Best Pour Over Coffee Recipe - True Café Quality Coffee at Home! — *The pour over coffee maker is my favorite way to brew light roasted coffee beans*

Making good pour over coffee can be difficult with all the technicalities involved, but never fear I am here to personally help you with the Best Pour Over Coffee Recipe that I guarantee you will produce a delicious cup of pour over coffee every time!

After a year of research and binge watching James Hoffmann’s videos I’ve created the perfect pour over coffee recipe. And in fact, I use this recipe myself all the time with light roasted coffee beans and every single time this recipe produces the best coffee I’ve ever had.

Servings: 1
Calories: 5 kcal
Brewing Time: 3 Minutes

Skip Straight to the recipe :)

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What is Pour Over Coffee?

Pour Over Coffee Maker — *There’s something so serene about the coffee brewing ritual*

Not to be confused with drip coffee, which uses an automated machine to drip water through coffee grounds, Pour Over Coffee is manual brewing method where you slowly pour hot water over ground coffee through some sort of filter, metal or paper.

What makes Pour Over so special and my preferred method of brewing coffee (whenever I want to feel fancy) is because this method has the ability to highlight the nuanced flavors of your coffee beans, producing a clean, aromatic, and well-balanced cup.

Also, unlike an automatic drip coffee machine, Pour Over Coffee gives you full control of brewing variables like water temperature, pouring speed, etc…

The Japanese Influence of Pour Over Coffee

Now, the pour over coffee brewing method was invented in 1908 in Germany, and while the Germans are known to be great engineers, it’s the Japanese who perfected the Pour Over recipe and the brewing method.

The pour over coffee became popular in cafes (known as Kissaten) across Japan due to its emphasis on precision, craftsmanship, and the ritual of brewing. A popular and well respected Pour Over Coffee Brewing Method has been developed by the Japanese, and this will be the basis for my Pour Over Coffee Recipe and I will talk more about it’s technique later on.

Also, one of the most well-known Pour Over coffee inventions that you might’ve heard of is the Hario V60, a cone-shaped dripper with spiral ridges designed to enhance water flow and the coffee bean’s extraction.

As third wave Coffee shops started popping up all across the world in recent years, The Japanese pour over coffee obsession started spreading throughout the world, with each specialty cafe using or employing their own modified version of the Japanese Pour Over Coffee Recipe

Your Pour Over Coffee Dripper

Pour Over Coffee Recipe — *I just use cheap equipment, this whole pour over setup (minus scale) costed me just $15*

Believe it or not, which pour over coffee maker you use affects the final taste of your cup of coffee, though I honestly think the difference is minimal and if you’re not crazily obsessed about the most exemplary cup of coffee then I don’t think it’ll matter much.

The basics is that the structure of the inner grooves of your pour over filter will affect the flow of water, which in turn affects the flavor extraction of the coffee grounds.

My Pour Over Coffee Recipe works with any pour over maker. I personally use a cheap conical glass filter that I bought from Shopee. Though I do want to upgrade to the Hario V60 when I have the money…

Anyways, if you are looking for some proper recommendations on Pour Over Coffee makers, these are some popular ones:

Hario V60 - Mentioned twice already, the most iconic pour over coffee maker on the market, a favorite amongst pour over enthusiasts
Chemex - A stylish glass brewer with a thick paper filter that produces a smooth, delicate, and less acidic coffee.
Kalita Wave - A flat-bottom dripper with three small drainage holes, offering a more even extraction and balanced flavor.
Origami Dripper - Stylish ceramic dripper with deep grooves that enhance water flow for a well-extracted, aromatic brew.

Goose Neck Kettle for Pour Over Coffee

Get yourself a Goose Neck Kettle.

This isn’t a recommendation, this is a must! No seriously, since I am showing you the Best Pour Over Coffee Recipe, you’ll need to make sure that the most important part of the recipe, the actual brewing part, is as good as it can be.

Goose Neck Kettles are kettles where the spout is thin and wavy, curving upwards… like a goose’s neck. This feature allows you to have more precise control over the amount of water you flowing into your Pour Over Coffee Maker.

And since all good pour over coffee recipes (including mine) are based on the Japanese Pour Over Method, which may I remind you emphasises precision, you’ll really want to have a goose neck kettle on hand.

Any Goose Neck Kettle works, again I use a cheap $7 one that I got on Shopee.

Best Coffee Beans for Pour Over

The Pour Over brewing method works best with light roasted coffee, and in my opinion the best coffee beans for pour over are ones with a more fruity and citrus-y flavor profile.

