How to Make the Perfect Pour Over Coffee

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My Favorite Beverage

I started drinking coffee in my teens. I had always loved the smell of my parents’ coffee, and every so often I’d try a taste. One day, I tasted, and it tasted good! The fragrant aroma that had always lured me finally lined up with my taste buds, and there was no turning back.

To start out, I’m embarrassed to say that I added French vanilla creamer and sugar. I can’t even imagine doing that now. I transitioned over the years to just half and half, to just heavy cream (hello, Atkins), to blending with MCT oil, and, finally, to straight up black.

My favorite way to drink coffee is black. My favorite method of brewing it is pour over.

Health Benefits of Coffee

Is coffee healthy? The debate, perhaps, will never end. My quick answer is, it depends.

It depends on whether your gut can handle coffee or not. Some studies show that coffee is beneficial for gut health, having anti inflammatory, antioxidant, and anti cancer effects. Other studies show that coffee depletes minerals in the body and fatigues the adrenal glands.

Additionally, some people are very sensitive to coffee and have a hard time metabolizing the caffeine in it. This can be due to diet, liver function, smoking, alcohol intake, and individual genetics.

My general rule is to drink no more coffee than feels good, and to occasionally cycle in and out of drinking decaf. In this way I don’t get headaches or jitters, but rather a pleasant focus throughout the morning. I also never have coffee after 10 am, even decaf, which still contains some caffeine.

Sourcing Your Coffee

Even though I view coffee as a healthy part of my diet, that doesn’t mean I source my beans from just anywhere. Organic coffee beans that have been tested for mold and other toxins is essential to drinking clean coffee.

I have a subscription to Bulletproof Coffee. When you start a subscription, you save 20%. I chose the variety pack. Every six weeks I receive whole bean coffee in three varieties: Bulletproof Original (medium roast), The Mentalist (medium-dark roast), and French Kick (dark roast).

I like to use Bulletproof Original to make my pour over coffee. I generally use The Mentalist to make stove top espresso or regular espresso, and I save French Kick for my French Press.

The How To’s of Making Pour Over Coffee

I begin with whole coffee beans using Bulletproof Original medium roast. Choose what you like, but keep in mind that a lighter roast will yield a lighter tasting cup of coffee (and you may want to use more coffee grounds) while a darker roast will yield a darker taste (and you may want to use less coffee grounds).

The items you will need to make a perfect pour over are as follows:

• Kitchen scale to measure grams
• Filtered water
• A pour over coffee maker, Chemex, or coffee sock (pictured above)
• Whole bean coffee
• Coffee grinder (a Burr grinder is best)

The steps to make the perfect pour over coffee are as follows:

1. Heat filtered water in a kettle. Tap water is usually too harsh tasting; distilled is too flavorless. I use reverse osmosis water but add in Trace Minerals.
2. Fill a mug with hot tap water to pre-warm the mug
3. Place a filter in the pour over coffee maker (I love reusable filters). Or, prepare your coffee sock by inserting it into its stand.
4. When water is close to a boil, grind coffee beans to measure 25 grams. Grind them to resemble medium sand – not too fine and not too coarse. On your grinder, this should be at the “drip” setting.
5. Empty mug of hot water and place on scale. I use a stand with a coffee sock, but most people use a pour over drip maker that sits on top of the mug. Place this on top the mug and zero out the scale.
6. Add coffee to your coffee maker filter/sock. You can use more or less depending on taste, but 25 grams is a good starting point for medium roast.
7. Pour 50 grams of water just off the boil over the coffee grounds, then count to 30. This allows the grounds to “bloom” and removes trapped carbon dioxide, which improves flavor.
8. Finish pouring the water over, slowly, about 50 grams at a time, until the scale reads 350 grams. This is your stopping point. Remove the filter and enjoy your perfect pour over coffee.

Note: sometimes you want to make more than just a mug. This ratio (25 grams of ground coffee to 350 grams of coffee) can be doubled or tripled and made in a Chemex or large thermos. I usually make my husband a mug and a half of coffee on the weekends using 35 grams of coffee to 500 grams of water. You can do the math to scale up or down according to how much coffee you want to make.

How to Enjoy Your Coffee

There are myriad healthy ways to enjoy your perfect pour over. As I mentioned above, my favorite way is black. But I used to use coffee as a meal replacement, adding collagen powder and healthy fats. Others like to add raw half and half or heavy cream. Others sweeten it with some stevia or other natural sweeteners.

What I don’t recommend is adding a fake creamer or lots of sugar to your coffee. The trans fats and chemicals in commercial creamers don’t do your body any favors, and the excess sugar is detrimental to your health.

If you’re looking for some classic foods to pair with coffee, try these…

Thanks for reading, everyone! Leave me a comment below to let me know how you enjoy your coffee. Until next time,

Rebekah