Easy pour over with a flat-bottom dripper
A forgiving brewer: bloom, then a few small pulse pours to 240 g.
⏱️ 8 minEasy
Starting recipe
15 g coffee + 240 g water at 93 °C (199 °F) in a bloom plus 4 pulse pours, total time 2:30–4:00.
Grind: Medium-fine, like table salt
You need
- 15 g fresh coffee, ground medium-fine (like table salt)
- A flat-bottom dripper and its matching flat or wave filter
- A kettle (gooseneck if you have one)
- A kitchen scale and a timer
- A mug or small carafe
Step by step
Heat water and grind
Boil water and let it rest about 30 seconds so it's near 93 °C. Grind 15 g of coffee medium-fine, like table salt.
Rinse the filter
Set the filter in the dripper and pour hot water through to rinse and preheat. Wave-style filters crumple easily, so pour into the center, not on the ridges. Throw away the rinse water.
Add coffee and level
Add the grounds, shake gently to make a flat bed, set everything on the scale and tare to zero.
Bloom
Start the timer and pour 40 g of water so all the grounds are wet. Wait while it bubbles.
40 sPulse pours
Pour about 50 g at a time in slow circles in the middle: to 90 g, 140 g, 190 g and finally 240 g. Pour each one when the water level has dropped a bit, roughly every 20–25 seconds. Finish pouring by about 2:00.
Let it drain
A flat bed drains evenly. Drawdown should be done between 2:30 and 4:00 on your timer.
60 sTaste and adjust
Swirl, sip, and let it cool a bit. Sour? Grind finer. Bitter? Grind coarser. One change at a time.
Common mistakes
- Pouring onto the filter ridges and flattening them, which lets water bypass the coffee.
- Adding all the water at once so the brewer overflows.
- Not leveling the bed, so one side extracts more than the other.
- Changing more than one thing per brew.
Tastes off? Fix it
| If it… | Try this |
|---|---|
| Sour or thin | Grind a little finer so the water spends more time with the coffee. |
| Bitter or dry | Grind a little coarser. |
| Weak | Use a bit more coffee for the same water, for example 16 g. |
| Too strong | Use a bit less coffee for the same water, for example 14 g. |
| Drains fast (under 2:30) | Grind finer and leave a little more time between pulses. |
| Drains slow (over 4:00) | Grind coarser and pour more gently so you don't churn up fines. |
Words you'll hear
- Bloom
- The first small pour that just wets the grounds. Fresh coffee puffs up and releases gas, which helps the rest of the water extract evenly.
- Ratio
- Water weight divided by coffee weight. 1:16 means 15 g of coffee to 240 g of water.
- Extraction
- How much flavor the water pulls from the grounds. Under-extracted tastes sour and thin; over-extracted tastes bitter and dry.
- Drawdown
- The last stage, when you've stopped pouring and the water drains through the coffee bed. It tells you how fine your grind is.
- Bed
- The layer of grounds in the filter. A flat bed after drawdown means the water flowed evenly.
- Pulse pour
- Pouring in several small portions with short pauses, instead of one long continuous pour.
- Gooseneck kettle
- A kettle with a thin curved spout that gives you a slow, precise stream. Helpful, but a normal kettle poured carefully works too.
- Fines
- Tiny dust-like particles from grinding. Lots of them can clog the filter and slow the drawdown.