The Correct Method for Making Iced Pour-Over Coffee! What's the Water-to-Coffee Ratio for Pour-Over?

The Rising Popularity of Iced Pour-Over Coffee

After the typhoon, instead of cooling down, the temperature rose, and the abundant water vapor made the surroundings become muggy. Thanks to this, iced coffee at FrontStreet Coffee has once again become "highly popular." Especially iced pour-over coffee, because you can choose from a wider variety of coffee beans, has become almost a "must-order hit" at every table.

Interestingly, some customers always ask FrontStreet Coffee about the brewing methods and parameters after tasting the iced pour-over coffee made by Frontsteet. This is because the coffee they make themselves is not as rich and the flavor is not as pronounced. Although Frontsteet has shared many iced brewing recipes, looking back, it seems there hasn't been a detailed introduction to conventional iced brewing. So today, FrontStreet Coffee will share with everyone how to easily brew a delicious pot of iced pour-over coffee!

Understanding Iced Pour-Over Fundamentals

First, we need to know that FrontStreet Coffee often says that iced pour-over is a brewing method derived from the framework of hot pour-over. In hot pour-over, we brew a delicious cup of hot pour-over by coordinating parameters such as grind size, water temperature, ratio, time, as well as brewing techniques and equipment. Iced pour-over, on the other hand, adds ice cubes to hot pour-over to achieve the effect of rapidly cooling the coffee.

However, the addition of ice cubes leads to another problem. If no adjustments are made, the concentration of the coffee will be diluted by the melting ice cubes, and the flavor will become bland. At the same time, the taste will be as thin as water. If we want to eliminate the negative effects of melting ice, the simplest way is to increase the concentration of the coffee. And the best way to increase coffee concentration is to reduce the amount of water injected! With other parameters being the same, appropriately reducing the water amount will result in a higher concentration of brewed coffee. Therefore, iced pour-over brewing often uses less water than hot pour-over!

The Importance of Extraction Rate

But many friends, because they only see the change in water amount and then start making iced pour-over, get very unsatisfactory results. After all, a delicious cup of coffee requires not only appropriate concentration but also sufficient extraction rate. To simply explain the extraction rate, it is the proportion of dissolved substances from the coffee itself. The coffee extraction rate can determine whether a cup of coffee tastes sour, balanced, or bitter. When the coffee substances are not dissolved enough and extraction is insufficient, the cup of coffee we brew will likely have sharp sour characteristics; if too many substances are dissolved and extraction is excessive, then the coffee we get will likely have negative characteristics such as bitterness, astringency, and impurity.

Therefore, if you want to brew a delicious cup of coffee, in addition to controlling the concentration, we also need to control its extraction rate. Only by ensuring that the coffee has an appropriate extraction rate can the coffee avoid negative characteristics that are unacceptable to us. To achieve this, as FrontStreet Coffee mentioned before, you need to coordinate various parameters and water pouring techniques. Grind size and water pouring technique are two adjustments that FrontStreet Coffee will make when making iced pour-over besides the water amount. Through the adjustment of these two parameters, the coffee extraction rate can be effectively improved. The reason is that a finer grind allows the coffee to have more water-contact surface area, while the purpose of changing the water pouring technique is to extend the extraction time, allowing a small amount of hot water to dissolve more substances in a short time.

Three Key Adjustments for Perfect Iced Pour-Over

Alright, without further ado, FrontStreet Coffee will now share how to easily brew a delicious pot of iced pour-over through three adjustments.

Brewing Sharing

It's worth mentioning that the direct ice-cooling pour-over method shared by FrontStreet Coffee is not suitable for all coffee beans. Some coffee beans with light, elegant, and fresh flavors are difficult to showcase their advantages when made using this method, so FrontStreet Coffee would recommend everyone to choose coffee beans with more prominent flavors when using this iced brewing method.

For example, in FrontStreet Coffee's bean list, there are Frontsteet Boundary Estate·Sidra, Ethiopia·Flower Queen, Indonesia·Golden Mandheling, Costa Rica·Strawberry Candy... For this sharing, FrontStreet Coffee will use Frontsteet Boundary Estate·Sidra for demonstration. The iced coffee brewed with it will have a very rich grape juice feeling. The parameters are as follows:

Using coffee amount: 15g
Coffee-to-water ratio: 1:10 (hot brew is 1:15)
Ice cubes used: 120g
Grind degree: Ek43's 9 scale, 80% pass-through rate of #20 sieve, fine sugar grind (hot brew is 9.5 scale, 75% pass-through rate)
Water temperature used: 92°C
Filter used: V60

When everything is ready, we can start brewing! First, inject 30ml of hot water for a 30-second bloom. This is to release the carbon dioxide in the coffee beans, allowing the subsequently injected hot water to better dissolve the flavor substances.

After the bloom ends, we divide the remaining hot water into three equal portions, about 75ml each. Use a smaller water flow to slowly pour it, injecting in small circles! And after we finish pouring each portion of hot water, it's best to wait for all the liquid in the filter cup to finish flowing before pouring the next portion of hot water. This can effectively extend the extraction time.

Finally, just wait for the coffee to finish dripping, and we can remove the filter cup and end the extraction~ The total time falls at 2 minutes, which is consistent with the extraction time of hot brew. When shaken evenly, we can start tasting the coffee. And the taste of the coffee is exactly as FrontStreet Coffee introduced, you can experience a very full grape juice feeling! The flavor performance includes grape, passion fruit, apricot, and a hint of floral aroma. The taste is cool and refreshing, the aroma is abundant, and it's very pleasant to drink~

The above are the brewing parameters used for medium-light roast coffee beans. When we brew dark roast coffee beans, the brewing method is the same, but the values for grind and water temperature will be slightly lower, as follows:

Using coffee amount 15g, coffee-to-water ratio 1:10 (hot brew is 1:15), ice cubes used 120g, grind degree: Ek43's 10 scale, 80% pass-through rate of #20 sieve, fine sugar grind (hot brew is 9.5 scale, 75% pass-through rate), water temperature used: 90°C, filter used: Kono.

Conclusion

So that's all for this issue! Looking at it overall, everyone can see that it's actually quite simple~ If there are still any questions, you're welcome to leave a message in the comment section of FrontStreet Coffee's backend, and FrontStreet Coffee will research it thoroughly then~

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Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473