Beginner's Guide to Pour-Over Coffee Tips: What's the Right Grind Size?

Pour-over coffee is not as difficult as everyone imagines. However, people often focus only on the major aspects of brewing while easily overlooking some small details. Among these details are precisely what determine whether a cup of coffee tastes good or not. Below, FrontStreet Coffee will share which details deserve special attention.

Detail One: Don't Compromise on Your Grinder

When FrontStreet Coffee addresses numerous pour-over coffee questions from enthusiasts, we find that the most common issue is grind size. It's not that they can't grasp the right grind size for pour-over, but rather that their grinder hardware is subpar. Coffee that tastes as weak as water or is bitter and dull is inseparably related to the coarseness of the grind. Therefore, if you want to brew delicious pour-over coffee, you can't skimp on investing in a good grinder.

Standard for a Good Grinder: Even Grinding

Good grinder ⬆️

Bad grinder ⬇️

Detail Two: Grinding Should Be the Final Step in Preparation

Basically, everyone who brews coffee using pour-over methods understands the importance of freshly ground coffee. After coffee beans are ground, their flavor dissipates rapidly. Therefore, the best practice is to grind your coffee only after you've prepared the filter cup and other equipment, and the water temperature is ready.

Detail Three: Check Carefully Before Pouring Water

FrontStreet Coffee lists several points that everyone should pay attention to. Before pouring water, please check if the waste water in your lower pot has been poured out completely. When wetting the filter paper and warming the pot, water remains in the lower pot, and sometimes people forget to pour it out and start brewing directly. Even experienced baristas sometimes make these basic mistakes, so special attention is needed before pouring water.

After grinding the coffee powder, it's recommended to first zero the electronic scale, then pour in the coffee powder to confirm the weight is accurate. Be wary of the grinder "eating powder" without your knowledge.

Detail Four: Mastering Extraction Time

Besides coffee grind size, extraction time is the most difficult to master. Many enthusiasts say that mastering the end time of water pouring is already impressive enough—how can you control the free settling of the remaining coffee liquid!

In reality, once you've mastered the grind size, basically the only thing that can affect time is your pouring technique. First, there's the issue of segmented extraction—the more segments you divide the pour into, the longer the overall extraction time. Therefore, single-pour takes less time than three-stage pouring (about 15-20 seconds difference)!

Pouring with large water flow also takes less time than pouring with small water flow. Large water flow can raise the height of the coffee bed, thinning the bottom layer thickness, allowing water to drain more naturally. Large and small water flows can also be alternated to adjust extraction time. Generally, controlling the brewing time between 1 minute 50 seconds to 2 minutes 10 seconds is considered reasonable.

Detail Five: Shake the Lower Pot After Brewing Coffee

Under normal circumstances, freshly brewed coffee liquid hasn't completely and evenly merged. It typically presents as concentrated at the bottom and lighter at the top. Therefore, you need to shake the lower pot to evenly blend the coffee liquid. One reason for using cloud-shaped sharing pots is for convenient shaking (though it's actually for aesthetic purposes).

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473