Pour-Over Coffee Guide: Brewing by Weight at a Mile High

October 12, 2026

Pour-over coffee is coffee brewed by hand: hot water is poured from a kettle over ground coffee sitting in a paper filter, and the coffee drips through into a carafe or mug below. No machine runs the brew. The person holding the kettle decides how much coffee goes in, how fine it is ground, how hot the water is and how fast it is poured. This guide covers how the method works, why the kettle's spout matters, how to measure by weight, what the first small pour called the bloom does, and what brewing a mile above sea level changes (shop coffee and tea tools).

How pour-over makes coffee

All brewed coffee comes from extraction: hot water dissolves soluble material out of the roasted, ground beans and takes it into the cup. An AeroPress, compared at the end of this guide, lets the grounds sit in the water for about a minute before the two are separated. Pour-over works differently. The National Coffee Association USA, a coffee industry group, describes the hot water extracting the flavors as it passes through the coffee grounds and into the mug below, so fresh water keeps arriving at the top of the coffee bed and draining out through the filter.

Because the water is always moving, the speed of the pour and the size of the grounds decide how long the water and coffee stay in contact. The National Coffee Association gives pour-over about 2 to 4 minutes of contact between coffee and water. Fellow, the company that makes the kettle and dripper discussed below, uses the word under-extraction for coffee that has had too little flavor pulled from the grounds, and says an overly sour or watery flavor often signals it.

The Specialty Coffee Association's Golden Cup Standard puts numbers on a well-brewed cup. It calls for a brew strength of 11.5 to 13.5 grams of dissolved coffee solids per liter, resulting from a solubles extraction yield of 18 to 22 percent. Strength is how concentrated the coffee is. Extraction yield is the share of the ground coffee's weight that the water dissolves and removes from the grounds. Ratio, grind, temperature and pour are the levers a brewer uses to move those two numbers.

Why a gooseneck kettle matters

A gooseneck kettle has a long, thin spout that curves up and out from the base, shaped like the neck of a goose. The National Coffee Association says that shape helps control the flow of water and helps preserve the water temperature too. Fellow says a gooseneck spout's narrow, curved shape is designed to give greater precision over the flow rate, meaning how much water leaves the kettle each second, and that for pour-over this controlled flow results in even saturation of the coffee bed.

Even saturation is the point. A pour-over relies on the water passing through all of the grounds, and the National Coffee Association describes the main pour as slow, steady and continuous, starting in the middle and spiraling outward. A thin stream that can be aimed and slowed is what makes that spiral possible.

Fellow describes the Stagg EKG Pro as "the ultimate pour-over kettle, built for precision and control." Its precision pour spout, in the maker's words, supports a slow, controlled flow for accurate pouring and even saturation. The kettle holds 30 ounces (0.9 liters), heats to any temperature from 104°F to 212°F (40°C to 100°C), and has a hold mode that keeps water hot for 15, 30, 45 or 60 minutes. It also has a brew stopwatch, a built-in timer for pour-over and steeping, and an altitude setting that, according to Fellow, prevents boiling over by customizing the elevation for the user's location (shop the Fellow Stagg EKG Pro kettle).

The dripper

The dripper is the cone or cup that holds the filter and the grounds above the carafe. Its shape and the holes in its base help set how quickly water drains out.

Fellow's Stagg XF Pour-Over Set comes with the Stagg XF dripper, a Stagg double wall carafe and 20 paper filters. Fellow says the dripper's flat bottom, steep walls and a unique hole and bump pattern work together to regulate flow. The dripper body is stainless steel with a silicone gasket, the carafe is borosilicate glass (a heat-resistant glass), and the set holds up to 20 ounces. Fellow says the set's double wall insulation helps maintain brewing temperature and keeps coffee hot longer after it is poured.

Two details matter for a beginner. A built-in ratio aid, with one-dot and two-dot marks, measures the right amount of coffee and water without a scale, according to Fellow. And the dripper is tall: Fellow says the taller design gives more room for brewing up to two cups at once or for what it calls the fill-up method (shop the Fellow Stagg XF pour-over set).

Brew ratio, by weight

The brew ratio is how much water is used for each gram of coffee. The National Coffee Association gives pour-over a ratio of 1 gram of coffee to 13 to 16 grams of water, written 1:13 to 1:16. A lower second number makes a stronger cup, and a higher one makes a lighter cup.

Weighing both coffee and water on a kitchen scale turns a ratio into two numbers to hit. Water is easy to weigh because 1 milliliter of water weighs about 1 gram, so Fellow's recipe lists its water as 300 milliliters and 300 grams side by side.

Fellow's single-cup recipe for the Stagg XF uses 20 grams of coffee and 300 grams of water. That works out to 1:15, inside the National Coffee Association's range. The two-cup version doubles both, to 40 grams of coffee and 600 grams of water, and keeps the same ratio.

Grind size

Grind size is matched to how long the water and coffee stay together. The National Coffee Association's general rule is that the longer the coffee is in contact with water during brewing, the coarser the grind should be. Espresso, which brews in seconds, uses a fine grind, and cold brew, which takes hours, uses a coarse one.

The National Coffee Association suggests starting pour-over with a medium grind and adjusting from there, and says grinding whole beans immediately before brewing guarantees maximum freshness. Fellow's own recipe calls for a medium-fine grind, about the size of sea salt. Fellow's grinding advice gives a simple rule for adjusting: if the coffee tastes sour, watery or weak, grind a bit finer; if it tastes bitter, grind a little coarser. Fellow also suggests what it calls the Goldilocks method: grind three doses, one at the usual setting, one a good deal coarser and one a good deal finer, brew all three the same way, let them cool, and taste them side by side.

