The champion of "Hand Pour Technique" teaches the secrets of making delicious hand pour coffee!

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In recent years, the specialty coffee market has highly praised hand-brewed coffee, and there are many enthusiasts who discuss and exchange their own techniques and brewing parameters.

However, pour-over coffee is not just for competitions or boutique coffee shops. In fact, anyone can make a delicious cup of coffee. Whether you are a beginner or an experienced barista, you can study the techniques of pour-over coffee. This article provides some tips and suggestions to help you make delicious pour-over coffee!

What is pour-over coffee?

Hand brewed coffee is made by pouring hot water into coffee powder and filtering it using a filter cup/filter. When the hot water passes through the coffee powder and is filtered, it is served in a cup or other container. Hand brewed coffee also has aliases such as drip coffee, although some coffee machines also name this function.

This method of brewing coffee was commonly used in Europe in the early 20th century, and some regions even used hand brewing earlier, but it was not until recent years that it was revived by the boutique coffee trend.

Why use hand pour over?

Compared with other brewing methods, hand-brewed coffee can better highlight the rich aroma and flavor of coffee, making hand-brewed coffee the preferred method for brewing single-origin coffee.

Good hand-brewed coffee has a pure, clear and consistent flavor because water extracts the oils and aroma of the coffee under controllable time and pressure, and the hand-brewed filter paper absorbs these oils, making the coffee taste pure.

Because hand brewing is extracted by pouring water, the extraction speed will be faster than the immersion brewing method (such as the French press) because of the disturbance of the water flow.

Nara Lee, the 2017 New Zealand Coffee Brewing Champion, said: "Using hand brewing does not change the flavor of coffee, it only increases the aroma released. I don't think brewing equipment can change the flavor of coffee, but some people believe it."

But hand-brewed coffee also has some operational challenges. After all, when it comes to manual work, there is a possibility of mistakes. For example, using hand-brewed coffee or brewing espresso may produce a channel effect, allowing the water to flow to areas with less resistance. This situation may occur when the coffee powder is agglomerated or unevenly distributed, and the channel effect will cause uneven extraction. Therefore, it is important for the brewer to know how to evenly soak the coffee powder.

Because it is difficult to replicate the results of hand-brewed coffee every time, some coffee shops may prefer to use hand-brewed machines instead. These machines can use automated setting parameters to achieve more stable results than hand-brewed coffee.

What should I prepare for hand brewing?

New hand-brewing related equipment is constantly being launched on the market, but you don’t need to buy all of them. Just simple equipment is enough at the beginning, and you can purchase more as your needs change.

Wang Ce, the 2017 World Brewing Champion, mentioned that understanding the process of brewing a delicious cup of coffee is far more important than copying brewing parameters or choosing V60 over a smart filter cup.

Here are the basic utensils necessary for hand brewed coffee:

Filter cup/filter

The most popular options for holding coffee powder and filtering coffee are V60, Kalita Wave and Melitta. All three are placed directly on the cup or utensil for extraction, but these filter cups have their own special designs, which affect the water flow and extraction. Chemex is another popular option, and the coffee brewed has its own special characteristics.

The advantage of these filter cups or utensils is that they are easy to obtain, simple to use, and have special filter papers. There are also many basic knowledge and recipes on the Internet, allowing you to easily use these filter cups correctly.

If you’re not sure where to start, try asking a coffee shop owner to brew your coffee using different filters and ask them to recommend why they would want to serve that filter to customers.

Filter paper/filter material

Should I choose filter paper or filter cloth? Bleached or unbleached filter paper? Although the use of filter materials in coffee brewing seems insignificant, there have always been different opinions. Special filter papers are designed to fit different filter cups, which affects the extraction efficiency. For example, the filter paper used in the Chemex filter cup is 20-30% heavier than other filter papers. The manufacturer says this is to retain more coffee oils.

Some people claim that brewing with paper filters can produce an unpleasant papery taste, especially when using unbleached filters. Cloth filters have been used for brewing coffee for a long time, and many people prefer them because they do not produce an unpleasant odor and are more environmentally friendly than paper filters.

What filter material you use is up to you, but make sure it fits the shape of your filter cup. If the filter paper or filter cloth is deformed, it may block the water flow, causing the coffee grounds to be blocked, and ultimately making the extraction results unstable.

scale

Some people may think that a scale is not a must-have for hand brewing, but if you want to brew coffee with consistent quality, you must prepare a scale. Buying an electronic scale that can display to decimal points can accurately weigh the coffee beans and water. As long as you know the exact amount you use, you can replicate the taste you like or avoid the taste you don’t like. The best thing is that you can brew better coffee.

Hand brewing kettle

Have you ever seen someone pour hot water into a hand-pour kettle to brew it? Can't you just use a hot water machine to fill it?

One of the essences of hand-poured coffee is the stability of brewing. The design of the hand-poured kettle allows you to control the water temperature of the water, thereby creating a stable extraction result. The long-necked narrow-mouthed kettle is designed to control the water flow of the water, and the water flow from the narrow-mouthed kettle will be more stable.

It doesn't matter whether you use electric, stovetop heating or a water machine, but pay attention to the characteristics of the hand-pour kettle you use and insert a thermometer to ensure that the brewing water temperature is correct.

