Pour over coffee brewing has been a part of the global coffee sector for decades, since Melitta Bentz who registered the first patent for a filter coffee brewer in 1908. It became less popular with the rise of espresso through the 20th century, but has started to return to the forefront of coffee culture in recent years.
Today, pour over coffee is becoming increasingly popular with third wave coffee shops and specialty coffee consumers. Many modern cafés now offer manual brews on their menu, and it continues to be popular with home baristas, too.
But where should you start if you want to brew pour over coffee at home or in a café? To answer this question, I spoke to Ed Buston from Clifton Coffee Roasters. Read on to find out what he told me.
What is pour over coffee?
Pour over coffee is a form of filter coffee, also known as “drip coffee” in North America. It is brewed by pouring hot water over coffee grounds, which sit in a filter. The water percolates through the ground coffee, extracting its volatile flavour compounds, before draining through the filter into a carafe or mug. This can be manual or automatic (using equipment such as the Marco Ottomatic®, for instance).
When brewed correctly, pour over coffee will be clean, clear, and consistent. It is a “longer” drink than espresso, meaning it is less concentrated. It also accentuates the brighter, more subtle flavours of a coffee. In addition, the filter (usually made out of paper) catches the oils and solids, resulting in a much cleaner cup with a thinner, lighter mouthfeel.
Today, there are many different types of brewer to choose from. The Hario V60, Melitta, Chemex, and Kalita Wave are among the most popular. Each brewer is also a slightly different shape, which influences extraction and therefore the final cup profile.
What should you consider when brewing pour over coffee?
Bean quality & roast profile
First things first: without quality beans, you can’t brew a good cup of coffee. Buy fresh, good-quality coffee, ideally directly from the roaster if you can.
After that, you’ll want to keep an eye on the roast profile. Pour over drippers tend to highlight the lighter and more complex flavours of coffee, so light to medium roasts are more commonly used for filter. However, what you choose will be down to your preferences.
Ed Buston is Director at Clifton Coffee Roasters in Bristol. He tells me that some roasters will specifically differently roast for filter and espresso. Understandably, when brewing pour over coffee, you should look for filter roasts.
He says: “Try to brew coffees that are going to shine as a filter brew.”
Grind size
Once you’ve got your coffee, grind size is the next most important factor to consider. While you can buy pre-ground coffee, it’s much better to buy whole bean and grind fresh for each brew, as once ground, coffee goes stale very quickly.
This means you should invest in a reliable, good-quality grinder. You should look for a burr grinder, rather than a blade grinder, as this will grind the coffee to a much more consistent size.
The size of your coffee grounds will directly affect the rate of extraction. Since pour over is an infusion method, the coffee grounds will stay in contact with the water for a longer period of time than with espresso, but shorter than in the case of immersion methods like French press or cold brew.
For pour over coffee, a good starting point is what’s described as a “medium” grind size – around the same size as sand. From there, you can tweak it as needed; if the brew is too watery or sour, grind finer. If it is s too intense, bitter, or even hollow, grind coarser.
Water temperature and quality
Approximately 98% of a cup of coffee is water. If the water you use isn’t of good quality, you will be able to taste it in the cup, and it will interfere with the flavour of your coffee.
Make sure to use clean, filtered, and odourless water when brewing coffee. According to the SCA, your brewing water should have a pH between 6 and 8, and a total hardness of between 50 and 175 parts per million. For more information on the total hardness of your tap water, try checking with your water supplier.
Temperature is also important. Your brewing water should be somewhere between 90ºC and 95ºC; even a couple of degrees outside of this range can drastically affect the flavour of your cup.
However, as important as the temperature of your water is how much it fluctuates during brewing. Temperature stability is crucial. Avoid losing too much heat during the brew, as this will make your results inconsistent.
To resolve this, Ed says that you should keep all of your tools hot, including cups and carafes. Try warming your carafe or mug with hot water before brewing to make sure the heat from your brewing water doesn’t dissipate.
Brew ratios
Your coffee to water ratio is the foundation of your recipe. Similar to grind size and water temperature, there are no fixed parameters for brewing ratios, but as a general rule, the SCA advises a ratio of 1:17 (1g of coffee to 17g of water).
This is a good starting point, but it can be adjusted as needed. It’s also a good idea to only adjust one variable at a time as you change your brew recipe, to track what works and what doesn’t.
For instance, if your coffee is too watery or weak, try adding more coffee without changing other variables. Once you’ve finished changing your brew ratio, then tinker with your grind size or water temperature. By only altering one parameter at once, you’ll be able to pinpoint the best recipe for each coffee, and replicate it accordingly.
Pouring techniques
There are plenty of ways to pour your brewing water. Many baristas choose to pour in concentric circles to maintain a consistent water flow.
An alternative technique is pulse pouring. This is when you pour in preset amounts of water, stopping for intervals between each “pulse”. This stops channels from forming in your coffee bed, and disrupts the coffee grounds, effectively “resetting” them each time, helping improve the evenness of your extraction.
Beyond this, you also have continuous pouring. This is where the barista pours the water at a constant flow rate without stopping. The aim is to keep the flow and saturation as even as possible.
Figuring out which technique works best for you will require a lot of time, practice, and experimentation. Consistency will help you understand what works best, but this can be challenging, as manual pouring is obviously prone to human error.
To avoid this, you can try using equipment such as the Marco Ottomatic®, designed in partnership with CHEMEX®. The Ottomatic automatically manages key brewing variables, including pre-infusion, brew time, and water temperature.
Ed says: “An Ottomatic really helps here [with the pour over method] and has the benefit of being super consistent, too.”
Other equipment you will need
Beyond your brewer and your coffee, you will also want to have an accurate digital scale handy. To ensure consistency, Ed says it’s good to brew to a predetermined recipe using a scale, as this will help you to hit the correct brew weight every time.
Another necessary tool is a kettle, which you’ll use to pour water over the coffee grounds. Many baristas choose gooseneck kettles, as they tend to allow for a more controlled pour.
You will also want to have a timer around or stopwatch around – using one on a mobile phone is more than fine.
Pour over coffee brewing allows for an almost infinite number of recipe variations. With so many brewing methods and parameters to choose from, you can tweak each brew until you can repeat it time and time again – just the way you like it.
