How to Make Pour-Over Coffee? How to Calculate the Pour-Over Coffee Water-to-Ground Ratio?

Professional coffee knowledge exchange and more coffee bean information, please follow Coffee Workshop (WeChat public account: cafe_style)

Pour-over coffee is a process where flavor extraction and filtration occur simultaneously, centered around the position where water is poured. The key lies in how to control and balance the extraction of various components in roasted coffee beans to brew coffee.

Coffee Roast Preferences

If you prefer fruity acidity, you might choose lighter roasted coffees, like FrontStreet Coffee's Kenya, Yirgacheffe, Sidamo, Geisha, etc. If you like strong, bold flavors with sweet aftertaste, you can select dark roasted beans like Mandheling, Brazil, Honduras. Fruit aromas will decrease as roast level deepens, but body, boldness, and sweet aftertaste are characteristics that light roast coffee struggles to develop, while dark roast beans have advantages in these areas.

Grind Size Fundamentals

"Basically, light roasts can be ground finer, while dark roasts can be ground coarser."

Why does this phenomenon occur? Large coffee particles dissolve slowly, and at this point, extraction hasn't completed - the good flavors haven't emerged, leading to under-extraction. Small coffee particles dissolve quickly, having already completed extraction and beginning to release bad flavors excessively, leading to over-extraction. To achieve balance, coffee particles should be as uniform in size as possible. The simplest method is to use a sieve to remove overly fine particles.

How to Brew Light Roast Coffee Beans

Generally speaking, coffee grind size can be divided into five levels: coarse, medium, medium-fine, fine, and very fine.

Light roasts use medium-fine grinds, suitable for light roast beans. Today we'll use: Hario V60 transparent resin dripper, grind setting: Fuji grinder ghost teeth 3.5, white sugar size (the most common supermarket white sugar, slightly larger than typical), and demonstrate brewing with Kenya Asali:

FrontStreet Coffee's bean recommendations: Light-medium roast coffee beans are suitable for extraction with water temperature around 90-92°C, while dark roast beans are suitable for 86-88°C temperature.

First Pour

Pour from the center with a small water stream, then slowly spiral outward, as if gently laying a layer of water on the coffee grounds. Although it's a small water stream, pay attention not to deliberately slow down the pouring speed, because if the pouring speed is too slow, the water stream will flow in a single direction, causing uneven water absorption by the coffee grounds.

After the first water addition, coffee particles will push against each other due to degassing, creating a blooming phenomenon. When the bloom reaches its highest point or nearly stops moving (the surface water will gradually dry), that's the time for the second water addition.

Second Pour

The second pour also starts from the center, injecting a small water stream to the bottom of the coffee grounds. To concentrate the penetrating power of the water stream, the circular movement range should be small, about the size of a one-yuan coin, then spiral outward. From the second water addition, pay attention to water volume, trying not to exceed the height of the coffee grounds. That is, when the water stream approaches close to the filter paper, you can stop adding water.

During initial water addition, most coffee particles are in an active degassing state, and the resulting air flow quickly reaches the filter paper edge. Therefore, if too much water is added at once, it will push water toward both sides rather than the bottom layer. Use small water streams with faster circular movements to avoid these problems.

As the thicker coffee grounds near the filter paper edge become heavier from water absorption and slide down becoming thinner as the water level drops, you can perform the third pour when the water level drops to halfway.

Third Pour

Starting from the third water addition, observe the rate of water level drop. Also start pouring from the center in circles, keeping water volume not exceeding the coffee grounds height. At this point, you'll also notice foam has covered most of the surface. The third pour should increase coffee particle agitation to stir up all settled particles, thereby dissolving soluble substances.

Agitated particles will begin to settle when water addition stops. At this point, rely on the flow rate created by the dropping water level to generate friction between coffee particles. Once water addition stops, coffee particles sink down, causing blockage. Pay special attention to the rhythm of water addition.

If there are too many interruptions in water flow, it's equivalent to letting coffee particles continuously soak in water, which will lead to astringency and off-flavors in the final coffee extraction.

