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Pour-Over Coffee Extraction Rate & Concentration: Solutions for Under-Extraction and Over-Extraction

Published: 2026-01-27 Author: FrontStreet Coffee

Last Updated: 2026/01/27, For those learning pour-over coffee, understanding the relationship between extraction rate and concentration is essential. Grasping these two concepts will be extremely helpful for your future coffee brewing. First, we need to understand what extraction rate and concentration actually refer to! The extraction rate refers to the percentage of substances from coffee beans (grounds) that dissolve into water relative to the coffee beans themselves.

Understanding the Relationship Between Extraction Rate and Concentration in Pour-Over Coffee

For those learning about pour-over coffee, understanding the connection between extraction rate and concentration is essential. Mastering these two concepts will greatly benefit your future coffee brewing endeavors.

First, let's understand what extraction rate and concentration refer to. The extraction rate refers to the percentage of substances from the coffee beans (grounds) that dissolve into water, with the coffee beans being the subject. All soluble substances in coffee beans only account for 30% of the beans themselves. We generally consider an extraction rate between 18-22% to produce ideal coffee flavor compounds. Theoretically, extraction rates above 22% tend to produce unpleasant flavors such as bitterness and harshness.

Concentration refers to the percentage of extracted coffee substances in the coffee liquid, with the coffee liquid being the subject. General coffee concentrations between 1.15-1.45% are considered pleasant.

At this point, have you noticed the connection between them? Their commonality lies in the dissolved coffee substances. Expressed as a formula: Extraction Rate = Concentration × Coffee Liquid Weight ÷ Coffee Bean (Ground) Weight. As long as we use a concentration meter to measure the coffee's concentration, we can calculate the extraction rate of the coffee beans.

Of course, not everyone has a concentration meter, so today we'll only discuss their relationship to help us create brewing plans. You can look at FrontStreet Coffee's segmented brewing experiment, which divides the entire brewing process into three stages, producing three cups of coffee representing the early, middle, and late stages, with equal amounts of coffee in each cup. Through observation and tasting, the early stage coffee is most concentrated, followed by the middle stage, with the late stage being the least concentrated.

Principles of Coffee Extraction

Therefore, at the beginning of coffee brewing, the coffee concentration is highest, and the extraction efficiency is also highest. Subsequently, extraction efficiency gradually decreases, and concentration also slowly declines. However, extraction rate is cumulative. Even if the extraction efficiency in later stages is very low, as long as water continues to flow through the coffee grounds, the extraction rate will increase.

We can make a hypothesis: if an infinite amount of water flows through the coffee, the extraction rate will eventually reach 30%. However, using more water makes the coffee concentration more dilute. Therefore, pour-over coffee requires controlling both the extraction rate of the coffee beans and managing the concentration of the coffee liquid.

The Coffee-to-Water Ratio Parameter

Therefore, we arrive at the first parameter for controlling both factors—the coffee-to-water ratio. Using a coffee-to-water ratio of 1:15 to 1:16 makes it relatively easy to achieve a balance between extraction rate and concentration, which is what is often referred to as the "Golden Cup" extraction range in coffee brewing. However, FrontStreet Coffee would like to add that the principles behind the Golden Cup are worth learning, and mastering the relationship between extraction rate and concentration is sufficient. As for the data-based extraction rate of 18-22% and concentration of 1.15-1.45% in the "Golden Cup extraction range," you can use these as references but avoid being obsessed with data. Hitting the Golden Cup range doesn't necessarily guarantee good taste, and there are examples of delicious coffee that fall outside this range. (The SCA also recognizes that the Golden Cup extraction theory needs updating, so they began researching Golden Cup 2.0 in 2017. Let's wait for the research results from the experts!)

Identifying Extraction Issues Through Tasting

After understanding the relationship between extraction rate and concentration, when we encounter undesirable flavors while tasting coffee, we can better identify where the problem lies. For example, when tasting intense, burnt, bitter, coarse, and heavy flavors and textures, we can determine this is caused by both high concentration and high extraction rate.

For example, if the coffee tastes rich yet dull, or has sharp acidity with no aftertaste, this is caused by high concentration and low extraction. For example, watery, thin, and tasteless sensations are caused by low concentration and low extraction rate. For example, bitter water-like, hollow, and thin, coarse sensations are caused by low concentration and high extraction rate.

Troubleshooting Common Issues

If you use an appropriate coffee-to-water ratio (1:15-1:16), low concentration with high extraction will almost never occur.

If you encounter high concentration with low extraction, you can appropriately increase the coffee-to-water ratio by adding more water to increase the extraction rate and decrease concentration.

Issues with both high concentration and high extraction, as well as low concentration and low extraction, mostly stem from grind size and water temperature.