Heat to 96 C
How to brew pour-over
Pour-over brewing pours water over a bed of ground coffee in a filter-lined chamber; the water seeps through the bed and the paper filter and is collected in a vessel below. Each step in that flow has a documented temperature, grind and timing, and this page gives them in order.
Heat to 96 C
Dose and level
Rinse the filter
Bloom the cake
Main pours
Drawdown
Run the steps in this order: heat, dose, bloom, pour, drawdown.
The procedure starts before any coffee touches water: heat the kettle, set the scale, and dose the beans. A documented pour-over kit is a dosing tray, a small scale, a spritzing bottle, a V60 pour-over with paper filter, a gooseneck kettle and a coffee grinder — each tool maps to one step of the flow.
Once the water is off the boil and at the 96 C ceiling, wet the paper filter, add the dose to the chamber, and start the bloom: a small first pour that wets the cake of grounds. The bloom gives way to the main pours, and the final stage is the drawdown, where the last of the water seeps through the bed and the paper filter into the vessel below.
Aromatic oils release at 96 C; bitter acids release once the water has boiled.
The two temperatures in this method are not interchangeable. Aromatic oils in coffee are released at 96 C (205 F), just below boiling, while bitter acids are released when the water has reached boiling point. Holding the kettle at 96 C keeps the oils in the cup and the bitter acids out of it.
The chamber shape matters as much as the temperature: the conical, trapezoid or cylindrical chamber shapes the flow of water through the cake, which changes how long the water sits against the grounds at any one point.
The poured bed of grounds is called the cake, and the chamber shape sets the flow.
The bed of grounds that the water crosses is also called the cake. It sits in a filter-lined chamber whose shape — conical, trapezoid or cylindrical — determines how the water spreads and how quickly it exits.
A conical chamber concentrates the flow toward the center point; a trapezoid spreads it across a flat bottom; a cylinder keeps the flow even along the full height. The choice changes the contact time between water and cake, and with it the extraction.
Each figure isolates one stage of the procedure: the flow, the release curve, the chamber cross-section, the parameter table and the troubleshooting map.
Each step of the procedure carries its own temperature and timing.
The table below is the quick reference for the whole procedure: read the step name, then the temperature and timing that belong to it. The two hard numbers from the documented sources are 96 C for aromatic oils and boiling point for bitter acids; the remaining rows describe the stage of the flow rather than a fixed duration.
| Stage | Water temperature | Timing | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| Heat the water | 96 C (205 F) | Before any pour | Sets the aromatic-oil release point |
| Avoid boiling | 100 C (boiling point) | Never reached | Keeps bitter acids out of the cup |
| Rinse the paper filter | Hot water | Before dosing | Prepares the filter layer below the bed |
| Bloom the cake | 96 C | First small pour | Wets every ground before the main pours |
| Main pours | 96 C | Steady water level | Crosses the bed and the paper filter |
| Drawdown | 96 C | Final stage | Last water collects in the vessel below |
| Chamber choice | — | Set before brewing | Conical, trapezoid or cylindrical shapes the flow |
The sources list the documented records behind each temperature, tool and date on this page.