How to make pour over coffee at home

To make pour over coffee, you pour hot water in slow stages over ground coffee sitting in a paper filter, and let it drip through into a mug. Our recipe, the one Sofía uses for our coffee at home, is 25 g of coffee to 400 g of water at 201°F, finished in 2:45. It makes one large mug, about 12 oz.

That is one part coffee to sixteen parts water. The Specialty Coffee Association's Golden Cup guidance is 55 g of coffee per liter of water, closer to one to eighteen, so our cup is a little stronger than the textbook.

What you need

A dripper. A cone with one big hole, like the Hario V60, drains fast and rewards a steady hand. A flat bottom dripper with small holes is more forgiving while you learn.
Paper filters made for that dripper.
A kettle. A gooseneck spout gives you a thin, steady stream you can aim, though any kettle will do if you pour slowly.
A kitchen scale that reads single grams. If you buy one thing, buy this.
A burr grinder. All our coffee is sold as whole bean, and a burr grinder gives you even pieces that brew evenly. Burr vs blade grinder explains why the cheaper blade kind struggles here.
A timer. The one on your phone is fine.

The recipe at a glance

25 g of whole bean coffee, a little under 1 oz.
400 g of water, about 13.5 fl oz, at 201°F (94°C).
A medium fine grind, about the size of table salt.
2:45 from the first pour to the last drip.

Step by step

Heat the water. Without a thermometer, bring it to a boil and let it sit for about 30 seconds. If you live high up, skip the wait: the USDA notes that water's boiling point drops by just under 1°F for every 500 feet of elevation, so in Denver a full boil is already close to 202°F.
Put the filter in the dripper and pour hot water through it. This rinses out the papery taste and warms the dripper and mug. Throw that water away.
Grind 25 g of coffee right before you brew. Tip it into the filter, give it a shake so the bed is flat, and poke a shallow dent in the middle with your finger.
Set everything on the scale, zero it and start the timer. Pour 50 g of water, just enough to wet all the grounds. This is the bloom.
Wait until 0:45. You will see the bed swell and bubble as trapped carbon dioxide escapes. Water struggles to soak in evenly while gas is pushing out, which is why the bloom comes first.
From 0:45, pour in slow circles from the middle outward until the scale reads 200 g, around 1:15. Keep the stream off the paper itself, or water runs down the sides without touching the coffee.
Let it drop a little, then at about 1:30 pour the rest in the same slow circles, reaching 400 g by about 2:00.
Give the dripper one gentle swirl so the bed settles flat, and let it drain. The last drops should fall close to 2:45.

The timing is your best clue. If the water is gone by 2:15, the grind is too coarse. If it is still dripping at 3:15, the grind is too fine or the filter is clogged with dust from an uneven grinder.

If it tastes sour or bitter

Water pulls flavors out of coffee in a rough order: sour acids come out first, sugars next, and the dry, bitter compounds last. That is why a cup tells you what went wrong.

Sour, thin or a little salty means the water did not pull out enough. Grind finer so the brew runs slower, check your water is hot enough, or pour a little more slowly.

Bitter and drying, like strong black tea left too long, means it pulled out too much. Grind coarser.

Change one thing at a time, and change the grind first, because it does the most. A coffee that tastes fine but weak wants more coffee, 26 or 27 g, and a cup that is too strong can simply take a splash of hot water after brewing.

Fresh coffee blooms hard, sometimes so hard the bed cracks and spits. That is normal for a bag roasted recently. If it looks dramatic, stretch the bloom to a full minute. Why fresh roasted coffee needs a few days covers what that gas is doing.

Brewing for two

Double everything: 50 g of coffee and 800 g of water in a larger dripper. More coffee means a deeper bed that drains more slowly, so grind a notch coarser and expect the brew to run closer to 3:30 or 4:00. Taste it before you adjust anything else.

Which coffee to use

Pour over shows off coffees with clear, fruity flavors, because the paper filter holds back oils and fine particles and leaves a clean cup. Light and medium roasts suit it best.

Our light roast from Ethiopia is the one we brew as pour over, and its product page calls it best that way. It is a natural from Sidama, grown by Elena at 2,050 meters, with hints of blueberry, jasmine and peach. The same page suggests a slightly coarser grind than usual, so start one step coarser than table salt. Our medium roast from Colombia makes a rounder, cleaner pour over if you prefer less fruit. The best coffee beans for pour over goes further into choosing.

At 25 g a cup, a 12 oz bag makes about 14 pour overs. Drink it within a month of it arriving, and grind only what you are about to brew.