Manual coffee-making methods are becoming popular today for home enthusiasts as well as coffee shop baristas. This is because it allows you to control every factor in the brewing process, such as taste and strength, which enables you to create a cup that’s well-matched to your preferences. Because of this, lots of manual coffee-making methods and devices have been introduced including pour over coffee making.
Pour over coffee may sound simple, but like creating works of art, it requires time and patience. There are three basic but critical elements to be able to produce a great pour over coffee. These are, freshly ground coffee, a filter, and a dripping mechanism or filter holder. All you need is to grind fresh coffee and then use a brewing system to pour hot water over the grounds to produce a fresh cup of coffee. Sounds easy, right? But if you want to make your pour over as perfect and as smoothly as possible, here’s a guide to pour over coffee making that may help you.
The Coffee Grinder
The coffee grinder has a very important part in making pour over coffee. Since you’ve taken time to choose the right coffee beans and research how the process is done, the same effort should be put into when picking the right kind of grinder especially when it comes to hand filter coffee. The grind is significant because it will impact the timing, therefore, you need to control the grind in order to control the timing.
1. Conical burr grinder
Bean container holds 8-1/2 ounces; ground container holds 4 ounces.
2. Melitta Pour Over Brewer
No batteries, power, or long plastic cords needed to operate your portable compact coffee grinder, allowing you to travel with and brew freshly roasted ground coffee beans on your next camping, hiking, backpacking, or outdoors trip.
You can grind coffee beans in many ways and two of them are coarse and fine. A course grind will produce larger coffee granules. This will cause the water to flow over the granules faster. A finer grind on the other hand will produce smaller granules. This will stop the water from easily flowing over them and extracting the flavor.
In making pour over coffee, the grind should not be too coarse and not too fine but just right. This will help avoid over-extracting or under-extracting the coffee. To be able to achieve this, a conical burr grinder is the best grinder to use. It can create grounds that are uniform in size and it will allow you to control over the grind through its speed settings. But if you want to work up your biceps, you can also use a hand burr grinder.
The Brewing Process
1. Smart kettle
1500-watt 2-quart kettle with 5 pre-set brewing temperatures for tea and more.
2. Paper filter
No batteries, power, or long plastic cords needed to operate your portable compact coffee grinder, allowing you to travel with and brew freshly roasted ground coffee beans on your next camping, hiking, backpacking, or outdoors trip.
3. Scale
Silicone protective pad – helps protect scale from water spillage and surface scratches.
After knowing the best grinder to use, it’s time to know the things to consider when brewing the coffee grounds. There are four things to consider when it comes to brewing which are, the temperature, the paper filter, wetting and blooming, and consistency.
- Temperature
The temperature of water you’re going to use in brewing is important. For pour over coffee, the optimum water temperature is 195 to 205 degrees Fahrenheit. You can easily achieve this by bringing the water to a boil then letting it sit for about 30 seconds to 1 minute.
If you’re not sure with the temperature, you can use a thermometer to check. Or if you want to be more accurate, you can use a smart kettle. It can bring the water to the temperature you need and keep it there for about 20 minutes until you use it.
- Paper Filter
Another important step in brewing pour over coffee is rinsing the =paper filter== to avoid getting a paper taste to your coffee. To rinse the paper filter, simply place the brewer in the dripper then pour water around it for five seconds. After that, discard the water un the cup or carafe. Aside from removing the paper taste, this will also help your filter stick to the sides of your dripper.=
- Wetting and Blooming
>Part of a good coffee making process is pouring enough water into the grounds to wet them then watch them bloom when they release carbon dioxide. There are only three steps to do this.
First, add the right amount of water to get all the ground wet. Second, stop for about 30 seconds. This will allow the carbon dioxide escape. Lastly, watch the grounds expand and swell with the water. This means that it’s blooming. You will also be able to smell the aroma of coffee in this process.
- Consistency
When making pour over coffee, it’s important to practice consistency. Some of the ways to practice consistency are by, using a good quality grinder, using a good quality scale, and recording everything from the beginning.
Now that you know the things to consider when brewing pour over coffee, here’s a step-by-step guide for you to be able to brew some delicious coffee.
- First, weigh out the coffee beans you prefer and grind it at a medium-course setting using a burr coffee grinder.
- Second, place the brewer on top of a carafe or cup, add the coffee grounds, and start a timer counting up.
- Third, pour hot water slowly over the coffee bed to saturate all the grounds evenly. Then stop for thirty seconds. This begins the blooming process.
- After thirty seconds, continue pouring hot water around the coffee bed, from the middle to the edge then back to the middle.
- After you finish pouring the water, give it a minute or two to drain into the carafe or cup and enjoy a delicious cup of coffee.
