BEGINNER GUIDE TO POUR OVER COFFEE

While most people come across our 'Aji Filters’ after brewing pour over coffee (usually with paper filters) we understand that some people have no idea what pour over coffee is. There is tons of info out there on pour over and filter coffee all with varying levels of complexity.

In this article we are going to cover the basics of pour over coffee to get you from zero experience up to speed and confident to start making pour over coffee. If you feel like you need something a little more advanced check out this article: How To Brew V60 - Basic Barista.

What is Pour Over Coffee?

Pour over coffee is a type of filter coffee, while ‘filter coffee’ is more of an umbrella term to cover most black coffees or coffee that has passed through a filter, pour over coffee is quite specific to filter coffee that is made by pouring hot water over your grounds of coffee beans (hence the term ‘pour over’).

You Will Need:

To make a good pour over coffee you are going to need good ‘ingredients’, infact while it may be complex and challenging to make a good pour over coffee it is near impossible to make a good coffee when using ‘low quality coffee beans’ (This also applies for your filter too).

Water

Water makes up most of your pour over coffee infact it’s close to 99% of the drink, using a low tds (soft) water is a good idea but an even better option is to make your own brew water.

Coffee Beans

Make sure to use ‘Filter Roasted’ coffee beans when making pour over coffee, avoid using ‘Espresso Roast’ as this has been roasted to extract better when under pressure and for a short period of time (perfect for espresso, but not so much for pour over coffee).

‘Single origin’ and ‘specialty coffee’ are other keywords you should look out for when choosing coffee, heres why;

‘Single Origin’ just means that your coffee is all from one origin, whether that is Colombia, Ethiopia, Brazil or anywhere else, this coffee has not been blended with other coffees and allows you to experience just the one coffee for what it is, usually people who brew pour over coffee like to purchase Single Origin coffee as it allows them to develop their understanding on what ‘Ethiopian coffees’ taste like compared to ‘Brazillian coffees’. More on this here.

‘Specialty Coffee’ simply refers to the grade of coffee beans, coffee is graded on a 'points’ scale, anything above 80 points is considered specialty coffee. 90 point coffee is considered much higher quality and are sometimes called ‘exotic’ coffees. On the other hand anything bellow 80 points is called ‘commodity coffee’, these are usually low grade coffees that are produced mainly for blends, they usually don’t taste the best on their own and are best to avoid when brewing pour over coffee.

Coffee Dripper

To make pour over coffee you will need to have a dripper, coffee drippers come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Conical, flat bottom and so much more. My recommendation particularly for newbies is to start off with a Plastic Hario V60 Coffee Dripper, this is an inexpensive and very popular way to make pour over coffee at home. The Hario V60 Coffee Dripper is available in a bunch of sizes but we found the most popular here in Australia is the 02 size as you can comfortably make 1-4 cups of coffee with the one cone.

Coffee Server

Servers are fun but aren’t necessary, if you have a large cup that can comfortably hold your coffee dripper and the ammount of coffee you are prepared to brew with then don’t even worry about a coffee server. But if you are looking for a coffee server that fits most coffee drippers, is robust and can hold up to 1/2 a litre of coffee then I recommend the Fellow Carafe.

Coffee Brewing Scales

Coffee Brewing Scales play a BIG part in your pour over coffee journey, being able to weigh out all of your ingredients (coffee and water) for a recipe is only the beginning. Let’s say you brew your coffee and then needed to change the recipe to get your coffee tasting better, having a scale gives you the consistency and repeatability you need to make these changes. Unfortunately scoops and ml’s just won’t cut it when it comes to brewing pour over coffee.

Coffee Filter

So as you might already know, we make and sell the Aji Filter a Reusable Cloth Coffee Filter made from some of the highest quality hand-loomed cotton available to us.

We always recommend that beginners use our Aji Filters for a couple of reasons, usually beginners don’t have super expensive coffee grinders. Generally speaking, cheaper coffee grinders produce fines (small and uneven sizes of coffee grounds) that clog up filters and result in choking and stalling issue. Lucky for you our Aji Filters are fast flowing and can very easily get you a 2-3 minute brew.

Coffee Brewing Kettle

Unpopular opinion, but Kettles are overrated. While it is super helpful to have a kettle that has a gooseneck spout and variable temperature control, try not to get sucked into all the other bells and whistles. If you are looking for a no-thrills kettle that has temp control and is reasonably priced check out the Varia Smart Kettle. If you haven’t made your mind up yet on whether to choose a stove top vs electric kettle then this article is definitely worth a read.

If you don’t have a suitable kettle, this is fine you may struggle to have the same level of control and consistency in pouring but if you still aren’t ready to purchase a coffee brewing kettle I totally understand, a great solution that is super cheap and might be worth looking into is the Hario V60 Drip Assist. This is a fantastic way to avoid splashing out on expensive gooseneck kettle.

The Recipe

Finally, the good part! Now that you know all of the basics lets talk Coffee Recipe aka Brew Method. The first thing we do before we start brewing coffee is collect all the items discussed above and set everything up, place your coffee dripper on top of your server and move onto the next step.

Using your scales, weigh out 20g of coffee beans and grind to a slightly finer than table salt grind setting. At this stage if this is your first brew with the Aji Filter we highly recommend you have a quick read on How To Brew. After you have boiled your Aji Filter place it into your dripper and use some hot water to set the filter into place and to pre heat your brewing apparatus.

Now we are ready to brew, Add your 20g of ground coffee beans to your Aji Filter and start by pouring 60g of water over the coffee grounds, once you have reached 60g stop pouring and allow for the water to drain through your coffee grounds and enter the coffee server.

We will repeat this last step for a total of 5 pours, this should look like:

Pour 1 = 60g

Pour 2 = 120g

Pour 3 = 180g

Pour 4 = 240g

Pour 5 = 300g

(5x 60g = 300g) The reason we use 300g is because we want a 1:15 Brew Ratio, in other words for every 1gram of coffee we will use 15grams of water or 20g coffee to 300g water.

You should expect your coffee to draw down completly and finish your last fifth pour at around 2-3 minutes, this is called your ‘Brew Time’ and while it doesn’t give the most consistent reflection of a coffee it does give you a rough idea of how well your brew has been extracted.