Pour Over

The Steps: (See below for specifics on each)

Fill the tank to the mark of the desired amount you want to brew.

Pro tip: if you haven’t thought about how the kind of water you’re using affects your coffee’s flavor, you need to. Check out the 3rd Key to brewing better coffee than the coffee shop.

Step 1: Heat your water

Do I REALLY have to weigh my coffee?
Yes.
You can eyeball it, but you guarantee yourself that it will be inconsistent from brew to brew, and quite probably several cups of not great coffee.
Most people can taste the difference in a gram, so yes it does matter.
I recommend using a scale with a built-in timer, like this one.

How much do I use?
This will take just a tiny bit of work, but I recommend you brew the same amount all the time, so once you know you don’t have to do this again. So whip out your calculator quick and this will be painless.

We want to think about this as a ratio of water to coffee. I can’t know what size cup you drink coffee from, so I recommend starting at 450 grams of water — we’ll cover this more in a later step, so that will make a little more sense — for now, just understand that you’re going to use your total brew water weight and divide by the ratio.
If you like strong coffee, start at 16:1, if you like it on the weaker side start at 18:1. So for 16:1, simply take 450÷16=28.1g. So you know you need 28.1g of coffee. Once you’ve brewed a couple batches and have your grind dialed in, you might want to try it stronger or weaker, so you just follow this formula:

total water ÷ ratio = the weight of the coffee I need to brew with.

Pro tip: For consistency, don’t try to brew different batches for different sized mugs. Brew the same amount every time. To do this you will want a coffee server to brew into.

Step 2: Weigh the coffee

Insert the filter into the basket and using a small stream of the hottest water you can, get the entire filter wet. Be careful not to let the filter cave on the sides. If you’re using white filters, there’s no need to use lots of water.

Filters are made from paper. If you don’t rinse it, you can add a paper or cardboard flavor to your coffee. This is especially true if you use brown filters. I strongly recommend that you only use white filters.

Step 3: Grind your coffee

Step 4: Weighing coffee

Your grind size should be somewhere between granulated sugar and kosher salt.

Pro tip 1: Weigh your coffee after you grind it for a couple brews. Most grinders hold on to a gram or two. If you know that your grinder holds on to 2g, you should add a couple grams when you weigh before grinding to account for it. After all, the coffee you taste is what gets brewed, not what gets poured into your grinder.

Pro tip 2: The consistency of your grind and grind size matters a LOT for flavor. It’s the 2nd Key of brewing better than the coffee shop.

Step 5:

Step 6: Pour grinds into filter and evenly distribute

Using your palm, gently tap the side to create as flat of a surface as possible. This will help promote an even extraction for optimal flavor.

There is one notable exception. If your brewer uses a cone-shaped filter basket, instead of a flat bottom, you should use the “bird’s nest” method. Pour the grounds in the filter and then lift the grounds that are in the middle up to the edges so that the middle of the cone is lower than the edges, like a bird’s nest. This will ensure the grounds at the bottom of the cone extract at a similar rate to the grounds at the top.

FAQ

  • I don’t recommend it. Doing so usually crumples up the filter. We don’t want the filter to fold down during a brew easily and have coffee grounds end up in the carafe. The extra 10 seconds isn’t worth the risk.

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