How To Slow Down Your Pour Over Coffee

Pour over coffee relies on water passing through a bed of ground coffee, depending on the coffee beans, grind size, the filter you use, the amount of pours, how much agitation used and the water temperature your coffee will draw down at different amounts of time.

How Long Should Pour Over Coffee Take?

While most coffees taste exceptional at the 2-3 minute mark, this is certainly not universal and brew time really isn’t that important as it is when brewing espresso.

Is a slower drawdown better?

In fact some coffee are just inherently slower at drawing down than others. I once brewed a washed Ethiopian coffee that took 6 minutes to brew, I tried to ‘fix’ this by adjusting my variables but out of all of the brews I made this coffee tasted best at a longer brew time.

My point is that each coffee is different, its processed differently, has different roasting profiles and moisture content and in the end all of these variables add up to a big question mark as to how long each pour over coffee should take.

When to ‘Fix’ Brew Time?

My approach to brewing a new coffee is to brew every coffee the same, use the same brew method, water temp, grind size etc and see what the results are. Once you have finished brewing you can find out the TDS, see how long it took for the coffee to draw down and most importantly you can taste your coffee.

If a coffee is perfect, don’t bother changing it. But if a coffee needs adjustment you can try adjusting the coffee grinder, using a different temperature water and play with the variables.

How do Aji Filters Compare?

Aji Filters are fast flowing, they comprise of 2 layers of our lightweight cotton and have larger holes in comparison to paper filters.

When we say fast, we mean FAST. When comparing Aji Filters to traditional paper filters the Aji Filters are around 30-60seconds faster on average. Because of this fast flow rate we recommend you grind considerably finer than you would for paper coffee filters.

Benefits of brewing with a fast flowing coffee filter

Slow flowing filters are annoying, they can be useful to slow down super-fast flowing coffees but for most coffees to counteract a slow flowing filter you have to grind coarser.
When you do grind coarser you run into the risk of your coffee tasting sour and sharp.

On the other hand a fast flowing filter gives you much more control, when using a high quality coffee grinder you can grind finer and extract higher.
Best of all we found that most beginner brewers making pour over coffee typically don’t have Comandante grinders or other high-end coffee grinders, this results in a much larger range of coffee grinds that cause stalling (a common issue in pour over that clogs the filter and creates an unusually longer draw down time).

Aji Filters don’t have such a big issue with stalling as paper filters do and are a great option for people who are looking to avoid investing in expensive coffee grinders.