Brewing / A practical guide

A starting point for filter coffee

A scale, a paper filter and a little consistency are enough to begin. Treat this recipe as a useful baseline, then adjust it for your coffee.

Gather the basics

You need a filter brewer, its matching paper filter, a kettle, a scale and a cup or jug. Start with 15 grams of coffee and 250 grams of water. A medium grind is a reasonable first setting for a small pour-over brewer.

Choose water that tastes pleasant on its own. If the coffee is the only thing you are changing, keep the water consistent between brews.

Make one cup

1. Put the paper filter in the brewer and rinse it with hot water. Empty the rinse water from the cup or jug.
2. Add 15 grams of ground coffee. Gently level the coffee bed and set the scale to zero.
3. Pour about 40 grams of hot water evenly over the grounds. Give the coffee roughly half a minute to become wet.
4. Continue pouring in small, steady circles until the scale reaches 250 grams. Keep the pour controlled rather than splashing high above the brewer.
5. Let the water drain. Remove the brewer, stir the coffee gently, and let the cup cool a little before tasting.

Change one thing

If the coffee feels thin or sharply sour, try a slightly finer grind on the next brew. If it feels harsh, bitter or drying, try a slightly coarser grind. These are useful directions to explore, not a diagnosis of every flavour.

If the flavour is good but the cup is too strong, add a little hot water. You do not always need to change the grind or the brewing time.

Scale the recipe

Keep roughly the same coffee-to-water ratio when making more. Larger batches may need a small grind adjustment because water takes longer to pass through a deeper coffee bed.

Write down what worked

Note the coffee, your grinder setting, the amounts and a short description of the taste. When the cup is good, the note is your recipe for next time.