What coffee beans should I use for pour-over?

The equipment is ready, and the next thing to consider is the coffee beans for hand brewing. Here are some suggestions for you to choose:

Roasting degree

Since hand-brewed coffee emphasizes the main flavor and aroma of coffee, you can choose lighter roasted beans, which have the most prominent and bright acidity.

Wang Ce said: Lightly roasted beans can best show the original grade of the beans.

Of course, you can also choose medium or darker roasted coffee, but the focus of hand brewing is still on highlighting the main flavor.

Grinding fineness

The grinding coarseness of coffee powder affects the extraction rate. As mentioned earlier, hand brewing belongs to the drip brewing method, which means that the time that coffee powder is in contact with water is shorter than that of immersion brewing, but longer than that of espresso brewing. Hand brewing must allow the surface area of ​​the coffee powder to be extracted by water, but not too fine to cause over-extraction and bitterness.

You can start with a medium grind and test it first. Evaluate your coffee and adjust the grind size. If the coffee tastes a bit watery or smelly, grind it finer. If the coffee is too bitter or lacks sweetness, try a coarser grind.

It’s also important to invest in a good quality grinder to ensure your coffee grinds are of a consistent coarseness. A low-quality grinder will produce inconsistent grinds and a lot of fines, which can cause over-extraction and ruin your coffee.

Stathis Koremtas, 2018 Greek Brewing Champion, works for Taf Coffee. He told the author how he brews with the V60:

“Use fine grinding and 92°C hot water for quick extraction, with a total brewing time of between 2 minutes and 2 minutes 10 seconds. The benefit of using fine grinding is that it can increase the body and aroma of the coffee. If you want to use a quick extraction method, you must also control the sweetness and clean taste of the coffee.”

What powder-to-water ratio should be used for brewing?

There are many different suggested coffee-to-water ratios, but the author suggests starting with 1:17, which is 1 gram of coffee to 17 grams of water. Use this method to brew coffee while adjusting other variables that affect brewing, such as grind size and water temperature. Adjust only one variable at a time until you find your favorite brewing combination.

After that, you can try changing the coffee powder to water ratio. If the coffee tastes watery or very weak, you can simply increase the amount of coffee powder to see if it improves the problem. If the coffee tastes too strong and concentrated, you can try reducing the amount of coffee powder. But remember that no matter how you adjust the parameters, you must be able to reproduce the flavor of each cup of coffee you brew.

And don’t overlook the importance of water quality. Tap water may have chlorine taste or pollutants that affect the flavor, so use filtered water to make coffee.

Do you have the best hand pouring technique?

When you first start pouring coffee, don't rush to find instructional videos on the Internet. Receiving too much information at once will confuse you. At the beginning, just focus on your water injection, as well as how to steam, cut off the water, stir and disturb the flow to achieve the purpose of extraction. Many people will use concentric circles to inject water, which can better maintain the stability of the water flow.

As you become more familiar with the basic movements and knowledge, you can try to experiment in different directions.

Steaming

Steaming is the process of using a small amount of water to expand the coffee powder. It occurs at the beginning of hand brewing and is a pre-extraction operation by expelling carbon dioxide from the coffee. The amount of carbon dioxide depends on the degree of roasting. Dark roasted and fresh coffee will produce a greater degree of steaming expansion because there is more gas in such coffee beans.

Carbon dioxide will block water and cause uneven extraction, which will in turn make the coffee powder unevenly distributed, so it is necessary to vent first to increase the chance of stable extraction.

The author recommends that the amount of water for steaming should be about twice the amount of powder. If you use 15 grams of coffee, you can add 30 grams of water for steaming, and then wait for dozens of seconds to complete the steaming process.

Water Breaking Method and Ittouriyu

The water cut-off method means injecting water in batches, and experimenting with the amount of water injected each time and the number of water injections. This method can prevent the occurrence of channeling effect, or prevent the powder wall of coffee powder in the filter cup from being overly piled up, while allowing the coffee powder to move, achieving the opportunity for more uniform extraction.

Another method is called continuous water injection (Ichidaoliu), which is to continuously inject water in one go after steaming until the required amount of water is reached. This method requires a very uniform and stable water flow, which is completely different from the water cut-off method.

You can use different water injection methods to match your brewing recipes. Different brewing methods will achieve different extraction results, which in turn affects the flavor of the coffee you brew.

Spoiler

Turbulence is a slight disturbance of the water flow during the hand pouring process. It can be achieved in many ways, including stirring, side swirl of the water flow, etc.

The turbulence can disperse the dry powder trapped in high places, prevent the occurrence of channel effect, and disperse the agglomerated powder in the filter cup to ensure that the powder in the filter cup is extracted as evenly as possible.

Pour-over coffee is a great option for everyday coffee drinkers, and it can be simple. By understanding the key elements, you can continually improve the flavor in your cup, and achieve results that satisfy you every time. Get a V60, Kalita Wave, Chemex, and some good coffee today. The world of pour-over coffee is waiting for you to explore!

Original article written by Neil Soque and translated from Perfect Daily Grind.

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