How To Brew Pour Over Coffee

Why Add Ice To The Coffee Brewer

The question I think most of you have is, why do I have to add ice to the bottom compartment of my coffee brewer instead of ditching the ice cubes and just using water instead?

When you brew regular pour over coffee, you use only hot water to brew that cup of coffee. But when brewing iced coffee from hot coffee, you want to cool it down as fast as possible.

This is where ice comes in. While ice cools the coffee until fully cold, most ice cubes will melt and turn into water again.

When not using the ice cubes as part of your total water to add, youll be over-extracting your iced pour over coffee. This is because youll be using way too much water and not enough coffee to compensate for it.

Thats why this technique uses ice as part of its total water to add. It will simply ensure a full-flavored cup of iced pour over coffee for you to enjoy.

I like to use these ice cube bags to make many ice cubes at once when I expect to brew lots of iced coffees. You can check out the link to the same bags I like to use. Theyre super fast to fill and freeze really fast.

Iced Pour Over Coffee To Water Ratio

To make iced pour coffee at home, use the below-listed coffee to water ratio to fit the amount of coffee you want to make:

In the recipe listed below, Ill be using the measurements to produce 2 cups of coffee. If you want to make more or less of the coffee, you can use the amounts that Ive listed above.

Lets move onto the next most important thing about this technique of brewing coffee. Youre going to need to use the correct coffee grind size to produce Your Dream Coffee at home. Lets get into it:

The Importance Of Wetting Out Paper Filters

We’ll all see this done and often wonder why these coffee pros are wetting out the filter before adding coffee ground. You could say it helps to prewarm your pourover vessel and also keeps the filter from slipping out of place by sticking to the inside of the brewing vessel. The actual answer is two-folded since there must be a completed seal between your paper filter and your brewing vessel.

This assists with the capillary action that helps draw the liquid from your brew through the paper itself rather than trickling down the spaces in between. Many pourover designers try to improve on this design by adding grooves and channels to speed up this filtering process. It’s basically all hype and does nothing for what is really going on. The paper is acting as a very effective filtering system that uses both gravity and capillary action.

This is also the reason why a cone filter works more effectively than a cup-shaped filter since the cone is angled at such a degree to allow filtered coffee to drain rapidly into the carafe below. This still has one more trick that you haven’t learned about yet, and this is all part of the sterilization of your paper filter. By wetting out the filter using 200 degrees Fahrenheit water, you’re not only changing the composition of the paper, but you’re also clearing out unwanted tastes.

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Grinding Beans Too Far In Advance

Oxygen is coffees greatest enemy. Grind your beans right before youre about to start brewing. It may be more convenient to grind your beans the night before, but in doing so youre exposing the grinds to aggressive oxidation and off-gasing, which will even in one evening warp the flavor of the brewed coffee. Also, be sure to keep your whole beans in airtight containers either the bag they came in, or capsules like these from Fellow.

Coffee Science: How To Make The Best Pourover Coffee At Home

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There seem to be new coffee brewing gadgets showing up all the time, but sometimes it’s hard to separate what’s worthwhile from what’s a waste of money. It’s helpful, then, to back up and try to understand how coffee brewing works and how brewing equipment differs. Then, you can make an informed decision about which devices and methods might work best for the type of coffee you like to drink.

Today we’ll focus on the physical and chemical processes that make up coffee brewing, starting with one of the most simple methods: pourover.

Pourover coffee starts with ground coffee, a filter, and a filter holder, often called a ‘pourover dripper.’ At the most basic level, pourover brewing involves pouring water over and through the grounds to extract the coffee flavors into your cup or serving vessel. Seems simple, right? But let’s get a few levels deeper!

All coffee brewing methods involve the same three general phases: wetting, dissolution, and diffusion. Each phase is linked to the others, and they affect what comes next in some important ways.

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Why Do I Need To Rinse The Paper Filter

If youre one of the above-mentioned coffee drinkers who find coffee brewed with a metal filter or in a French press is just too intense, youll want to use a paper filter. It holds back more of those flavorful oils, which creates a smoother taste and a milder finish. Rinsing paper filters prevents them from sucking up too many of those tasty components, though, and it helps the coffee to filter evenly throughout the brew, so youll see this step noted in almost every pour over coffee recipe.

What Is It About Chemex That Makes Their Pour Over Coffee Makers So Effective

They make each piece from non-porous Borosilicate glass. It doesnt absorb odors or chemical residues, and it allows you to cover and refrigerate your coffee for reheating at a later time. But its not only the carafe that makes a difference its also the filters.

Chemex coffee makers work with Chemex bonded filters, designed to make the medium-fine grind cup possible. With Chemex filters, youll never find sediments or bitter elements in your mug. Regardless of which Chemex coffee maker you choose, make sure you pick up the filters to go with it.

Are you interested in other brewing methods? Check out The Pros and Cons of the Electric French Press.

