The Anatomy of a Pour Over
Every manual brew, from a humble V60 to a four-cup Chemex, follows the same arc. Knowing the stages turns a recipe from a list of numbers into a story you can read and adjust. This note maps the brew start to finish; the deeper craft of each stage lives in its own note.
#The Five Stages
Rinse → Dose → Bloom → Pours → Drawdown. Each stage hands off to the next, and a fault in one shows up later as an off cup.
| Stage | What happens | Roughly | Deep dive |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Rinse | Wet the paper, preheat the brewer | 0:00 | Pre-Wetting the Filter |
| 2. Dose | Add ground coffee, level the bed | — | The Brew Ratio |
| 3. Bloom | Wet all grounds, let CO₂ escape | 0:00–0:45 | The Bloom |
| 4. Pours | Add the remaining water in stages | 0:45–2:30 | Pouring Technique |
| 5. Drawdown | Last water drains through the bed | until ~3:00 | The Drawdown |
#1. Rinse the Filter 🚿
Pour hot water through the empty paper filter to rinse away papery taste and preheat the dripper and server. Discard that water before you add coffee. Whether it changes the cup is debated — see Pre-Wetting the Filter.
#2. Dose and Level
Weigh your coffee on a scale and add the right grind. A quick tap settles the bed flat so water meets every particle evenly — an uneven bed is the first seed of channeling.
#3. Bloom
The first small pour — typically two to three times the coffee weight — saturates the grounds and releases trapped CO₂. Fresh coffee swells and bubbles. The bloom sets up an even extraction for everything that follows.
#4. The Main Pours
Now you add the bulk of the water, either as discrete pulses or one continuous stream, controlling agitation with your kettle. Pour pattern, height, and flow rate all live here — see Pouring Technique.
#5. Drawdown
Once your final pour is in, the remaining water drains through the bed and the drawdown begins. Its speed reveals whether your grind and pour were balanced. When the dripper stops dripping, the brew is done — total contact time is your headline number.
A flat, level bed of spent grounds signals an even brew. A crater, a high-sided "donut," or coffee stranded up the walls hints at channeling or sloppy pouring.
#Continue Reading
- The Bloom — the pivotal first pour explained in full.
- Pouring Technique — how to run stages four and five well.
- The Standard V60 Recipe — this anatomy as a real, timed brew.
- Common Pour Over Mistakes — where each stage tends to go wrong.