Coffee Over Coffee: Episode 1 - Brewing A Pour-Over

 Welcome to Mavericks series of cover over coffee, where discuss useful information for the everyday coffee drinker.

We get asked lots of questions, but most of them are “How do you brew your coffee?”I use a Melitta pour-over system. It is simple and inexpensive. The Melittla uses a #4 size filter to put the coffee grounds in.

First, I grind the coffee (fine grind), then I do what is called a “Pour over.”I take out filtered water, (which is roughly between 200-205 degrees) I just brew the coffee with no fancy equipment necessary. 

When I pour the water into the filter full of coffee, I create what is called the “bed”. This starts the process called “percolation.” I’m really using gravity, I pour the water over the grounds and gravity brews the coffee for me. No bar pressure is necessary like with some brewing systems that require special equipment.

I am pre-infusing the coffee grounds just to make sure that all the grounds are wet. Because wet grounds and dry grounds brew at different speeds. One will go through faster one will go through slower. It is important to make sure they are all uniformly wet, that way I will get an even extraction.

An even extraction means that all the coffee grounds will brew as they should, one won’t be under-extracted and one won’t be over-extracted. That is a really simple process and you can really fine-tune your cup of coffee. 

Before I continue the pour-over, I make sure that the stream of water coming from the bottom of the coffee filter is interrupted and begins to go from a stream of water to a drip.

The beauty of a pour-over is that I can adjust both the amount of ground coffee I use and the amount of water I pour. This is a very versatile and flexible brew method, which I can change daily and even on the fly. If need to have a little more coffee for a “pick me up” in the morning, or a little less coffee maybe at night. I just put more or less in or adjust the amount of water that will affect the extraction and the dilution of the brewed coffee.

In continuing the brew, I am really just going to hit this up a couple of times then I’m done. When I pour the water over the coffee bed, the grounds will naturally be pushed to the side, in a process called “channeling”. If you do not correct for this, with your next pour the water is just going to want to go straight down the middle without contacting the coffee grounds and your coffee will taste very watery and flat. 

To correct the channeling, I start my next pour carefully knocking down the coffee ground along the side of the filter in a circle motion ending in the middle of the coffee bed. I typically do this process with two separate pours of water from the water to reach near the button of the coffee bed before I pour again. 

Note your coffee filter holder type. The one picture in my video is a Melitta, which has a hole in the bottom of the filter holder, so if you pour coffee above the level of the coffee grounds, it still has to pass through the grounds to the leave at the bottom of the filter basket.

If you have a pour over system that the filter holder has holes above the water line, be careful not to pour over the water level above the coffee bed, or the water will by-pass through the filter holes without contacting the will dilute your coffee brew. After the pre-infusion period, I do a total of two pours.

I hope this helps you. Please keep the questions coming.

Ryan