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Best Pour Over Coffee Kettle

An electric gooseneck kettle is perfect for using with your Chemex coffee maker. Why use a this special type of kettle? A gooseneck kettle gives you more control so you can slowly pour the water onto the coffee beans, allowing it to extract maximum flavor. Plus, it looks cool! We use this electric gooseneck kettle: its perfect for heating water for coffee and tea weve use ours for 6 years and its held up great. Or, try this more affordable pour over coffee kettle.

Get it: Electric gooseneck kettle or pour over coffee kettle

Weigh Your Coffee And Water

The biggest flavor factor is the ratio of water to coffee. The most popular recommendation is to use a ratio of between 16:1 and 19:1.

In simple terms, that means anywhere from 16g to 19g of water for every 1 gram of ground coffee.

So, if we take an average of those ranged

That means for a regular, 6-ounce, cup of java perfection youll likely need to weigh out around 10g of coffee, and 175g of water.

But again, this is all subjective. A great tip is to try different ratios and make notes each time to find your own personal sweet spot.

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What Is Drip Brew And The Difference Compared To Pour Over Coffee

When youre talking about differences between a drip-brew coffee maker and a pour-over coffee maker, youre probably discussing automatic versus manual brewing methods. Essentially, pour overs are a type of drip-brewed coffee. Water passes through the coffee grounds and out of a small hole at the bottom of a funnel or basket in a steady stream. With a pour over, of course, youre the one working the water piece of the coffee-making puzzle. An automatic drip-brewer uses a pump and a nozzle.

Place And Rinse Filter

You can use tap or hot water for the filter rinse, though hot water is more common. There are different schools of thought about what this step really does for the overall flavor of the final cup, but most agree its better safe than sorry. The prevailing belief is that wetting the filter first rinses off any loose paper fibers and prevents the filter from soaking up too many of the flavorful components of the coffee as it brews through it. If you rinse your filter over the cup youre brewing into, remember to toss out the water that drains into it before starting your actual brewing process.

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Don’t Overflood Your Coffee Grounds

If you’ve ever watched a pourover method before, they never seem to mention that timing is everything. By this, we have to stress that brewing time is set to a length of time that water is added to your coffee grounds. Your goal is to not drown your grounds on purpose, since you are extracting and dissolving coffee flavors from your coffee grounds. This is why a slow and steady stream of water allows you to add water into your grounds as you need.

Flooding your grounds will ultimately weaken the flavor and prematurely cause bitter flavors to be extracted too quickly from this agitation. Only fill the grounds as the amount of time allows , and according to the total water weight you’re shooting for. It’s a careful dance that only allows so much water to pass through your coffee grounds as needed.

Pour The Water Over The Coffee Grounds

Place your freshly-ground coffee into the filter and give it a gentle shake to level it out. You want all your coffee particles to be roughly the same size so they extract at the same rate.

Now, when it comes to pouring there are two distinct phases of the process

Phase 1: the bloom.

Starting in the centre and moving outwards, slowly pour a small amount of your hot water over the coffee grounds.

At this point, you only need to pour enough water to cover the coffee grounds. Youll probably notice the coffee starts to expand and/or produce bubbles of gas thats exactly what we want! It should look something like this:

The purpose of this phase is to release all of the carbon dioxide thats in the coffee from the roasting process. Doing so allows us to then go forward and extract the maximum amount of soluble coffee flavours.

Wait around 45 seconds until the bubbling stops and all of the water has soaked through the grounds.

Which brings us on to

Phase 2: brewing.

Now its time to start pouring the rest of the water.

Again, start in the middle and slowly spiral outwards in a circular motion. The keyword in that last sentence was slowly.

You should aim for it to take around 1 to 1.5 minutes to pour whats remaining of your water over the coffee.

Now its just a case of letting gravity do the work. It should probably take around a minute for all of the water to drain through into the container below.

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Which Coffee Should You Use

So you have your equipment ready, but now what? Which coffee should you use with a pour over? There are a few factors to consider when choosing your beans.

• Roast profile

Because the pour over method works well to highlight subtle flavor notes and aromas, you may want to choose a light roast. Beans that are roasted to this profile are the brightest, with the most acidic flavors.

Chad says Light roasts showcase the most authentic quality of the coffee.

Of course, you can go medium or even dark if you prefer, but this brewing method is complementary to subtle flavors.

Learn more in Light, Medium, & Dark Roasted Coffee: Whats The Difference?

• Grind size

The size of your grounds affects the rate of extraction. Pour over is a an infusion method, which means that the coffee and water are in contact for a shorter amount of time than in an immersion method, but longer than in an espresso. So you want the coffee to have enough surface area to extract before the water filters through into the cup, but not so much that they under-extract and produce a bitter brew.

What this means is that you should start with a medium grind size and then evaluate your cup and tweak it as needed. If its a little watery or sour, try a finer grind. If its bitter and lacking sweet notes, try going a little coarser.

Want to make great latte art? Watch this video!

Stathis Koremtas holds his trophy at the 2017 World Brewers Cup, where he took third place. Credit: Stathis Koremtas

Pillar #: Coffee Grind

Brewing great coffee demands a consistent grind, no matter which brewing method you use. Handground was created by a community of thousands of coffee enthusiasts to make it easy to achieve a consistent grind for any brew method.

