Brewing high density coffee at home (especially on pour over) has been something that I’ve tried to figure out on and off for quite a while. High density coffees, such as a lot of Ethiopian beans and most decafs, tend to drain really slow when you make a pour over with them. When a lot of recipes call for an ideal end time between three and a half and four and a half minutes, some of these coffees are draining upward of seven minutes. Seven. That’s a lot. And when that happens, frequently the clarity you’re hoping for just isn’t there. It’s not ideal. I’ve tried a lot of pour over methods, and experimented with a lot of different things, and I FINALLY found some techniques that worked. 

I don’t love having a pour over end at seven minutes, and a lot of times it’s fine, but it’s just missing that… something. That clarity, the nuance, the notes and undertones that jump out at you when you have a cup that’s just excellently extracted. So I’ll take you through a couple of the things that I tried thinking they would work that really didn’t, and some of the things that have finally helped. 

First off, the reason that this happens, at least the most dominant theory for it, is that harder coffee tends to shatter more than grind, which produces more fines. More fines means it’s way easier for the brew to choke as they all congregate at the bottom of the filter and act like a blockade preventing your lovely water from moving through the bed at a reasonable speed, and preventing ideal extraction. 

A lot of brew methods that I’ve tried recently have a lot of agitation, either a swirl at the bloom, stirring the bloom, pouring with more height between the bed and the kettle, or pouring at a higher velocity. The other thing that’s really common is a light swirl right at the end to settle the bed. In my experience, all of these things made it worse. None of them made it better. Some of them work really well with lower density coffees and make great pour overs, but none of them worked well specifically on the decaf I have been experimenting with. 

I tried a few different grind sizes too, ranging from really fine, to cold-brew level course. And none of that really made a huge difference. As odd as it is, there wasn’t a large difference in draw down time, even with a massive grind size change. 

The first thing that I finally ended up trying that helped was switching filters - I went from using a standard Hario v60 filter, to using Cafec T-90 filters. There is a little bit less body in the cup, but it does drain faster, and retains nice cup clarity. Although it does drain faster, it didn’t solve the issue entirely, using the standard aforementioned brew methods still yielded brew times that were far too long. 

I’ll list the full recipe I’m using below, but here are a few basic techniques that really help! 

I’m not using any agitation whatsoever on the bloom, and I’m double blooming (I haven’t experimented extensively with this, but it’s worked well in this recipe for me). I have been keeping the spout of the kettle much closer to the bed and pouring with noticeably less velocity. Not pouring super slow, but being careful to not agitate the bed a lot. After the final pour there’s no agitation, leave it alone and let it drain. 

Full Recipe: 

18g coffee/300g water 

• Flatten bed and pour to 40g for first bloom 
• At 25 seconds, pour to 80g for second bloom 
• At 45 seconds begin first pour to 200g, steady, low velocity, and close to the bed in the typical spiral shape
• At 1:20 begin final pour to 300g, same pour techniques as above 
• Let drain, do not swirl
  

I have been consistently getting results of a total time between 3:00 and 4:30, with a very high density decaf. 

Definitely give it a shot with other high quality coffees, especially ones that tend to be harder to extract well!