What is Pour-Over Coffee Water-to-Coffee Ratio? How to Calculate? Three-Stage Pouring Ratio Tutorial

I wonder when you first learned about pour-over coffee. For FrontStreet Coffee, it happened one day when we walked into a café and saw a barista pouring water in circular motions over coffee grounds in a filter cone, producing a wonderfully aromatic black coffee. We were absolutely fascinated and immediately became captivated by the charm of pour-over coffee.

What is Pour-Over Coffee?

When coffee beans undergo high-temperature roasting, they generate various aromatic compounds through chemical reactions. When we brew coffee, we use water and equipment to extract these flavor components. Pour-over coffee involves grinding coffee beans into powder, then pouring hot water to contact the grounds and "dissolve" substances from the coffee. Essentially, we use a filter cone with filter paper or other tools to trap coffee grounds, preventing them from entering the server below, resulting in a cup of clear-tasting black coffee.

From bean selection to extraction, every step influences the flavor of pour-over coffee to varying degrees. Based on FrontStreet Coffee's brewing experience, besides quality coffee beans, we believe you need at least these essential tools: a gooseneck kettle for pouring water, a filter cone and filter paper to trap coffee grounds, a server, a coffee grinder, an electronic scale to measure water volume and time, and a thermometer to measure water temperature.

Quality Coffee Beans

Delicious coffee naturally depends on quality ingredients—premium coffee beans. FrontStreet Coffee recommends selecting coffee beans within 4-30 days after roasting, when they're at their optimal flavor peak. This ensures stable extraction and fuller flavors in pour-over coffee. To guarantee freshness, FrontStreet Coffee ships beans roasted within 5 days. Typically, you'll receive them in 1-3 days, meaning the beans you receive will be at their optimal flavor window, ready for you to begin exploring extraction techniques.

What is Coffee-to-Water Ratio and How is it Calculated?

The coffee-to-water ratio refers to the proportion between coffee grounds and total water volume, directly affecting coffee concentration. Regardless of brewing method, FrontStreet Coffee always determines the coffee-to-water ratio before extraction. For example, our café typically uses 15 grams of coffee grounds per cup with a 1:15 ratio, meaning we pour 225ml of hot water in total.

With all other parameters unchanged, more water results in lower concentration and more dispersed flavors; less water produces higher concentration and more concentrated, heavy-bodied coffee. Additionally, more water increases the extraction rate, yielding more soluble substances. (Extraction rate is the proportion of soluble substances extracted from coffee relative to the weight of coffee grounds.) Later in the pouring process, extraction efficiency continuously decreases, and undesirable bitter compounds may be released, affecting the final taste. Therefore, we need to find the appropriate coffee-to-water ratio to achieve optimal concentration and extraction rate.

Why Pour Water in Stages?

We often see baristas pause during pour-over brewing, waiting for the water level to drop before adding more water. This is called staged extraction.

In the first stage, a small amount of hot water is poured to wet the coffee grounds, aiming to release internal gases that could affect later extraction. This step is called "blooming." The most common blooming method involves pouring twice the weight of coffee grounds in water and letting it bloom for 30 seconds. For example, FrontStreet Coffee uses 30ml of water for 15 grams of grounds. This is also the easiest "blooming formula" for beginners to master. Staged pouring is calculated by whether there are pauses after the blooming stage. For example, if the remaining water is divided into two stages, plus blooming, it's called "three-stage pouring." If there are no pauses after blooming and the remaining water is poured all at once, it's called "single-pour."

Baristas use staged extraction because during pour-over brewing, different components in coffee extract at different rates. When exposed to hot water, flavors release in this sequence: sour, sweet, then bitter. In staged extraction, besides the blooming stage, with the same coffee-to-water ratio, more stages mean less water per stage but more agitation of the grounds, resulting in higher extraction rates.

Additionally, more stages extend the total extraction time, releasing more coffee substances at each stage and creating richer flavor layers. However, FrontStreet Coffee wants to remind everyone that more stages mean longer operation time, increasing the risk of over-extraction. In later stages, larger molecules in coffee are more easily released, potentially masking the sweetness. This shows that more stages aren't necessarily better. So how should staged pouring be calculated?

The Versatile Three-Stage Pour-Over Method

Based on brewing experience, FrontStreet Coffee recommends beginners use the three-stage pouring method. Three-stage extraction helps more fully dissolve flavor compounds while enhancing mouthfeel complexity, avoiding over-extraction that can occur with prolonged immersion.

For 15 grams of coffee grounds with a 1:15 ratio (225ml total water), the three water stages are: 30ml, 95ml, and 100ml, with the electronic scale showing: 30g, 125g, and 225g.

Here, FrontStreet Coffee selected our house-roasted washed Yirgacheffe Guodingding Cooperative coffee beans, brewed with a Hario V60 filter cone. The V60's spiral rib design allows coffee grounds to release gases more effectively, maximizing the release and dissolution of acidic aromatic compounds. Since Yirgacheffe uses light roasting, the beans are relatively hard and require 92-93°C hot water to bring out the floral and fruity notes.

FrontStreet Coffee recommends a medium-fine grind (78% pass-through rate on China standard #20 sieve), similar in coarseness to fine sugar. Grinding too coarsely fails to extract rich, smooth flavor compounds, resulting in thin coffee; grinding too finely can lead to over-extraction at high temperatures, producing bitter coffee.

For brewing ratio, FrontStreet Coffee finds that 1:15 to 1:16 both work well. If you prefer a richer body, use 1:15; if you want to more clearly perceive floral and sweet notes, use 1:16 to allow flavors to disperse more.

First, place the folded filter paper in the filter cone, ensuring it fits well. Pour 15 grams of ground coffee into the filter cone and zero the electronic scale.

For the first stage, pour 30g of water and let it bloom for 30 seconds. Start timing as you begin pouring, using a gentle water stream starting from the center and moving outward in circles, ensuring you wet the entire coffee bed.

After 30 seconds, begin pouring the second stage of 95g water with a slightly larger, steady stream to lift the entire coffee bed. The water stream should be poured vertically and evenly. The scale should show 125g at this point, completed around 55 seconds.

When the liquid level drops to halfway, begin pouring the final 100g using a gentle stream in small circles. Try to control the water stream to avoid making circles too large, which can disperse the coffee grounds and cause under-extraction. The total water poured should reach 225g, with the dripping completing around 2 minutes. Remove the filter cone, swirl the coffee in the server to ensure it's well mixed, and you can begin tasting.

The water amount in each stage isn't fixed—you can adjust based on your accumulated pour-over experience and understanding of coffee beans. FrontStreet Coffee believes there are thousands of ways to brew delicious coffee. As long as we continue learning and practicing, mastering the various parameters of pour-over brewing isn't difficult.

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

For more specialty coffee beans, please add FrontStreet Coffee's private WeChat (FrontStreet Coffee), WeChat ID: qjcoffeex

Important Notice :

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FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473