10. Donât underestimate the importance of grind size

âItâs my belief the two most important things in making a V60 are the grind size and the control of the flow rate and water distribution. Grind size should be medium-fine, generally speaking, but will vary coffee to coffee as well. The ability for nuanced control over the grind size is probably most important for really dialing in a recipe.â

-Matt Scottoline, ReAnimator Coffee, Philadelphia, PA

11. Grind your coffee beans last

âGrinding should be the last step before commencing the pour, 15 seconds max between grinding and pouring.â

-Jae Ho Synn, Coffeebar Byul, Irvine, CA

12. Look out for a muddy ground bed

âIf you ever see the coffee being really muddy at the end it most likely means the grind was too fine or you had too much turbulence in the brewing process and itâll be over extracted.â

-Jono Moehlig, Land of a Thousand Hills, Atlanta, GA

13. If you have a refractometer, find a grind that yields a 20% extraction

âIdeally, you want a grind size that will allow for an extraction percentage around 20%. With this, the brewer needs to pour in a careful and controlled manner to ensure the brew time is appropriate .â

-Matt Scottoline, ReAnimator Coffee, Philadelphia, PA

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What Is Iced Pour Over Coffee

Iced pour over coffee, sometimes referred to as Japanese-style iced coffee, is iced coffee made with the Hario V60. By pouring less water than youd typically use when brewing hot coffee, the remaining water is added in the form of ice cubes.

The ice cubes will ensure that the hot coffee that comes out of the coffee dripper will cool down immediately. The waters total weight will remain the same, but it will be divided between hot water and ice cubes.

Most commonly, this technique is used by brewing coffee with the Hario V60. However, a little further down the article, Ill also show you how to make this coffee using a Chemex.

After: Rinse And Clean

Volatile oils give coffee its unique flavor, but the build-up of these oils can also make future cups of coffee taste awful as they turn rancid over time. Plain white distilled vinegar will help you get rid of any residue on your coffee-making accessories, so clean them regularly to keep your brews tasting as fresh as possible!

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Always Use Filtered Water

It’s one of those golden rules that cannot be stressed enough to make the point that good coffee starts with clean water. If you don’t have a water filter, buy a portable water filter that uses charcoal filters. You’ll immediately notice a huge difference with how your coffee tastes using water that doesn’t contain minerals or additives that can make your coffee taste terrible.

The filtration systems that cost a bit more for home use are much better for filtering out more unwanted junk for tap water, but it’s certainly worth the cost savings over portable filter units. The reason this is better than using bottled water is to get the right amount of oxygen that’s added while your water is filtered, which also helps your coffee flavors stand out better. But whatever you do, don’t settle for ordinary tap water at all costs!

Which Pour Over Coffee Maker Should You Use

There are a wide variety of pour over brewers you could use brew coffee manually. You could probably pick one up at your local Dollar Tree .Everyone will have their own preference when it comes to the equipment they end up purchasing. However, if you dont own any manual coffee maker, Id recommend the Kalita Wave brewer. Or you could check out our pour over coffee maker buyers guide for other options.

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Equipment For Making Perfect Pour

The kettle is important when youre trying to control the stream of water youre adding to the grounds. With a traditional pour-over dripper, a gooseneck hot-water kettle will be helpful. With the pour-over with water tank brewer, however, you can use any kind of kettle because the brewer itself controls the flow of water into the coffee.

Keep a supply of fresh coffee filters for your pour over and regularly clean your coffee equipmentthis is an important part of making a great tasting pour-over coffee.

Bkg Brew Guide: Pour Over Recipe For Single Origin Ethiopian Coffee

Have you checked out our previous brew guide on pour over and coffee extraction 101? This brew guide is going to continue both and bring you our golden recipe dialed in for our Ethiopian single origin. This is the recipe we use daily, crafted with care for every single cup. It has sparked so many great conversations about specialty coffee over the counter. We are really happy we are sharing this with you today, as well as some exercises to help you use your goose neck kettle like a pro!

This recipe requires a little bit more attention to the motion of your pouring, but the result is a balanced, sweet brew with a pleasant texture. We love our Ethiopia with this recipe because it marries the uplifting fruit notes with a comforting finish and body, truly a perfect cup.

As in our previous brew guide on pour over, we are using the following tools:

. coffee beans

. decanter or mug large enough to hold 14oz of liquid.

STEP 1: GET THE WATER READY

We are using water temperature of 205°F for this recipe. Check out our previous brew guide on water for more information about constructing your very own water for coffee.

STEP 2: SET UP V60

Fold the seam over onto the filter itself. Insert the filter into the brewer. Rinse the filter with hot water.

STEP 3: GRIND YOUR COFFEE

Weigh out 28g of coffee. Grind the coffee fresh on medium-fine.

STEP 4: BLOOM

Tare the scale and start the timer. Dont forget to tip out the water in the decanter if you havent already!

STEP 5: PULSE POUR

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