison with the cost of good beans, which would be wasted if the barista is unable to get the best from them because they are just guessing how they will respond to extraction.