Lighter roasts combined with the slower extraction preserves the coffee’s natural flavors, floral notes, and bright acidity. It works especially well with single-origin beans to bring out their unique characteristics.

While Pour Over does technically work for medium or darker roasted beans, the slower brewing time makes it easier to mess up, as a longer extraction will bring out the more bitter and unpleasant flavors while muting the coffee’s natural flavor. If you want to brew medium-dark roasts then I recommend using a French Press or an AeroPress better.

Pour Over Coffee Grind Size

For my Pour Over Coffee Recipe, the ideal coffee grind size is medium-fine to medium, similar to the texture of small grains of sand. This grind size allows for optimal water flow and extraction, giving a balanced flavor without over or under extracting.

Keep in mind that you’ll want to adjust your grind size depending on the type of pour over coffee maker you have. If the drainage hole is quite large like the Hario V60 then you’ll want to grind your coffee beans on the finer side to slow down the water flow.

If the drainage hole is small like on the Chemex or Kalita Wave, the a coarse grind is fine.

Remember to use a proper bur grinder to get consistent coffee grind sizes, none of that blade spice grinder nonsense…

Pour Over Coffee Ratio

For my Pour Over Coffee Recipe I use a brew ratio of 1:16 (coffee to water), so my recipe is 16g of coffee to 256ml (I round down to 250ml) of water.

The ideal pour over coffee ratio is generally from 1:15 to 1:17, but this is dependent on your personal preference. If you want a stronger, bolder, and more concentrated brew try 1:15 as a baseline. for a lighter more diluted brew, sort of like tea, then go for 1:17.

Pour Over Coffee Technique

Ok, I’m gonna get into the nitty-gritty of the Pour Over technique…

The Japanese pour over coffee technique emphasizes precision, patience, and an even extraction, so you bet that there are some small steps in this technique that help to enhance the flavor of the coffee.

Pre-wetting the filter paper to remove the artificial chemically taste of the paper
Allowing the coffee to “bloom” by pouring a small amount of hot water on the coffee grounds to release CO2 and enhance the flavor.

But the most important aspect of the Japanese Pour Over Technique is the actual pouring itself. We’ll be pouring slowly in 2 phases, first phase is to well… brew, second phase is to brew as well as to “scrape” the coffee grounds stuck to the side of the filter.

The pouring action is VERY IMPORTANT, you’ll want to pour slowly in small concentric circles starting from the center and expanding outwards, all while trying to maintain an even level of saturation across the surface of the coffee grounds. This is why I recommend having a goose neck kettle as it allows for greater control in your pouring.

Recipe Ingredients and Equipment

16g of Coffee (light roast), medium to medium-fine grind
300ml hot water (around 90°C / 194°F)
Pour Over Coffee Maker + Carafe
Goose Neck Kettle
Coffee or Kitchen Scale
Timer
Stirrer

Pour Over Coffee Recipe

The instructions I’ve provided will be a bit umm… Detailed? Too detailed maybe… But it’s for the sake of making the best pour over coffee. I know it’s tedious but I promise you it’ll be worth it in the end, and if you keep doing it, it’ll become second nature.

Wash your Filter Paper - Once you got your Pour Over set up with your filter paper, wash your filter paper by pouring in 50ml of hot water into your brewer. Then discard the water. This process will wash out the chemical taste from the paper.
Blooming (30 Seconds) - Put in your coffee grounds, make a small hole in the center and then gently pour in 50ml of hot water into the hole while slowly circling outwards as the hole fills up, leave to bloom for 30 seconds
1st Pour - Slowly pour in 100ml of hot water starting from the center and expanding outwards in a spiraling motion. Leave to brew until the water level is starting to go below the coffee grounds
2nd Pour - Slowly pour in your remaining hot water (100ml) with the same motion as above. Leave to brew.
Gentle Agitation - Gently agitate your coffee grounds to help the water flow through the filter better.
Enjoy :) - Once all your water has flowed through, your perfect cup of Pour Over coffee is ready, enjoy~

Tips for this Pour Over Coffee Recipe

If you want to be really technical, you should aim your first pour to be done by the time your timer reaches the 1 minute mark. This should give you an idea of how slow your pouring should be.
When you first dump your coffee grounds into the pour over brewer, give the brewer a little shake or a few firm taps to level out the coffee grounds’ surface. This will create a more even bed for the water to flow through.
Find your coffee grounds are sticking to the side of the paper filter? During the second pour you can use the water to help bring the grounds back to the center.