Basics
How to Make Pour-Over Filter Coffee (V60)
A clean, sweet cup of filter coffee with a V60 dripper: the 1:16 ratio, the bloom, the pour timings, and how to adjust the grind.
Ingredients
- 18 g freshly roasted coffee, ground medium-fine (like coarse sand)
- 300 g (300 ml) filtered water, just off the boil (92–96 °C)
- 1 paper filter for a V60 or similar cone dripper
Steps
- Boil the water. Fold the paper filter along its seam, set it in the dripper on top of your cup or server, and rinse it with hot water. Pour the rinse water away.
- Add the ground coffee, shake the dripper to level the bed, and put the whole setup on a scale. Zero it and start a timer.
- Bloom: pour 50 g of water in slow circles to wet all the grounds, then wait 30–45 seconds while the coffee bubbles and releases its gas.
- Pour slowly in circles up to 150 g by about 1:15, up to 250 g by about 1:45, and finish at 300 g by about 2:15. Keep the water level steady and stay away from the paper edge.
- Let it drain. The total brew should finish between 2:45 and 3:30. Swirl the server and pour.
- Taste: sour and weak means grind finer next time; bitter and drying means grind coarser.
Tips
- Ratio first: 1 g of coffee to 16–17 g of water is the starting point. Adjust the strength from there, not by guessing.
- A gooseneck kettle makes the pour controllable — it matters as much as the grinder.
- Filter coffee is where lighter roasts shine: fruit, florals and sweetness you never taste in espresso.
Pour-over is the opposite of espresso. Where espresso uses pressure and speed, pour-over uses gravity and patience: hot water is poured slowly over a bed of medium-ground coffee in a paper-lined cone, and the brew drips through into the cup below over about three minutes. What comes out is clean, light-bodied and transparent — every flavour in the bean shows, which is why roasters use it to taste their coffee and why a good filter brew of a fruity Ethiopian bean can be as surprising as a glass of wine. It is also the cheapest way into serious coffee: a plastic dripper, some filters and a kettle.
The ratio
Everything starts with the ratio of coffee to water, by weight. Our house recipe is 1:16.5 — 18 g of coffee to 300 g of water — which gives a cup that is full-flavoured without being heavy. Use a scale; spoons and cups are not consistent enough. If you want it stronger, move towards 1:15; lighter, towards 1:17. Change the ratio only after you have got the grind right, because the two are easy to confuse.
Grind and water
Grind medium-fine, about the texture of coarse sand or table salt. A burr grinder is worth far more than an expensive dripper: blade grinders produce a mix of dust and boulders that brews unevenly, which tastes muddled no matter what you do. Water should be just off the boil — 92 to 96 °C. Lighter roasts like it hotter; darker roasts are gentler with the kettle rested for a minute. Use filtered water; it is 98 per cent of the drink.
The bloom, then the pour
The first pour, about twice the weight of the coffee, is the bloom. Fresh coffee is full of carbon dioxide, and if you pour straight through, that gas pushes water away from the grounds and the extraction goes patchy. Wetting the bed and waiting 30 to 45 seconds lets the gas escape — you will see the coffee bubble and rise, and smell it properly for the first time.
After that, pour slowly in circles, keeping the bed evenly covered and staying away from the paper wall, where water can bypass the coffee. Pouring in two or three stages rather than all at once keeps the water level and the temperature steady. Aim to finish pouring by about two and a quarter minutes and let it drain; a total time between 2:45 and 3:30 is a good sign that the grind is in the right range.
Fixing the cup
Taste, then adjust one thing. Sour, thin, or finishing too quickly: the grind is too coarse. Bitter, drying, or dragging past four minutes: too fine. Sweet and balanced: write the recipe down and buy more of that coffee.
We brew filter to order on the bar — Calibre Coffee beans, the recipe above — and it is the drink we recommend when someone asks what our coffee actually tastes like. Try a cup with us on Sultanahmet Square before you buy the gear — see the menu.