# Pour-over brewing

The recipe below is what we brew on the counter every day. It works on the Halcyon Brewer and on any
other flat-bottom dripper. It also works on a cone, but you will want to pour more slowly.

## What you need

- 30 g coffee, ground medium
- 480 g water at 94 °C (201 °F)
- A 155-size flat-bottom paper filter
- A scale that reads to 1 g and a timer

## The recipe

| Time | Do this | Scale reads |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 0:00 | Pour to 60 g in a spiral from the centre out | 60 g |
| 0:00–0:45 | Wait. The bed will swell and settle. | 60 g |
| 0:45 | Pour to 240 g, steadily, keeping the bed level | 240 g |
| 1:30 | Pour to 360 g | 360 g |
| 2:10 | Pour to 480 g | 480 g |
| 3:30 | The bed should be dry. Stop and drink. | — |

## Before you start

Rinse the paper with hot water for about ten seconds. This seats the filter against the ceramic and warms
the brewer. Ten seconds is enough — a long rinse cools the water you are about to brew with.

Grind immediately before brewing. Ground coffee goes stale in days rather than weeks.

## Reading the result

**Finished before 3:00** — the grind is too coarse or the bed channelled. Go one step finer.

**Still dripping after 4:15** — too fine, or the bed clogged with fines. Go one step coarser.

**Sour, thin, salty** — under-extracted. Grind finer, raise the water temperature, or pour more slowly.
Change one thing at a time.

**Bitter, drying, hollow** — over-extracted. Grind coarser or drop the water temperature 2 °C.

**Tastes correct but weak** — the ratio is off, not the extraction. Use more coffee, not a finer grind.

## Per-coffee starting points

| Coffee | Grind | Temperature | Total time |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Lowlands Blend | Medium | 94 °C | 3:30 |
| First Light | Medium | 95 °C | 3:15 |
| Nightshift Decaf | Medium-fine | 94 °C | 3:00 |
| Ardent — Ethiopia Yirgacheffe | Medium-fine | 96 °C | 2:45 |
| Huila Reserve — Colombia | Medium | 95 °C | 3:00 |
| Blackpine — Sumatra Gayo | Coarse | 93 °C | Use a press instead |

Light roasts want hotter water and a finer grind than people expect. If the Yirgacheffe tastes like tea,
you are almost certainly too coarse and too cool.

## Related

- [Grind size chart](grind-size-chart.md)
- [Water for brewing](water-for-brewing.md)
- [Coffee storage and freshness](coffee-storage-and-freshness.md)
- [Espresso brewing](brewing-espresso.md)