Bitter Press

Experiments: Pour Boy Pour-Over Extravaganza

The problem with being tossed into the world of tested brew techniques and fantastic coffee is that there’s little exploration into the alternative — the designs and methods that have been maligned and told to go back home because we don’t want to play with them anymore, and they could probably use a bath anyway, even though we secretly feel bad for them because maybe these brew methods just aren’t getting the attention that they crave from their parents, and that’s why they smell a bit and act out. Sometimes there’s a little guilt left over, and you get dragged into hanging out with them anyway.

Sure, coffee pot. I’ll come over to play cowboys and robbers and eat your Doritos. Of course this isn’t out of pity. Oh, I have a great idea! Let’s play the game this way, instead. I think it will be more fun for the both of us.

Uh… strange extended metaphor aside, I had an idea that struck — why not try to do pour-over coffee using the gold-tone filter and carafe from my old auto-drip? I keep the thing around for large groups of people, but I’m never satisfied serving sub-par coffee to guests when I’m supposed to be some sort of coffee guy. So when cleaning it out one night, I placed the filter inside of the carafe…



I had planned originally on doing a larger pot, to get a sense on whether or not I could pull this off if a large group came over, but when I examined my coffee reserves, I discovered I only had 54 grams — exactly the right amount for 24 ounces of water. Plus, the way it hangs down in the carafe meant I only had enough room to brew about 45 ounces anyway.


Mistake number one was using the hand-grinder that I have pre-set for the Hario V60. It was, I should have realized, too fine of a grind. I should have realized that the shape of this filter doesn’t allow coffee to pass through easily like on the Hario V60, with its central cone shape. The founded sides and two flat, sloping planes of mesh metal filter meant that everything HAD to go out the sides and drip through slowly, since the bottom of the filter is solid. I should have used a Chemex style grind — a little bit coarser — but there’ll be more on that later.

So let’s break this down a bit more in detail. We’ve got the filter and carafe from my drip coffee pot, we’ve got a hand grinder, we’ve got coffee, and we’ve got a tea kettle. This is all standard coffee equipment that people should have on hand. Well, the grinder is a bit more specialized. But other than that, the biggest appeal for this experiment is that it requires no extra equipment for most people at home.


While we’ve got our coffee all ready to go, we’re just waiting for our water to boil. Oh wait, we didn’t put it on the burner yet. Sure we did.


Like I said before, we’ve got 54 grams of coffee, so we’re using 24 ounces of water in this here kettle. That’s a ratio of 9 grams of coffee for every 4 ounces of water, which is the ratio we used in both previous experiments. Like before, we want the water to boil completely, so that we know when we let it cool down a bit, we’re still going to be over 200 degrees Fahrenheit. The next step is the bloom.


Like in the previous experiment, we want to let the bloom go for 45 seconds. We’re letting excess CO2 be released and are priming the coffee for extraction. By the color here, the darker caramel tones, we can tell that the coffee might be a little too fine. The finer grind tends to absorb most of the pre-infusion bloom water, but I’m not sure why it calls for the darker color in the bloom.

And now, my friends, is the brew-vaganza.

The pour is important. If you pour too fast, it’ll go gushing out the sides. So, like in the last pour-over experiment, I want to focus on the center and use a thin stream in a small circular motion, no bigger than a quarter. The water will fill up in the filter and saturate all the grounds.

In the last experiment, I touted the Hario V60 for it’s perfect cone shape. Already here, we can see the flaw in the gold tone filter. The coffee can’t go out the bottom. It has to go out the sides only, which means it’s kind of rushing through and dripping willy nilly.




Ideally, you’ll be able to do a continuous pour. But because of the wide neck on the kettle’s spout, and the fineness of the grind, and the shape of this cone, I have to start and stop at least three times before all the water is through.





There are a few reasons why I wanted to try this experiment. I wanted to test two major variables — the shape of the cone, and the gold tone metal filter. The Hario V60 operates with a perfect cone shape and a paper filter. Would a gold tone filter bring in any more flavor?

And would this be an easy procedure that I could recommend for people to do?

The answer is no. The pour was a bit wacky and difficult, and there actually wasn’t any discernible difference in the amount of the natural coffee oils that came through. The cup was, well, over-extracted. But there were hints of cherry fruit and a light sweetness underneath it all. So it was… better than the auto drip, but not good enough to get me to want to attempt it again.

Which is why a few days later, I attempted it again. My in-laws were over for my birthday, but this time I set the filter in the coffee pot and poured over the top, brewing 60 ounces. I used a coarser grind, but it didn’t matter much — pouring with the tea kettle proved a bit erratic and unruly and the stopper function on the coffee pot causes the water to drip too slowly. I think I’ll just stick with the Chemex when guests come over.