Pour-Over Coffee Process: How to Make Iced Pour-Over Coffee, Ice-to-Coffee Ratio, and Brewing Techniques!

Making iced pour-over coffee is incredibly simple! By using ice cubes, hot coffee extracted with hot water is rapidly cooled in a short period. Because of its refreshing taste and vibrant flavor, iced pour-over has become a favorite for many friends. However, many friends have noticed that different coffee shops have their own distinct approaches to making iced pour-over. Interestingly enough, their differences lie not in extraction parameters, but in the sequence of adding ice!

"Ice first, extract later" is the iced pour-over process adopted by most coffee shops. However, quite a few coffee shops use the "extract first, add ice later" method. Consequently, many friends began researching the differences between these two approaches. Does iced pour-over with ice added first taste better? Or does adding ice later produce better results? So today, FrontStreet Coffee will test these two methods to determine what exactly distinguishes them!

Operational Differences

The "ice first" method is easier to understand because it simply adds ice cubes to the traditional coffee brewing process. Before brewing, we place a proportionate amount of ice cubes in the server. These cubes continuously contact the extracted coffee liquid during the extraction process, causing the coffee to cool down and melt gradually. Once extraction is complete, we shake or stir to ensure the coffee's concentration and temperature are more uniform.

The "ice later" process is relatively more cumbersome because we need to extract the coffee liquid first, then pour it into another container with ice cubes (or add ice cubes to the coffee liquid), and finally achieve uniform cooling through shaking and stirring.

Comparative Experiment

This experiment used Colombia Diviso Estate Sidra coffee beans, because this Sidra underwent anaerobic natural processing, making its flavors more prominent and allowing us to more easily discern subtle differences in taste and texture. Both groups used identical parameters, with only the sequence of adding ice being different. The parameters were as follows:

Coffee amount: 15g
Grind size: EK43 setting 9, fine sugar texture, 80% pass-through rate on #20 sieve
Coffee-to-water ratio: 1:10
Ice cubes: 100g
Water temperature: 92°C
Pouring method: Three-stage pour
Dripper: V60

Both pots of coffee were brewed simultaneously. First, we poured twice the amount of water as the coffee grounds for a 30-second bloom! After the bloom ended, we poured the second segment of 70ml of hot water from a higher position using a small circular stream. After the water permeated through, we poured the remaining 50ml of hot water in the same manner.

Once the coffee liquid had finished permeating, we could remove the dripper and prepare for stirring!

After stirring, we tested the temperatures separately, and then we could begin the coffee tasting~

In terms of temperature, the ice-first iced pour-over was around 7°C, while the ice-later pour-over was approximately 10°C; in terms of aroma, the ice-later pour-over had a richer fragrance; and in terms of taste, at the beginning of tasting, FrontStreet Coffee found that the ice-first group had more prominent flavors, while the ice-later pour-over was richer.

FrontStreet Coffee believes these differences occurred because the ice cubes melted to different degrees! The ice cubes in the ice-first group melted continuously throughout the process, diluting the coffee after melting, resulting in a relatively lower concentration initially. The ice-later group, however, had less contact time between ice cubes and coffee liquid, and the coffee liquid temperature was lower than immediately after extraction, so the melting was less extensive, allowing the coffee to maintain some concentration initially. But as time passed, the ice cubes in the ice-later group melted, and the two tasted almost identical. Without direct comparison, most friends would not be able to taste the difference.

Therefore, FrontStreet Coffee believes their differences only exist in the first few minutes. If you're making a smaller cup or the ice cubes aren't hard enough and are relatively "thin," choosing the ice-later method for making iced pour-over would be more appropriate. But if you're like FrontStreet Coffee, preferring a more convenient method that uses fewer utensils, then the "ice first" approach couldn't be more suitable.

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473