Elevate your pourovers in 4 simple steps, and start sipping better brews today.
From ratios, to agitation to the brewer you're using, these easy tips have you covered.
If your grinder produces a lot of fines, reduce agitation
Fines migration will clog filters easier with increased levels of agitation.
Do less pours. Every pour unsettles the bed and agitates the slurry, giving the fines another opportunity to settle their way down to the bottom of the filter.
Also play around with your pouring technique. Try different heights and flow rates to reduce churn up on the coffee bed as needed. If you haven't seen it yet, this video from Aramse on different pour techniques and how they effect extraction is a great watch.
Play with ratios
A good general rule of thumb is to try longer ratios with lighter roasts, shorter ratios with darker roasts.
If you're getting under extracted sour brews but don't want to grind finer and risk bitterness or clogging, try upping your water input. The bigger ratio will give you higher extractions. You don't want to go too far, as you're also taking away from your TDS and sacrificing some concentration in your brew to extract more from the beans, but don't be afraid to play around and find a better balance.
Conversely, if you're getting bitterness you can back off the water a little and bring your extraction back a bit.
Never underestimate the power of a proper pre heat
You can't rush a good pre heat.
Depending on what dripper you're using and what material it is, you might need to pre heat more than you think.
Focus on getting your brewing device itself up to temp, and into a place where it'll take less heat away from the slurry when you start your brewing pours.
Preheat with water right off the boil, and let it sit for a couple of minutes to give the brewer time to soak up the heat.
Don't worry about pre heating the cup or decanter that you'll be brewing into. Cooler temps here wont effect your extraction and will actually help you lock in some more of those volatile aromatic compounds.
Try different pourover brewers
There are 2 main categories of pourover brewers: flat bottom brewers and conical brewers.
In our recent post about the differences between flat bottom and conical brewers, we highlighted the different characteristics that each can help to highlight.
Depending on what coffee you're brewing, and what you want to get out of it, you might prefer different coffees brewed in different pourover devices.
It's worth playing around with a couple of different devices if you have them, or getting together with a friend for a bring-a-device tasting party!