Making coffee at home? It's time to make a Pour Over!
If you have a few minutes and are in the mood for a simple pleasure, one of the most flavorful ways to enjoy a cup of your favorite coffee is to treat yourself to a pour over. It may sound mysterious and esoteric, however, it is a pretty straight-forward process.
You will need a funnel, filter, hot water source and some fresh roasted coffee from Beck's Farmhouse.
First rule for pour over is to always heat the mug you are brewing into. The mass of the mug acts like a heat sink, drawing heat away from your coffee and into the mug. Make sure to heat the mug, with hot water before you start.
Get a fresh filter, fold down the seam, and place it into your funnel. Heat your water to boiling. Pour hot water through the filter and let it drain into the mug you will be using (without coffee), heating your mug and washing any paper taste from your paper filter.
Secondly, empty water from your heated mug and fill your filter with 22-27 grams of fresh roasted coffee, ground a little coarser than you would use in your automatic drip coffee maker. The reason for coarser, is that through experience, the brew time gets exponentially longer the finer you grind. I want to find a brew time (extraction time) that is slow enough to saturate the coffee, but fast enough that I don't over-extract and have cold coffee before I'm done. Now you are ready for the "magic!"
Thirdly, pour your water slowly into the coffee grounds. Your aim is to saturate the grounds, entirely, and let the coffee off-gas. Add enough water to see the coffee start to “bloom." (This is a good indicator of freshness, by the way.) When coffee is roasted, carbon dioxide is created and escapes from the beans gradually- a process called off-gassing. When hot water is added, as in a pour over, this process is expedited and you will see your coffee puff and bubble up, in an attempt to rid itself of the carbon dioxide, thereby creating the "bloom."
As the coffee is extracted, you will see your blooming mound of coffee expand. This will be instant. Let this expansion subside, and add more water when the level of coffee is flat and not puffed up, like a cake being baked. This will take approximately 30 seconds. Then, add a gradual stream of water to the grounds keeping them saturated. Continue adding water to the coffee until your coffee mug is a little over halfway filled. You will have to carefully lift the funnel from the cup to check the level.
When the level in your mug is over halfway full, stop pouring. The water in the filter will fill your mug to the top. Adjust this step, depending if you want to add cream and/or sweetener to your coffee.
When the coffee stops dripping from the funnel, you are done. Enjoy.
Don't forget to add your coffee grounds to the garden/compost pile when you are finished, for a great source of organic material!