Iced Pour-Over Coffee Tutorial: Water-to-Coffee Ratio - Can You Add Ice to Pour-Over Coffee? How Do Baristas Make Iced Pour-Over?

As the perceived temperature briefly spikes, Guangzhou, where FrontStreet Coffee is located, begins to enter a Schrödinger's summer, and iced coffee has consequently returned to the top of in-store sales. As everyone's favorite, iced pour-over not only allows you to choose your favorite coffee beans but also adds a chilling effect that is mellow yet refreshing—it's simply an "essential remedy" for high-temperature weather.

Taking advantage of today's still bright sunshine, FrontStreet Coffee has compiled a collection of extraction methods for iced pour-over, all with zero barriers to entry, so simple that anyone can master them. Be sure to save this guide!

What You Must Know About Making Iced Pour-Over

Regardless of the coffee extraction method, the parameters we focus on are actually centered around two key points: extraction rate and concentration. The first point, extraction rate, directly affects whether the coffee tastes more acidic, balanced, or more bitter. The second point, concentration, changes our perception during tasting—too concentrated can easily create a stimulating sensation while masking flavors, while too diluted is like drinking water. Therefore, as long as both ultimately fall within appropriate ranges, the combination of parameters can be flexibly adjusted.

Like many coffee preparation methods, iced pour-over is derived from the original hot pour-over framework. In conventional hot pour-over, we coordinate grind size, water temperature, coffee-to-water ratio, equipment, and pouring techniques to achieve suitable extraction rate and concentration for a cup of coffee. Iced pour-over, on the other hand, adds ice cubes to hot pour-over to cool the resulting coffee. Therefore, if we directly apply the hot pour-over method + ice cubes formula, although the coffee achieves an appropriate extraction rate, the concentration gets diluted because the ice cubes melt into water, resulting in what would inevitably taste like bland and flavorless iced coffee water.

So, to get a delicious cup of iced pour-over, the core issue is solving how to maintain an appropriate concentration even after the coffee cools down. The most common approaches include changing ratios, adjusting grind size, using technique intervention, and physical cooling methods. FrontStreet Coffee has organized these into roughly four methods.

Method 1: High Concentration, High Extraction Method

High concentration, high extraction, as the name suggests, means high concentration and high extraction rate. High concentration is easy to understand—it ensures that the brewed coffee still has excellent flavor and maintains a full body after adding ice cubes. The operation is also very simple: appropriately reduce the amount of water and adjust the grind to be finer.

With the same amount of water, increasing extraction rate means extracting more soluble substances from the coffee. Iced pour-over requires us to separate some hot water and replace it with ice cubes, so the water volume is less than conventional hot pour-over, and extraction time will also shorten, reducing later-stage substances and thereby lowering extraction rate. Therefore, the "high extraction" mentioned by FrontStreet Coffee here actually means allowing the brewer to extract as many soluble substances as possible with limited water, which we can coordinate by changing techniques.

Here, FrontStreet Coffee uses medium-light roast coffee beans—FrontStreet Coffee's Kaffa Forest as an example, with iced pour-over parameters using high concentration and high extraction as follows:

Coffee dose: 15g
10x hot water: 150g
5x ice: 75g
Water temperature: 92°C
Grind size: 83% pass-through rate on #20 sieve (EK43s setting 9, C40 setting 22)
Dripper: Hario V60
Technique: Three-stage pour

First, place 75g of ice cubes in the server, then pour 15g of ground coffee into the filter cup and gently level it. For the first stage, use a small water flow of 3ml/s to pour 30g of hot water from the center outward in small circles for a 30-second bloom. After 30 seconds, use the same technique to pour the second 60g of water, being careful not to raise the liquid level too high to avoid under-extraction. When the coffee liquid is about to dry up, pour all remaining 60g of hot water at 3ml/s flow rate, ensuring extraction time falls between 1 minute 50 seconds to 2 minutes.

This brewed Kaffa Forest not only has rich fruit flavors like lemon and blueberry but also highlights the sweet aroma of melon seeds, with a light body and balanced sweet-sour-bitter notes. However, since there will be some residual crushed ice after brewing, if you don't want the coffee to be further diluted, either drink it quickly before the ice melts or remove the ice cubes first.

