How to Allocate Water for Segmental Pour-Over Coffee? How Much Water for Each Segment?

Using a segmented water pouring approach when brewing coffee is more suitable for beginners because it provides more flexibility for adjustments, allowing better handling of potential issues such as water pooling, rapid drainage, and uneven extraction.

Of course, segmented water pouring also raises questions for many beginners: How should the water volume be distributed among each segment? And how urgently they want to understand the impact of different water volumes in each segment on the coffee's flavor profile!

To intuitively demonstrate the impact of water distribution schemes on flavor, FrontStreet Coffee has designed a comparative experiment to facilitate understanding.

In this experiment, FrontStreet Coffee adopted a three-stage approach as the pouring scheme. (To avoid confusion, FrontStreet Coffee would like to clarify here: the three-stage method involves dividing the entire process into three stages, including the bloom stage; whereas three-stage pouring excludes the bloom stage and is called "three-cut technique," which actually involves four pouring segments.)

Therefore, within the three-stage framework, excluding the first stage bloom pour, only the second and third stages need to be allocated.

FrontStreet Coffee's three comparative experiments are as follows:

Group 1: Second stage water volume > Third stage water volume
Group 2: Second stage water volume = Third stage water volume
Group 3: Second stage water volume < Third stage water volume

FrontStreet Coffee selected Yirgacheffe Gedeb for the brewing experiment. The parameters were: 15g coffee grounds, 1:16 ratio, medium-fine grind size (80% pass-through through #20 sieve), and water temperature of 91°C.

The segmented water volumes for each group were as follows:

Group 1: First stage 30ml (bloom), second stage 130ml, third stage 80ml;
Group 2: First stage 30ml (bloom), second stage 105ml, third stage 105ml;
Group 3: First stage 30ml (bloom), second stage 80ml, third stage 130ml.

The extraction times for the three groups were 2 minutes 12 seconds, 2 minutes 3 seconds, and 2 minutes 10 seconds respectively, with all times being quite similar.

In terms of flavor and mouthfeel, there were differences among the three, but all exhibited the floral notes, citrus acidity, and green tea characteristics of this coffee. FrontStreet Coffee will rank them from these perspectives to facilitate understanding.

Acidity: Group 1 > Group 2 > Group 3
Sweetness: Group 2 > Group 3 > Group 1
Mouthfeel: Group 2 > Group 1 > Group 3
Aftertaste: All three were comparable

Simply put, during water pouring, the coffee grounds are stirred up by the water column, which serves to increase extraction efficiency. Increasing extraction efficiency at different time stages will result in different flavor expressions. When more water is allocated to the earlier stages, less water will be available for later stages, making it easier to express vibrant acidity, with an overall performance leaning toward freshness and pleasant liveliness;

Similarly, when more water is allocated to later stages, the mouthfeel and sweetness will be enhanced, with an overall performance leaning toward balance, richness, and stability.

However, when more water is allocated to later stages, a thin mouthfeel may occur. For instance, in this experiment, FrontStreet Coffee used the Gedeb coffee beans, which are high-altitude, lightly roasted, and have high bean density.

During brewing, the coffee grounds tend to accumulate easily on the coffee bed, so the coffee wall can only form once after the bloom stage. In Group 3, because the second stage water volume was slightly less, the water level was lower, and the coffee wall was naturally lower as well. When more water was allocated to the third stage, the water level easily submerged the previously established coffee wall. The water above the coffee wall would flow away from the filter paper edge, resulting in a naturally thin mouthfeel for the coffee.

Therefore, when planning water distribution, water level should also be taken into consideration. For example, if you intend to emphasize the sweetness of this coffee by concentrating water volume in the later pouring stages, the actual operation might cause the water level to rise above the coffee wall. In such cases, you can temporarily split the later stage pouring into two segments, which will prevent the thin mouthfeel issue. Of course, this also proves that this water distribution is unreasonable and requires re-planning.

Finally, if you carefully observe published water distribution schemes, most are anchored around a 6:4 or 7:3 water distribution between front and back stages.

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473