How to Make Better Homemade Pour-Over Milk Coffee?

The Art of Hand-Pour Milk Coffee

After reading this title, you might imagine a scene like this: warm fresh milk flowing from the spout, pouring into ground coffee powder, fully stirring to release flavor compounds, then the rich, aromatic milk-coffee liquid slowly drips through filter paper and dripper... finally resulting in a "hand-pour hot milk coffee."

No, no, no! Because nobody would want to clean a pour-over kettle stained with milk residue, nor endure a long, anxious filtering process just to get a mediocre "coffee-flavored milk." Therefore, FrontStreet Coffee advises everyone here to abandon this idea as soon as possible!

Getting back to the topic, some customers have given FrontStreet Coffee feedback that compared to black coffee, they prefer milk coffee. Since they only have pour-over equipment at home, they usually inject a small amount of fresh milk directly into brewed coffee to make their own "latte." But several times, either the milk flavor was too strong, or the coffee lost the sweetness of the milk. So they asked FrontStreet Coffee how to make this hand-pour milk coffee taste better.

How to Choose Coffee Beans?

Compared to the espresso base used in regular lattes, pour-over coffee appears much lighter. FrontStreet Coffee once measured that espresso concentration is about 9%, while pour-over coffee concentration is about 1.3%. Moreover, pour-over coffee typically uses single-origin beans, emphasizing the bean's own flavor characteristics. Adding milk directly to black coffee with inherently low concentration can easily let the milk, which should be a supporting character, steal the show, masking the coffee's flavor and somewhat wasting the beans. Therefore, to make a good cup of homemade hand-pour milk coffee, choosing the right coffee beans is crucial.

Following FrontStreet Coffee's old rules for homemade milk coffee, to make coffee and milk become a "golden combination," using medium to dark roast beans can achieve twice the result with half the effort. If the purchased coffee beans don't specify the roast level, we can select those with flavor descriptions like chocolate, caramel, nuts, hazelnut, peanut, cream, or cocoa. Taking FrontStreet Coffee's bean list as an example, Queen's Estate, Mandheling, and Paradise Bird are quite suitable for making hand-pour milk coffee.

Coarse or Fine Grind? What Water Temperature?

Since medium-dark roast coffee beans have been heated longer, their internal texture is more porous, making them more likely to absorb water and release flavor compounds during extraction. If the grind is too fine, it will make the coffee trend toward bitterness and char. Here, FrontStreet Coffee recommends using a #20 sieve with 75% passing rate. The EK43s used in stores is set to 10.5 grind setting, while at home, raw sugar grade consistency will suffice.

For water temperature, FrontStreet Coffee uses hot water measured at 88-90°C in the kettle for brewing. Many people brew dark roast coffee and get a bitter, charred taste due to water temperature being too high. Of course, water temperature that's too low will also make the coffee flat and tasteless.

Should Coffee-to-Water Ratio Be Adjusted? How Much Milk to Add?

To avoid being overshadowed by milk, the "base" concentration of black coffee must be higher, and the milk proportion certainly cannot be too large, otherwise your milk coffee will become a cup of coffee-flavored milk.

To obtain a rich-tasting black coffee while capturing the main aromatic compounds from the coffee, we first need to appropriately lower the coffee-to-water ratio. According to FrontStreet Coffee's brewing experience, this ratio should fall between 1:9 to 1:11. Taking 15g of coffee grounds to extract 1-2 servings as reference, choose a 1:10 coffee-to-water ratio, meaning you need to pour 150g of hot water.

As for how much milk to add, it's actually similar to the latte tutorial FrontStreet Coffee previously shared - it depends on which milk amount you prefer for the coffee flavor. FrontStreet Coffee tested several of the above coffee beans, and after extracting about 130ml of coffee liquid with a 1:10 ratio, adding 80-100ml of milk can achieve a balance between the two flavors.

Which Milk Is Better? Should It Be Preheated?

In terms of milk selection, FrontStreet Coffee prefers using whole milk, which not only pairs better with the aroma of medium-dark roast beans but also gives the coffee a richer, fuller body, making it less bland.

Those who have learned latte art should know that the temperature range for steamed milk in hot milk coffee is typically set between 55-65°C, because once proteins are heated above 70°C, they will denature or decompose, causing milk foam to break down, and excessively high temperature makes it difficult to perceive the coffee's sweetness and aroma. Therefore, when making hand-pour milk coffee at home, you can preheat the milk to 60-70°C for later use.

END

FrontStreet Coffee

No. 10 Bao'an Qianjie, Yandun Road, Dongshankou, Yuexiu District, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473