What to Do When Pour-Over Coffee Extraction Gets Blocked? How to Handle Water Pooling?

"Interception" is a last resort during pour-over brewing when fine powder causes blockage. If not intercepted in time, the bitter, over-extracted taste will give you a terrifying "tongue experience."

But what if we could predict the likelihood of blockage before it occurs during brewing? Could we then change our brewing method in advance to reduce the negative effects of blockage and avoid the无奈之举 of interception? Today, FrontStreet Coffee will share how to determine whether water accumulation will occur during the brewing process from several aspects.

Key Focus: Light Roast Coffee Beans

Light roast beans are the "hardest hit" areas for blockage situations. The lighter the roast level of coffee beans, the less the beans expand, so their fibers remain more complete, making their density much higher than dark roast beans. This requires using a finer grind to reduce their mass and obtain a more abundant extraction rate.

Fine grinding often produces extremely fine powder, and combined with the heavier mass of light roast coffee beans, the double buff叠加 easily causes blockage! Therefore, when brewing, light roast beans are an extraction target that requires special attention.

1. Bloom Expansion Level

Whether dark or light roast, as long as the beans are fresh when brewing, there will always be a large bulge during the bloom (light roast beans won't be as obvious) because they need to release gas, expelling carbon dioxide from inside the beans. After passing the fresh stage, the bloom bulge will be much smaller because most of the gas has been lost, naturally it won't bulge as much, and this can be used as a basis to determine whether blockage will occur.

Obvious bloom expansion indicates that the beans still contain more gas inside, so the chance of blockage is not high; but if the expansion amplitude is small and the beans are not so fresh, you need to pay attention! Beans with too small expansion indicate that the gas inside is no longer abundant. Without the obstruction of gas, hot water can easily fill the internal space of coffee particles, and being heavier, they are more likely to settle to the bottom of the filter cup, causing blockage!

Therefore, it's best to reduce the circular amplitude after the bloom ends to avoid washing down the coffee powder on the filter cup wall, causing concentrated blockage. And appropriately raising the water level during subsequent pouring is also a good choice.

2. Foam Performance After Bloom

Usually, pouring after the bloom will generate more foam. But if the foam amount is thin, or even has holes (places not covered by foam), then there's a high probability: due to too little brewing force, your coffee powder has already settled to the bottom!

So, when the next pouring begins, please increase the water flow to stir the powder bed, dispersing the coffee powder accumulated at the bottom. It's best to focus on small circles in the center, which can achieve better stirring effects (it will block, but not as much).

3. Observe the Water Level Drop Speed

The reason FrontStreet Coffee likes to use the three-stage method is that it not only can extract full coffee flavor but also can handle such sudden blockage events~ When you find that the water drainage speed is slow after the second stage of the three-stage pouring, it indicates that it has started to block.

FrontStreet Coffee suggests waiting until the water level reaches the bottom before proceeding with the third stage pouring, which can better directly target the coffee powder accumulated at the bottom and speed up the drainage time somewhat.

But regardless of which method, it's only reducing the impact of this blockage. It will still block, but it can avoid "helpless" situations like "interception." Therefore, after avoiding this blockage problem, you need to quickly find and correct the real cause of the blockage, so that you can ensure you don't need to make such remedial measures in the next brewing~

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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