The bloom

The bloom is the first, small pour. Water goes onto the dry grounds just to wet them, and then the brewer waits. The National Coffee Association says to pour about double the amount of coffee in water, and that the water bubbles up quickly as carbon dioxide escapes. Carbon dioxide is the same gas that makes the bubbles in soda. With those gases gone, the association says, the coffee bed can be saturated more evenly. It suggests waiting about 30 to 45 seconds, once the grounds have stopped bubbling, before pouring the rest.

Fellow's recipe follows the same pattern. For the single cup, the bloom is 40 grams of water on 20 grams of coffee, exactly twice the coffee's weight, followed by a 30 second wait.

Water temperature, and brewing a mile high

The National Coffee Association cites the Specialty Coffee Association's suggestion that the best water temperature before pouring over coffee grounds is 93 ± 3°C, which is about 194°F to 205°F. Fellow's Stagg XF recipe asks for water at 200°F to 205°F.

Altitude changes what a kettle can do. Water boils at a lower temperature as elevation rises, because there is less air pressing down on its surface. Colorado State University Extension lists the boiling point of water as 212°F at sea level and about 203°F at 5,000 feet. The National Center for Home Food Preservation at the University of Georgia lists 201°F at 6,000 feet. The Colorado State Capitol, according to the Denver Public Library, rests one mile (5,280 feet) above sea level and marks it on the 13th step. That puts a Denver kettle at a full boil at roughly 202°F, an estimate between the two table values.

That number lands inside both ranges. A Denver full boil sits near the bottom of Fellow's 200°F to 205°F and comfortably within the 194°F to 205°F window, so a Denver brewer can simply pour at a full boil or a degree or two below it. What an open kettle in a mile-high kitchen cannot do is reach 205°F, because water there boils before it gets that hot.

Temperature may also matter less to the final cup than it seems. Researchers at the University of California, Davis, published a study in Scientific Reports in October 2020 that brewed coffee in a drip brewer at 87, 90 and 93°C (about 189, 194 and 199°F). They adjusted grind size, the amount of coffee and the brew time so that batches at each temperature reached the same strength and extraction yield, and a trained tasting panel found that the brew temperature had no appreciable impact on how the coffee tasted. The study used a drip brewer rather than a hand pour, but its method holds a practical idea: the researchers matched the cooler brews to the hotter ones by changing grind and brew settings, which is the same tool a Denver brewer has when the water runs a little cooler. The Denver altitude cooking guide covers what the same thin air does to beans, candy and baking.

A Denver pour-over card

The card sets Fellow's single-cup recipe beside the National Coffee Association's ranges and the boiling points from the two university tables. The Denver boiling point is this guide's own estimate between the 5,000 and 6,000 foot figures, and changes in air pressure from the weather move it a little from day to day.

Step	Fellow's single cup	National Coffee Association range	In a Denver kitchen
Coffee	20 g, medium-fine	Start medium, adjust	Same; go a step finer if the cup tastes sour or weak
Water	300 g	1:13 to 1:16	Same; 300 g on 20 g is 1:15
Temperature	200°F to 205°F	93 ± 3°C, about 194°F to 205°F	A full boil here is about 202°F, inside both ranges
Bloom	40 g water, wait 30 seconds	About double the coffee, wait 30 to 45 seconds	Same; 40 g is twice the 20 g dose
Main pour	40 to 60 g at a time, to 300 g	Slow and steady, spiraling outward	Same

A first pour-over, step by step

These steps follow Fellow's single-cup recipe for the Stagg XF, with the National Coffee Association's pouring advice for the main pour.

Heat the water. Heat 300 grams (10 ounces) of water to 200°F to 205°F. In Denver, a full boil is about 202°F.
Grind the coffee. Weigh 20 grams of coffee and grind it medium-fine.
Rinse the filter. Set the filter in the dripper and wet it with hot water, then pour that rinse water out of the carafe.
Add the coffee. Add the grounds and shake the dripper gently to settle them into a flat bed.
Bloom. Pour 40 grams of water over the grounds and wait 30 seconds while they bubble.
Pour in stages. Keep pouring in doses of 40 to 60 grams, slowly, starting in the middle and spiraling outward, until the total reaches 300 grams.
Taste and adjust. If the cup tastes sour or watery, grind finer next time. If it tastes bitter, grind coarser. Change one thing at a time.

Pour-over or AeroPress

The two methods start from the same ground coffee and end in very different ways. In a pour-over, water passes through the coffee once, and the pour is the main control. AeroPress, the company that makes the press, has the brewer steep the grounds in water for about a minute and then press a plunger that pushes the coffee through a paper micro-filter, using air pressure for rapid extraction, so the wait and the press are the main controls. The AeroPress guide walks through that method step by step, including its own Denver brew card.

To browse coffee-related finds, shop the coffee collection. The shop is at 263 Josephine Street in Cherry Creek, Denver, where visitors can ask staff questions, and orders from theambrosianpantry.com ship within the continental U.S.

Pour-over looks like a ritual, but it is a measurement exercise: a ratio on a scale, a grind setting, a temperature and a slow, aimed stream of water. Each of those can be written down and repeated, which is what turns a good cup into a reliable one. In Denver the hardest part is already settled by the air, because a kettle at a mile-high boil lands right where the coffee wants it.