What is the correct brewing method for pour-over coffee? How to reduce channeling? These brewing mistakes must be avoided!

The Importance of Pouring Technique in Pour-Over Coffee

Grind size, time, water temperature, and ratio are extraction parameters we pay great attention to when making pour-over coffee. These parameters affect the dissolution efficiency of hot water, and when improperly combined, coffee will always deviate from being delicious, resulting in some negative flavors or sensations.

Not just parameters, incorrect pouring methods can also prevent suitable parameters from achieving good results. However, because its presence is rather subtle, many friends will subconsciously first observe parameter issues when they brew unpleasant coffee. Little do they know that the pouring method is also very important.

Why is the pouring method so important? The water flow we inject carries a strong force due to its distance from the coffee bed. This force gives hot water its penetrating effect, serving to stir the coffee grounds. Stirring increases the dissolution speed of substances in the coffee grounds. When there are more stirring instances or greater amplitude, the flavor compounds from the coffee grounds will be released faster, and vice versa.

Therefore, we can understand that the injected water flow is also an important member of coffee extraction. If we want to obtain a properly extracted coffee, we need to inject the water flow at appropriate locations in a reasonable manner. However, many friends恰恰 ignore this key point, and because their injected water flow is not standardized, it leads to deviations in coffee extraction, making it difficult to drink. Therefore, today FrontStreet Coffee will share some incorrect pouring methods to help everyone better brew delicious coffee!

Incorrect Pouring 1: Inconsistent Height

This is an incorrect pouring method that many friends easily trigger during their initial learning stage! We pour water in a circular motion to ensure the coffee grounds in the filter cup receive even water distribution. However, many times, the height during pouring is not uniform, fluctuating up and down, sometimes high, sometimes low, which can easily lead to uneven extraction of the coffee.

Because the pouring height determines the impact force of the water flow, in other words, height determines the stirring power of the water flow. With the same amount of water, the higher the pouring height, the stronger the impact force, and vice versa. When we pour in circles with varying heights, it means there's a high probability that the coffee bed will receive uneven extraction. To make a delicious cup of coffee, we need to avoid all negative probability events as much as possible! Therefore, when pouring in circles, it's best to inject at the same height to ensure extraction uniformity.

Incorrect Pouring 2: Too High!

Continuing from the previous point, the higher the pouring height, the stronger the water flow impact force, and while this statement is correct, many friends will deliberately increase the pouring height significantly to obtain stronger penetration. This approach, however, may backfire and reduce extraction efficiency.

There are two reasons: First, when pouring too high, the water flow has more contact surface area, which causes them to lose more temperature, resulting in water temperature during extraction not being as high as originally, in other words, reducing part of the extraction efficiency. Second, when the pouring height reaches a certain level, the poured water flow is no longer "continuous" but becomes individual water droplets. After losing continuity, water droplets won't have strong penetrating force, making it difficult for them to push through the surface layer of the coffee bed, losing the stirring effect, and thus reducing extraction.

Therefore, we should limit the pouring height to about one fist's distance from the coffee bed surface.

Incorrect Pouring 3: Pouring on the Filter Paper Edge

This is an error that FrontStreet Coffee often mentions: when pouring in circles, the amplitude is too large, causing water to hit the filter paper at the edge of the coffee bed.

This situation easily leads to under-extraction and excessively low concentration in coffee, especially for filter cups with many prominent ribbing (such as V60). Because the ribbing prevents the filter paper from completely fitting the filter cup, and these unfitted areas become spaces where hot water can flow freely! When hot water hits the filter paper, it directly penetrates the filter paper and flows out through these spaces. In this situation, hot water not only fails to extract the coffee grounds but also dilutes the existing coffee concentration. Therefore, we need to appropriately reduce the amplitude to minimize the generation of bypass water. This way, the coffee won't easily develop issues of low concentration and under-extraction!

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473