The Perfect Pour Over

How to Brew the Perfect Pour Over

1. Heat your water just off the boil. Aim for around 200°F — that's roughly 30 seconds after it stops boiling. Too hot scorches the grounds and pulls out bitterness; too cool and the coffee comes out flat and weak.
2. Weigh your coffee and grind medium-coarse. Start near a 1:16 ratio — about 22g of coffee to 350g of water. Pour over wants a grind like coarse sand; too fine and the water stalls, too coarse and it rushes through thin.
3. Rinse the filter and warm the brewer. Pour hot water through the empty filter and dump it. This kills the papery taste and pre-heats everything, so your brew temperature doesn't crash the moment it hits cold glass.
4. Add grounds and level the bed. Give the dripper a gentle shake so the coffee sits flat. An even bed means the water saturates evenly — the same reason a level tamp matters in espresso.
5. Bloom first. Pour just enough water to wet all the grounds (about twice the coffee's weight) and wait 30–45 seconds. You'll see it puff up and release gas — that's fresh coffee degassing, and skipping it leaves your cup tasting dull.
6. Pour slow, in steady circles. Work from the center outward and back, keeping the water level steady — never blast straight down the middle. Gentle, controlled pours keep the extraction even and stop grounds from climbing the walls.
7. Pour in stages, not all at once. Add water in two or three pulses, letting the level drop a bit between each. Pulse pouring keeps the grounds agitated just enough to pull out flavor evenly across the whole brew.
8. Aim for a 3–4 minute total brew. Your bed should finish flat and even, not gouged or lopsided. Too fast means grind coarser; too slow means grind finer — change one thing at a time and taste your way in.

Same principle as the shot: control every variable, and the cup rewards you. Pull better shots. At home.