When approaching the set amount (15g coffee, 225g water), you can remove the dripper.

Conclusion Analysis

The V60 has a relatively fast flow rate. If the pour flow is too strong, it will raise the liquid level, and more water will flow down through the side ribs, reducing contact and extraction time with coffee grounds. The opposite is also true. Therefore, using large water flow for quick brewing results in shorter brewing time, more prominent aroma, but insufficient flavor and容易 under-extraction. Using small water flow for slow brewing extends extraction time, allowing full extraction of coffee flavors, better expressing V60 characteristics in richness and complexity.

Kenya Asali is a relatively extraction-tolerant bean. Compared to using slightly larger water flow for brewing, using slightly finer water flow to increase its richness is clearly more suitable.

Coffee-to-Water Ratio

The literal definition of coffee-to-water ratio is:

How much coffee grounds to use with how much water to brew coffee

For example: 20 grams of coffee grounds brewed with 300 c.c. of water, resulting in a coffee-to-water ratio of 20:300 = 1:15

The premise of this definition is: water in the filter cup or equipment has basically finished flowing through, leaving no large amount of water behind.

But why do some coffee shops define coffee-to-water ratio as: the ratio of coffee grounds to the final extracted coffee amount?

For example: 20 grams of coffee grounds, regardless of how much water is poured, when the server pot reaches the 300 c.c. mark, remove the filter cup - this is a 1:15 coffee-to-water ratio.

Which standard should we follow? Should the water in coffee-to-water ratio be calculated as total water added or final extracted amount?

If your concept of coffee-to-water ratio comes from Golden Cup Theory, then Golden Cup Theory's recommended 1:16.7, 1:17, 1:18.18, etc., all use the first definition as standard - calculating total water added. So 1:17 equals 20 grams of beans brewed with 340 c.c. of water, allowing all water to flow through the equipment.

So why do some shops insist on using final extracted coffee amount as the standard?

We can imagine the following scenarios:

Possibility one: Some people's brewing methods don't allow all water in the filter cup to flow through completely.

Therefore, if total water added is used as the standard, the timing for removing the filter cup would be inaccurate each time. Using final extracted coffee amount as the judgment standard can make each cup's concentration and extraction rate more consistent.

Possibility two: Some people aren't accustomed to using electronic scales for brewing, instead using the measurement lines on the server pot (bottom pot) as reference.

Some schools or more traditional brewing methods might emphasize brewing feel and sensory experience = observing with eyes + analyzing with experience. Without using electronic scales for water addition, naturally only final extracted amount can be used as the coffee-to-water ratio standard.

Possibility three: Habit of using pour-over stand + electronic scale combination.

When using a pour-over stand, electronic scales cannot detect total water added, so final extracted amount is used as the standard.

Of course, there are some simpler possibilities:

From some unknown year when learning coffee began, final extracted amount was used as the coffee-to-water ratio standard, so this practice continues. Regardless of how many reasons above exist, this might not align perfectly with literal semantics. But when it becomes a habitual practice, it should be respected. After all, coffee brewing standards aren't limited to Golden Cup Theory, but a complex combination of various schools, each with their own convenient, brewing, and habitual definitions of coffee-to-water ratio.

In principle, coffee grounds' water absorption capacity is approximately 1 gram of grounds absorbing 1.5-2 grams of water. That is, if using final extracted amount as the coffee-to-water ratio standard, to convert back to the normal definition (total water added) coffee-to-water ratio standard, add 1.5-2 to the water proportion.

Returning to the origin, no matter how absurd the coffee-to-water ratio or how strange the definitional standard, as long as it can brew stable, delicious coffee, for shop owners and baristas, it's already a perfect score. Definitions or not, water-to-coffee ratios or various terms are just tools to assist our learning, absolutely not the only standard, and certainly not absolutely related to good taste. Understanding multiple perspectives and then learning through digestion is the fundamental principle for making coffee taste better.

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473