The Perfect Pour Over
The Extraction
Every coffee has specific flavor profiles that come to life during the extraction process. Some beans are best extracted via pressure (espresso) while others require a slower, more subtle approach, like the pour over technique. Most of us are too lazy and end up just dumping the grounds into a Mr. Coffee machine, hitting a button, and listening for a beep after the hot water has run through the filter. Totally fine! However, for those who want a little more flavor out of your beans, and enjoy the process of brewing a delicious roast, the Pour Over Technique is for you.
Perfect for our House Blend and Bali Blue Moon
We’ll start with what tools we need:
The Brewer - We recommend the Hario V60 Decanter
Coffee Filter - Hario V60 Filter Paper #2
Scale - Theres thousands of options if you don’t already have a food scale. Smart scales are incredibly useful but any normal food scale will work great.
Timer - it can be in your scale or just on your phone, but it is essential in this technique.
Kettle - We recommend any type of Gooseneck kettle to give you more control over your pour.
(Optional) Grinder - We always highly recommend our customers to order their coffee in “Whole Bean” as this will allow the flavors to be more fresh when you grind the beans per brew. In addition, having a grinder will give you that extra layer of control when dialing in your coffee. If you’re looking for a cheap entry level grinder, just make sure it is a “Burr Grinder”.
Water - Not optional but may seem like a no brainer. However, many people don’t realize how important the water is in their brew. Use filtered or bottled water for the best results.
The Technique
Ratio: 60g of Coffee per Liter of Water
For this example, we are pouring this for 2 cups of Coffee, and will use 30g of grounds to create an output of 500g of coffee.
Grind size: Medium/Fine Grind
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Step 1: Add your filter to the brewer (Hario V60) and rinse your filter paper with hot water. This will help remove any kind of “paper taste” and will also allow the bottom of your brewer to heat it up so the coffee remains hot when dripping out. Remove the water before the next step.
Step 2: Add your grounds to the center of the filter paper and create a small divot in the middle. This will ensure that you are evenly saturating all of the grounds.
Hint: For medium roasts, make sure to use boiling hot water. For darker roasts like our Bali Blue Moon, its ok to wait 20-30seconds after boiling before pouring.
Step 3: The initial pour: start with 2g of water per gram of coffee. For our case, this will be 60g of water on the initial pour. The goal here is to make sure all of the coffee gets wet.
Step 4: It’s time to swirl. Grab your brewer and start swirling in a circular motion. The idea is to ensure the coffee and water is evenly mixed together. Do this until it looks evenly mixed and let it rest and bloom for up to 45 seconds.
Step 5: Begin to pour the remaining water into your grounds in a circular motion. You want to get 60% (300g) of your total liquid into the grounds, in about 30 seconds. Here you want to agitate the grounds a bit but not too much. Your cone will be almost at the top with liquid after the first 30 seconds which is ideal to keep the temperature hot in your extraction.
Step 6: Once you have added you 60% liquid (300g), you want to continue the pour (in a circular motion) adding water very slowly and keeping the liquid full at the top of the cone. This remaining liquid (~200g) should be poured in another 30 seconds.
Step 7: Once you have finished your pour and achieved your total brew weight (500g), use a spoon and give the cone a gentle stir in one direction and then the other. Do this very gently as you don’t want the water to gain momentum and continue spinning when you stop the stir. The idea is just to knock off any grounds stuck to the walls of the filter paper.
Step 8: Grab the brewer and give it a final swirl, no more 5 seconds. This will help keep the bed flat at the bottom and give you the most even extraction.
Step 9: The Drawdown - Wait until all of the water has extracted through the grinds.
Step 10: ENJOY! :)
Try it with our House Blend or our new Bali Blue Moon!
Tips:
If your coffee is a little empty, hollow and bit acidic, make the grinds a bit finer.
If you coffee is bitter and a bit harsh, go a little coarser on the grinds.