Method 2: Ice-Rinsing Method

In the first method, FrontStreet Coffee used high-hardness square old ice cubes, which means their dissolution rate is slower, so the coffee liquid can cool down quickly while avoiding the risk of over-dilution. However, if we have smaller molds at home that make faster-melting ice particles, using the same parameters to brew iced coffee will result in slightly inferior effects, generally表现为 a watery texture and weak flavors.

To reduce the situation of too low concentration caused by excessive ice melting, we can use the "ice-rinsing" method for cooling. The brewing parameters for this method remain unchanged—we just need to prepare double the amount of ice (150g), then find a filter that can hold ice cubes and collect the flowing liquid. Here, FrontStreet Coffee directly uses the filter cup, then pours the brewed coffee liquid directly onto the ice cubes, achieving cooling effects through continuous rinsing.

This brewed Kaffa Forest is better than the previous method both in richness and flavor layers, with predominantly yellow peach, citrus, and apricot aromas, a soft mouthfeel, and a sweet aftertaste.

Method 3: Stirring Method

With the same duration, adding stirring action in pour-over can use external force to increase the extraction efficiency of hot water on coffee grounds, thereby increasing flavor concentration. For light to medium roast beans, stirring during the water injection stage can accelerate the release of acidic and sweet substances, giving the coffee better juice-like body and floral notes. The corresponding iced pour-over parameters are as follows:

Coffee dose: 15g
Hot water: 160g
Ice cubes: 80g
Grind size: 80% pass-through rate on #20 sieve (EK43s setting 9.5, C40 setting 24)
Dripper: Hario V60
Three-stage: 30g, 80g + stirring, 50g

Before pouring, first place ice cubes in the server and pour all coffee grounds. The first bloom stage remains unchanged—maintain a small water flow of 3-4ml/s to pour 30g from the center outward in circles. After 30 seconds, pour 80g of hot water from inside to outside in circles, slightly raising the water level. When the scale shows 110g, stop pouring and take out a pre-prepared small spoon to stir 5 circles along the filter cup wall in one direction, then wait for the coffee liquid to slowly flow down.

When the coffee bed is about to be exposed, pour the remaining 50g of hot water into the center with a small flow. Wait for all coffee liquid to finish dripping, then remove the filter cup to end extraction—time should be approximately 2 minutes to 2 minutes 10 seconds. Finally, shake the server to melt all the ice cubes inside, and you can begin tasting.

This iced pour-over Kaffa Forest with added stirring has richer sweet and sour sensations, with predominantly grapefruit, orange, yellow peach, and sweet tangerine fruit flavors, along with a tea-like aftertaste. The final ice cubes give the coffee a refreshing quality, making it taste full of juice-like sensations.

Method 4: Ice-Bath Cooling Method

In addition to the three more common methods above, FrontStreet Coffee's collection has one more luxurious method—"ice bath cooling," which requires no adjustment of grind size or coffee-to-water ratio. The coffee liquid relies entirely on external ice water for physical cooling throughout the process, which can reduce the watery texture caused by ice melting in the coffee. The drawback is that it requires a large amount of ice cubes and involves a lengthy cooling process. Before brewing, we need to prepare a thermometer first, with corresponding brewing parameters as follows:

Coffee dose: 15g
Coffee-to-water ratio: 1:15
Grind size: 78% pass-through rate on #20 sieve (EK43s setting 10, C40 setting 26)
Water temperature: 92°C
Dripper: Hario V60
Pouring technique: Three-stage pour

First stage: pour 30g of water for a 30-second bloom. Pour 95g from the center outward in circles at a medium water flow of 5ml/s, completing in about 50 seconds. When the water level drops to 2/3 of the coffee bed, use the same technique to pour the remaining 100g of hot water, completing drip filtration in about 2 minutes 10 seconds. Then place the entire pot of coffee in an ice-water mixture for cooling. When the thermometer shows the temperature has dropped to 10°C, it's ready to taste.

This Kaffa Forest brewed using ice bath cooling has very clear sweetness. Because there's no influence from ice cubes, you can immediately feel white floral aromas and citrus-like fruit acidity upon entry, along with characteristics of sweet melon, sugar tangerine, and blueberry. The sweet and sour flavors are full and rich, making it the most layered cup among the four methods.

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Tel:020 38364473