BREW GUIDE · No 02 / 06
Caffeine & Co · Brew Guides
Pour-over,
drop by drop.
Pour-over, sourced: a 1:16 to 1:17 ratio, medium grind, water off the boil, and a five-pour V60 method finishing near three and a half minutes.
Brew along
Watch it fill as you scroll.
The clock and the vessel track your place in the brew. Every step carries its moment on the timer, and the reason it matters.
in the vessel: 250g of a 250g target
Boil, grind, rinse the filter
Put the kettle on. Grind to a medium setting, about the texture of granulated sugar. Rinse the paper filter with hot water and discard that water.
Square Mile's V60 guide grinds medium for this exact reason: too fine and the water can't move through five pours without stalling. The rinse strips the papery taste and preheats the brewer.
15 g in, 250 g water, bloom first
Add 15 g of coffee for a one-cup brew. Zero the scale, then pour to bloom, roughly double the coffee weight in water.
Square Mile's baseline is 60 g of coffee per litre of water, which is 15 g for a 250 g cup, a 1:16.67 ratio. Counter Culture's broader guidance lands V60 and Kalita brewers closer to 1:17.
Pour in five even stages
Pour hot water in five equal stages, one-fifth of the total weight every 30 seconds. Stir gently between the first two pours to break up clumps.
This is Square Mile's exact method: five stages, 30 seconds apart, with a light swirl after the early pours to even out the bed without over-agitating it.
Keep the water hot and moving
Use water fresh off the boil, ideally 90 to 96°C (195 to 205°F) at contact, and keep pouring in a steady spiral, avoiding the filter's edge.
Counter Culture keeps the water as close as possible to this range for the longest time by boiling fresh, since a cooling kettle is one more variable to control.
Avoid bubbles late in the pour
In the later stages, pour to avoid disturbing the surface or raising bubbles.
Square Mile's guide calls this out specifically: a rough late pour reintroduces turbulence right when the bed should be settling toward a clean draw-down.
Final stir, then let it finish
Once all the water is in, give the brew a final stir and let it draw down. The whole brew should land around 3 minutes 30 seconds.
That's Square Mile's stated total. Counter Culture frames the same idea more broadly: pour-over brews generally fall in a 3 to 4 minute window, and missing that window on the fast side means grinding finer next time, and on the slow side, coarser.
Dial it in
Turn the knob. The maths follows.
Drag the dial to how many cups you are brewing. Dose and yield update live, on the same ratio as the guide.
Square Mile's own scaling: 60 g of coffee per litre of water, or 15 g to 250 g for one cup. The same ratio the brew ratio calculator in the Data Lab runs live.
Troubleshoot by taste
The taste compass.
Tap what is wrong with the cup. Get the one move that fixes it.
Sour · under-extracted
Water moved through the bed before it finished extracting.
- Grind finer, per Square Mile's own dialling-in tips
- Confirm water is genuinely 90 to 96°C at contact, not cooling in the kettle
- Check the bloom actually saturated the whole bed before the first main pour
Bitter · over-extracted
Water sat with the grounds longer than it should have.
- Grind coarser to speed up the draw-down
- Watch for a total brew time drifting past 4 minutes and shorten it
- Ease off a rough, splashy pour late in the brew
Weak · under-strength
Extraction may be fine, there's just not enough coffee in the water.
- Tighten the ratio toward Counter Culture's 1:14 floor
- Dose up rather than adding more water after the fact
- Check the drawdown isn't finishing early, which under-extracts and dilutes at once
Harsh · uneven extraction
Parts of the bed brewed differently to others, usually from a slow or stalled drain.
- Read the full slow-drain diagnosis: filter fit, grind, and bed shape
- Re-seat the filter fully against the dripper's ribs before dosing
- Keep the spiral pour centred and consistent, not concentrated on one side
Common questions
Pour-over FAQ.
What's the best ratio for pour-over coffee?
Square Mile uses 60 g of coffee per litre of water, about 1:16.67. Counter Culture recommends starting closer to 1:17 for V60 and Kalita brewers specifically, inside a broader 1:14 to 1:20 range for pour-over generally.
What water temperature is best for a V60?
