Your first good pour-over | Home Café Lab

Start with what you have

You’ll need a dripper and compatible filter, a mug or carafe, coffee, a kettle, a scale, and a timer. A grinder helps you change one variable at a time, but you can begin with ground coffee. Set the dripper on a stable vessel that can hold the full brew. This equipment checklist is our editorial planning advice, not a product recommendation.

The sourced starting point

Blue Bottle’s guide specifies 20–27 g of coffee with 350 g of water, a medium grind, water at 195–205°F (about 91–96°C), and a typical total brew time of 2:30–3:30. Our calculator’s 1:17.5 pour-over preset uses the 20 g end of that published dose range: 350 ÷ 20 = 17.5. It is a starting point, not a universal ideal. Water added is not the same as coffee collected in your cup.

1. Prepare and weigh

Heat your water and grind the coffee to medium. Put the filter in the dripper, add your weighed coffee, and level the grounds. Place the brewer and vessel on the scale. Zero the scale before adding brewing water, and start your timer with the first pour. Keep hot equipment away from the counter edge.

2. Wet the coffee, then build the brew

Following Blue Bottle’s sequence, pour to a cumulative 50 g for the bloom, aiming to finish that pour in 10 seconds. At 40 seconds, pour to 150 g. At 1:10, pour to 250 g. At 1:40, pour to 350 g. Each of those later pours takes about 10 seconds in the source method. Pour in controlled spirals over the bed; these are cumulative scale readings, not separate amounts to add.

3. Let it drain and taste

Allow the water to finish passing through the grounds. Blue Bottle gives a typical total time of 2:30–3:30, while noting that coffee, roast, and grind affect timing. Stir the finished cup gently. Our editorial suggestion: write down the dose, water, grind setting, and what you would like to change before you brew again.

When the cup isn’t what you hoped

Too strong for you? Our editorial approach is to keep the dose fixed and try a little more water on the next brew. Too weak? Try a little less. If drainage is unexpectedly slow, first check that the filter sits correctly and that the grind has not become much finer. Change one thing at a time rather than chasing an exact time with several adjustments. These are troubleshooting suggestions, not results from our own taste tests.

Do I need a special kettle?

Our editorial advice is to start with a kettle you can safely control rather than buying a full setup at once. The source method calls for controlled pours; if your kettle makes those difficult, use smaller, steadier movements and do not fill it beyond what you can comfortably lift. A different dripper or pouring pattern may need its own recipe.