Brew Something Special – Breaking Away from Automatic Drip

There is a myriad of ways to brew a good cup of coffee these days. New pour over devices, purporting innovative or unique ways to brew, seem to come on the market every week. It can be overwhelming for anyone who just wants to step up their coffee game, either for themselves at home or their customers in the café.

No matter the method or technique, all pour over brewing devices follow similar rules and rely on a specific set of supplies. Understanding each of these will have you on your way to delicious, repeatable pour over coffee in no time.

Let’s start with the necessary supplies:

• A gooseneck kettle: These uniquely shaped kettles with their narrow, curved spout allow you to pour water over your coffee slowly, precisely and with intention. Doing so enables you to control a few important variables when brewing:

1. 1. Contact time between the water and coffee.
   2. Accuracy of how much water you’re pouring.
   3. Ensuring the grounds are evenly saturated for a more cohesive finished brew.
   4. Mitigating agitation. Agitation occurs when water is poured too quickly or from so high up the coffee slurry becomes turbulent, increasing extraction in an uncontrollable manner, often resulting in a disjointed and less pleasant cup. You want your pour to be like a steady, smooth and slow-moving stream – not bare knuckling on a white-water rafting adventure.

• A scale and timer: There’s no shame in eyeballing it. If you want a repeatable and consistent pour over, you’ll need to measure how much coffee you’re using, how much water you’re pouring and your total brew time. We recommend getting a scale with at least one gram of precision. If you can, scales with 0.1-gram precision specifically designed for coffee are the gold standard and most have built in timers!
• Fresh filtered water: Your coffee is only as good as your water. Using filtered or bottled water with a neutral 7.0 pH is great.
• Thermometer or variable temperature boiler: We’ll need to heat the water to between 195- and 205-degrees Fahrenheit – the brewing temperature at which coffee does best. If you have an electric goose neck kettle which allows you to control the temperature, that’s perfect. If you’re using a stove to heat the water, don’t worry – once the water is boiling, take it off the heat and let it rest for about two minutes and it should be close to optimum temperature. A thermometer can help ensure the water is at the perfect temperature.
• A burr grinder: There are two types of coffee grinders in the world. Blade grinders, which chop up the coffee using blender-like blades, produce a wildly inconsistent particle size. Burr grinders are those designed to grind coffee to a uniform and consistent particle size. While burr grinders tend to cost a little more than blade grinders, they’re well worth the investment for a consistent, well-extracted and flavorful brew.  Of all the items on this list, a burr grinder is arguably the most important.
• Fresh, well-roasted coffee: If you’re using coffee from any of the Farmer Brothers family of brands, you’re golden.

Now that you’ve gathered your supplies, let’s walk through a great starting recipe for one, 12-ounce cup of coffee. For this example, we’ll be using a six-cup Chemex brewer, an established pour over device, which has been making great coffee in American homes since 1941.

1. Heat the water. You’ll need enough for the brew, plus a little extra for rinsing.
2. Weigh out and then grind 25 grams of coffee. If you’re grinder has a “drip” setting, that’ll do great. Otherwise, aim for a ground particle size that’s a little coarser than table salt.
3. Place an appropriate coffee filter in your brewer. Specific pour over methods often utilize their own type of filter so make sure you’re using the correct one.
4. Rinse the filter. This will help pull any paper flavors out of the filter and also preheats your brewer and decanter. Brewing coffee into a warm vessel will improve the flavor. If you’re using unbleached or brown paper filters, these tend to need a little bit more rinsing to remove papery taste.
5. Empty the rinse water from your brewer, then add your freshly ground coffee. Gently shake the brewer to level out the ground coffee.
6. Place the brewer onto your scale and zero out the weight.
7. When ready, start the timer.
8. Slowly pour 50 grams of water, making sure to saturate all of the grounds.
9. Wait for about 45 seconds. This phase of the brew is called the “bloom” – a period where the now wet coffee starts to release trapped carbon dioxide. The grounds bed may gently rise and bubble.
10. At 45 seconds, slowly pour about 100 grams of water in a spiral motion – starting in the center and spiraling out around the edge, close to the filter. Stop when you reach 150 grams.
11. Pause for about 10 seconds, then pour another 100 grams of water. Repeat this pausing and pouring until you reach 350 grams.
12. Pause one last time, then gently pour the last 50 grams of water, stopping right at 400 grams.
13. As the water drains through the coffee, use any remaining water to preheat your cup.
14. When all of the water has disappeared through the ground coffee and the filter has stopped dripping, remove the filter and discard the grounds. Gently swirl the brew, pour and enjoy!

A few extra tips

• The purpose of pausing between pours is to maintain an even water level in the filter when brewing, ensuring the coffee is evenly submerged. After the bloom, you don’t want to let the water completely drain from the filter or you’ll likely end up with an unbalanced cup.
• How fast the water drains through the filter will affect how the coffee tastes. If the water is flowing quickly and the coffee tastes lackluster, try grinding the coffee a little finer next time. Finer ground coffee will cause the water to flow more slowly, extracting more flavor.
• Inversely, if the water is taking too long to drain through the filter, the brew may end up tasting too strong, astringent or heavily bitter. In this case, grind coarser for a larger particle size and a faster flow rate.
• Feel free to play around with the grind setting to achieve your perfect flavor balance.