3 Pour Over Mistakes Beginners Make

➡ Read my best article about pour over: coffeechronicler.com/what-is-pour-over-coffee/

One huge mistake to avoid is amassing a collection of pourover devices that'll inevitably take up a bunch of room in your kitchen cabinets. Stick to one good one

I never wanted to believe water was that important, for any brewing method. I was never going to become that snob who used bottled water. Then one day I though let me try it. My god, what an eye/taste opener. I now use filtered water (Brita) to make coffee. Using a water filter is the best inbetween solution as buying bottled water isn’t very sustainable.

I liked your advice on not agitating too much for medium roasted coffee. It makes a lot of sense and something I was not aware of when I was getting into pour over coffee.

First time here, I don’t even drink coffee anymore due to health issues but I still love how to brew a good cup and this was very well explained

most people are mentioning always the same basic things, this video really stands out and i wish i had seen it a few years ago. Thank you!

Love that you pointed out the Hario Drip assist. It's such a handy tool to have at the start of a coffee journey but it does limit the control you could have over making coffee. There is another water dispersion option that I think is a bit better myself, though it is a lot less easy to get around Europe, the Melodrip.

My personal advise to anybody that wants to dive into filter coffee would be to get an Clever Drip first. While it is a cross over between pour over and immersion it is incredibly easy to start off with. It removes the need for a water dispersion tool and gooseneck kettle if you follow the principle of water first and then coffee. Once someone has that down they can side step in what ever they think is most interesting to play around with. Be it cone, flat bed, no bypass or more immersion style brewers.

I watch a ton of coffee videos and still learned some new tips here. Thank you!

I underrestimated how much of a difference the level of agitation can make. Crazy. For the first time now I tried to go slower and also stop creating too many circles whlie pouring, but only making soft circles towards the end of the pour. My brew time decreased by one minute this way, lol. And I actually do have only a water cooker like you said in the video, so it's not optimal anyway. But even while still using it, the less agitation made still a massive difference!

When I went to Iceland, I had the coffee over there and oh my god it tasted so good because it was made with glacial water. So good! I still dream of it.

I find all of this information on pour over coffee interesting. As a kid in the 1970s, my parents always used a Melita cone. That's just how I always had coffee at home. I tried coffee makers, but was never happy, so I've always used a Melita too. I just had no idea there could be so much put into such a simple process. I think sometimes people overthink it. I can get a really good cup without much thought using a blade grinder and tap water. With that said, my son got a burr grinder and has gotten me more into the science of it, and I'll say I've seen some definite improvement in my coffee. I'll keep refining and take your advice about the water. I am looking forward to my next cup.

I could listen to you for days!

nice video you just popped up in my recommendations, we need more Danish coffee tubers, Skål

Thank you the agitation tip was great, didn't stir or swirl like I usually would and it immediately made my cup smoother ! Also tried a 1:28 brew ratio with a medium-coarse grind on a medium-dark roast and your Hario Switch method - really really good !

The biggest tip I would say I would give a beginner is that you want to start with low agitation would you want to finish with good agitation. Your low agitation beginning will cause it to take longer for the first few drops to get through the coffee bed, but will allow for the grains to float and the further agitation will help to press down the grinds, causing them to be properly surrounded and swimming in order to get better extraction.

Just went from a Baratza Encore to Ode Gen 2. Huge difference in cup quality.

A Melbourne Australian brewer here, we are really lucky with our tap water here. Soft water out of the tap, and running it through a bwt filter = beautiful cups

Found it! I started using just filter water from an Elkay water great. Big improvement.

Gonna really remember this tip about agitation with my next pot. I kind of go back and forth between medium and light roasts but never really change up my pour. I've had some gripes about my last few light roast batches tasting kind of sour. Maybe I need to agitate it a bit and see if that helps?

Yeah there’s some good tips there that are really fundamental and often overlooked by beginners who jump straight to the sort of YouTube tutorials that are based more around light roasts. One thing that could have been made clearer is that these tips are based on fixing one main issue - bitterness. So if you’ve just bought your first pour over brewer, or Aeropress or even French press and you’re still using medium to darker roasts and getting bitter coffee then these tips will really help. The one other thing that wasn’t mentioned along with water hardness was water temperature. Lowering your water temperature can help as well. Either do this by boiling your water and waiting for it to cool for 5-10min or don’t let it come to the boil. Once you move onto trying to brew light roasted coffee then you’ll want to change the approach as you’ll want water with a TDS of 80-150, hotter water, finer grind and possibly more agitation, but you only need to make these changes one step at a time and only if you’re finding your brews to be a bit sour or under extracted.