Can Dark Roast Coffee Be Brewed with Pour-Over? How to Brew Medium-Dark Roast Coffee Beans?

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Understanding Medium-Dark Roast Coffee

For pour-over coffee brewing, different roast levels require significantly different parameters. This article shares FrontStreet Coffee's insights on brewing medium-dark roast coffee beans.

Flavor Profile of Medium-Dark Roast Coffee

Medium-dark roast coffee beans lack the vibrant acidity of light roasts, instead featuring notes of nuts, dark chocolate, and caramel with a bitter-sweet profile. In terms of mouthfeel, they possess excellent body, which is why many people prefer medium-dark roast coffee.

Brewing Considerations

Grind Size

First, in terms of grind size selection, medium-dark roast coffee beans have a looser fiber structure. Water more easily penetrates the coffee grounds, so we need to avoid over-extraction during brewing. For the grind size, choose a slightly coarser setting, with 70% passing through a #20 (0.85mm) sieve as the standard.

Water Temperature

Similarly, water temperature should not be too high. The higher the water temperature, the more efficient the extraction of substances. To avoid extracting bitter flavor compounds from the coffee, we choose to brew at 86-89°C. Medium roasts can be brewed at 88-89°C, while darker roasts require lower water temperatures.

Coffee-to-Water Ratio

For the coffee-to-water ratio, you can generally use a 1:15 ratio, which makes it easier to achieve the golden cup extraction range. If you want a richer mouthfeel, you can adjust the ratio to 1:13.

Dripper Selection

For dripper selection, FrontStreet Coffee uses a Kono dripper to brew medium-dark roast coffee beans. The Kono dripper was designed to create a coffee mouthfeel similar to that brewed with flannel filters, making it very suitable for brewing medium-dark roast coffee.

The Kono dripper was designed by Toshio Kawano and is a conical dripper with ribs extending straight upward from the bottom to the middle, while the upper portion has no ribs, presenting a smooth dripper wall. The advantage of this dripper is that, without pre-wetting the filter paper, it uses the ribs to exhaust air for better blooming. As the water level rises during subsequent brewing, it allows the filter paper to adhere closely to the wall, creating a sealed pseudo-vacuum area.

When the upward channel is sealed by water and filter paper, air can only escape through the gaps between the lower ribs and the filter paper. At this point, the water in the dripper will push against the coffee grounds, eventually flowing downward with the air, creating a siphon effect and resulting in a rich coffee mouthfeel.

How FrontStreet Coffee Brews Medium-Dark Roast Coffee

FrontStreet Coffee's standard brewing uses 15g of coffee grounds with a 1:15 coffee-to-water ratio. Preheat the dripper, then slowly pour in the coffee grounds, keeping them as level as possible during the process and avoiding shaking the dripper (as shaking will narrow the spaces between coffee grounds). For the first pour, make small circles in the center with 30g of water and let it bloom for 30 seconds—the coffee grounds layer will gradually expand into a "hamburger" shape.

For the second pour, make circles from the center outward with 100g of water, keeping the pouring height as close to the coffee bed as possible and moving slowly to avoid excessive agitation. For the final pour, add 95g of water, also using small circular motions in the center. End the extraction when all the coffee liquid has flowed into the lower server. The total extraction time should be between 1 minute 50 seconds and 2 minutes.

Important Notice :

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