What's the Best Water-to-Coffee Ratio for Pour-Over Coffee? How to Calculate the Ratio?

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Some friends often ask FrontStreet Coffee why their pour-over coffee maintains consistent quality at the storefront, but when they brew it at home, it doesn't taste the same as in the shop.

Through conversations with customers, FrontStreet Coffee has discovered that many people rarely use electronic scales to record the amount of coffee grounds and water used for each brew when making coffee at home. This makes it very difficult to maintain consistency in pour-over coffee results.

Standard Brewing Parameters at FrontStreet Coffee

For daily preparation at FrontStreet Coffee, we default to using 15g of coffee grounds with a 1:15 coffee-to-water ratio, adding 225g of water. It's important to note that the coffee-to-water ratio refers to coffee grounds to water added. Generally, the extracted coffee liquid weighs only about 195-200g, because the coffee grounds absorb 25-30g of water during the blooming process.

The recommendation to use a 1:15 coffee-to-water ratio comes from FrontStreet Coffee's nearly ten years of brewing experience and actual customer feedback. Pour-over coffee made with a 1:15 ratio delivers relatively balanced flavor and mouthfeel, with a concentration that's acceptable to most people. Whether it's light-medium roast, medium roast, or medium-dark roast, we use the same ratio, but with different water temperatures and grind sizes.

Grind Size and Water Temperature Guidelines

For light-medium roast coffee beans, FrontStreet Coffee uses medium-fine grind (sugar-sized, with 75-80% pass-through rate on China #20 standard sieve), paired with 90-91°C water temperature.

For medium-dark to dark roast coffee beans, FrontStreet Coffee uses medium-coarse grind (coarse sugar-sized, with 65-70% pass-through rate on China #20 standard sieve), paired with 88-89°C water temperature.

Pour-over Technique

The pour-over water pouring technique is as follows: Use 30g of water to thoroughly wet 15g of properly ground coffee, forming a "hamburger" shape for a 30-second bloom, then proceed with the second brewing stage. For the second stage, FrontStreet Coffee uses steady, medium-fine water flow in circular motion until reaching 125g, then stops. Wait until the water level drops to 2/3 of the coffee bed before pouring the third stage. Continue with medium-fine water flow in circular motion until reaching 225g and stop pouring. The total extraction time is approximately 2 minutes.

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473