Counter Culture recommends brewing with freshly boiled water to keep the temperature in the 195 to 205°F (90 to 96°C) range for as long as possible through the brew.
How long should a pour-over take to brew?
Square Mile's V60 method runs about 3 minutes 30 seconds start to finish. Counter Culture frames pour-over generally as a 3 to 4 minute method, with a fine grind like the V60 sitting toward the faster end.
Why does my pour-over drain so slowly?
Usually grind size, an unrinsed or misshapen filter, or an uneven bed. It's common enough that it has its own full breakdown.
Should I stir my pour-over?
A light stir or swirl right after the first pour, to knock down clumps and even the bed, is standard in Square Mile's method. Aggressive stirring later in the brew tends to over-agitate and can push it toward bitter.
Do I need to rinse the paper filter first?
Yes, for V60 specifically. Counter Culture notes it's worth testing your own filter for a papery taste, but V60 and Chemex filters need the rinse anyway to seat properly against the brewer's ribs.
Fits the recipe above
Gear for this method.
Transparency: the buttons below are affiliate links; if you buy through them we may earn a commission at no cost to you. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. Fit notes come from manufacturer specifications read against this guide's recipe, not hands-on trials.
The Size 02 cone brews 1 to 4 cups through a spiral-ribbed paper filter, a direct match for the medium-fine grind and the 2:30-3:00 brew window in our pour-over guide.
To-the-degree temperature control on a 0.9 liter gooseneck hits every window in our guides, from 80-85°C AeroPress water to the 92-96°C we specify for pour-over and French press.
Fellow names espresso, pour-over, French press and cold brew directly among the Opus's supported methods on one 41+ setting dial, though the 110g hopper and catch bin fall short of the 125g per litre our cold brew guide calls for in a single load.
Hario's own spec sheet pairs a built-in timer with 0.1g resolution from 2g to 200g, precise enough for the 15g pour-over dose and 18g AeroPress dose our guides call for, within a 2,000g total capacity.
Bonavita's own manual lists six factory presets from 60C to 98C that land on or bracket the water temperatures our pour-over and AeroPress guides call for, backed by an up to one hour heat-and-hold.
Chemex's own spec sheet lists a 30 ounce, single-vessel borosilicate glass brewer measured in 5 fl oz cups, a different scaling unit than the 250g per-cup gram ratio our pour-over guide runs on.
Baratza's own suggested settings place Hario V60 at grind 15 and French Press at 28 on the Virtuoso+'s 40 step dial, matching our pour-over and French press guides, though dosing runs by time rather than by weight.
Acaia's own spec sheet lists a 2000g capacity, 0.1g readability, and a built-in Auto-Start Timer Mode, covering the 15g/250g pour-over and 18g/210g AeroPress doses our guides call for.
Hario states this glass, size 03 Switch dripper (SSD-360-B) holds 360 milliliters and doubles as a standard V60 pour-over or an immersion brewer, fitting the single-cup 15g to 250g recipe in our pour-over guide but not a doubled two-cup pour in one brew.
Retailer listings state a built-in scale that grinds straight to a gram target, matching the 15g pour-over dose in our guide, but the stated grind range tops out at a French press setting and the 110 gram grounds container falls short of the 125 gram cold brew dose our guide calls for in one pass.
Fellow's own spec sheet pairs 64mm flat burrs with an 11 setting, 31 step dial, and Seattle Coffee Gear's product guide settings table places V60 (grouped with Chemex) at settings 10 to 20, squarely inside the medium grind our pour-over guide calls for.
Prima Coffee's spec table puts the C40 MK4's burr at 39mm outer, 30mm inner conical steel, and Voltage Coffee Supply states the range runs from espresso to cold brew, spanning both the medium grind our pour-over guide calls for and the medium-fine grind our AeroPress guide calls for.
One system, six methods
Every guide is this same skeleton wearing its method's numbers: the dials re-read, the vessel changes shape, the compass carries method-specific fixes. Design once, brew six ways.
What you need
- Hario V60 dripper and paper filters
- Gooseneck kettle for a controlled pour
- Burr grinder
- Digital scale with a timer
- Server or mug to brew into
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