Brewing filter coffee is simple when you follow a few basic rules. The amount of ground coffee per cup of coffee is just as important as the temperature of the water and the freshness of the coffee. In this guide, we explain everything you need to know to successfully brew filter coffee. At the end of the article, we walk through a brew step by step and illustrate it with pictures and videos.
With the right technique, it is very easy to brew really good filter coffee. At the same time, there is no cheaper way to brew coffee.
Who is this article for: for anyone with little or no experience with filter coffee. This article gives you a very solid foundation. Reading time: 14 minutes. Author: the author of this article was Swiss Filter Coffee Champion 2014, 12th at the World Championship in the Brewers Cup and 3-time Swiss Vice Brewers Cup Champion.
How much ground coffee per cup?
The correct dosage of coffee per cup is crucial for the coffee to taste good. However, since cup sizes vary greatly, specifying the amount of coffee per cup is not particularly suitable for reliably brewing delicious coffee.
We recommend approximately 6 grams of coffee per 100 ml of brewing water. You can scale this up or down as you wish. If you brew with 300 ml of hot water, the coffee amount of choice is approximately 18 grams. Per liter, that works out to about 60 grams of ground coffee.
Why this ratio works and how it shifts with espresso and French press is explained in detail in the article on coffee dosage per cup.
If the coffee is too strong at this brewing ratio, brew with 5 grams of coffee per 100 ml. If the coffee is too weak, increase to 7 grams of coffee per 100 ml. In this range, Central Europeans prefer to drink their coffee, based on experience.
A typical coffee cup holds about 150 ml of water. According to the logic above, 9 grams of coffee would be the coffee amount of choice. This method of brewing coffee naturally requires a scale. If you have a kitchen scale on hand, the amount is quickly measured. If constant measuring seems too tedious, you can measure once how much water fits in your own coffee cup and how much weight of ground coffee a heaping teaspoon holds. Measuring briefly each time removes the uncertainty of whether the coffee that tasted good last time will taste good this time too.
What temperature for brewing?
The perfect brewing temperature is approximately 92 – 94 degrees Celsius. Unfortunately, many filter coffee machines cannot be adjusted. This is one reason why hand-brewed coffee often tastes better. The temperature is easy to achieve by boiling water in a kettle. After about 2 minutes, it has cooled to the desired brewing temperature of 92 – 94 degrees.
This temperature is a guideline that generally works well for good filter coffee roasts. They taste neither too bitter nor too sour at this brewing temperature – in other words, they are "balanced." That's exactly what makes good filter coffee.
Lighter roasted coffees can easily be brewed at higher temperatures. At the World Championship for filter coffee brewing, for example, I brewed a lightly roasted Kenyan coffee at 98 degrees Celsius. The coffee's balance was still present, and at the same time, the full complexity of the coffee bean came through into the cup.
Darker roasted coffees are inherently more bitter due to the roasting process itself. Lower brewing temperatures work better here. High temperatures enhance the bitterness even more. We recommend brewing temperatures of 88 to 92 degrees, approximately 3 – 4 minutes after the water has boiled.
You often find headlines on the internet like: brewing filter coffee, cooking filter coffee, and making coffee. We cannot recommend this! Boiling coffee creates strong bitterness and not delicious coffee. That's why we talk about brewing filter coffee.
How long should the hot water be in contact with the coffee?
The best brewing time depends heavily on the amount of ground coffee and water used, the brewing method, and the roast. If you brew 200 – 300 ml of water, I recommend a brewing time between 2 – 3 minutes. The brewing time can be extended by 30 seconds per 100 ml. Starting at about 800 ml, different rules apply!
These guidelines can help you set your brew correctly. Setting is the key word here. As with espresso machines, with most filter methods (called pour over or drip methods in English), you control the brewing time by adjusting the grind size. The finer the grind, the greater the resistance to water and the longer the brewing time.
With electronic filter coffee machines, adjustment options are furthermore limited. When brewing by hand, you can adjust the speed of the brew by pouring the brewing water more slowly or more quickly.
With all brewing methods, it is ideal if most of the coffee and the water used are in contact throughout the entire brewing time. If you brew quickly at the start, for example, some of the ground coffee sticks to the upper edge of the filter and is difficult to bring back into the brew. This portion of the ground coffee is then less extracted than the rest. These particles are "high & dry" (common phrasing in the Anglicism-laden coffee language), so they remain high and dry and contribute nothing to the coffee taste in the cup. Since the amount of coffee was matched to the water, the taste result in the cup may not be perfect.
To perfectly set up filter coffee machines, calculating the brew cycle is practical. This involves running a complete brew cycle without ground coffee to measure the effective drip time. Getting the best out of a filter coffee machine will be the topic of another article.
The coffee grinder as the key to good coffee
The chapter on brewing time already showed the importance of the coffee grinder. Only if you can grind the coffee yourself will you be able to control the brewing time by adjusting the grind size. Of course, coffee can also be ground at many places at the roastery or in the supermarket. However, the best thing that was in this grinder before was perhaps not such fine coffee, and in the worst case, grain or pepper.
Buying pre-ground coffee is also not an option. The grind size is not set correctly in this case. Furthermore, coffee loses quality with every second after grinding. The whole bean in its unground structure is a kind of protective layer for the coffee. Air only reaches the surface and reacts only with it. Once coffee is ground, the surface area multiplies a thousandfold. The reaction with oxygen and light begins immediately at every cut and break point. Volatile aromas from the coffee escape. At the same time, an oxidation process begins that becomes very noticeable very quickly.
Even without practice, participants in our sensory courses detect the off-taste of "old coffee" already two hours after grinding. Coffee first loses complexity and then tastes rancid.
With the grinder, aim for a medium grind size. The coffee should feel roughly like fine polenta. The brewing water should not flow through the coffee faster or slower than approximately the time specified above.
What equipment makes sense?
Filter coffee is such a popular method because it is so simple and quick for anyone to master. An enormous budget is not necessary either. In many countries, filter coffee is brewed in cloth filters that resemble socks or pantyhose. There are basically no limits to your own experimentation. A classic filter like those from manufacturers Melitta, Hario or Kalita doesn't cost much and is excellent. Cheap filter coffee machines are also available well under 120 CHF/100 euros.
However, in this price range, I would always recommend a hand filter and spending more on the coffee machine. The main problem with cheap filter coffee machines is that they don't precisely control the brewing temperature. The second and even more important issue is water distribution over the coffee bed. Almost all cheap filter coffee machines drip at the same point.
That's a problem! Especially at this spot, "turbulence" occurs, meaning swirling between water and coffee. This spot is therefore particularly heavily extracted. This leads to over-extraction at this spot and consequently to bitterness. The rest of the ground coffee is meanwhile under-saturated and thus cannot bring its own delicious potential into the cup.
The hand filter is better!
So my advice: brew with the hand filter. It brings you closer to the coffee and allows you to really learn how to prepare filter coffee.
On the other hand, anyone who prefers stronger coffee – somewhere between filter coffee and espresso – will find a Kaffeemacher to be an affordable and uncomplicated option. It brews with a TDS of 3–4% significantly stronger than filter coffee, but requires neither electricity nor special equipment.
I also recommend a simple grinder. A hand grinder is perfectly suitable. Of course, many single dosing grinders are also well suited.
The equipment is complete with a scale and can then be expanded as desired. The scale helps you dose the water and coffee amounts. Any postage or kitchen scale works. Coffee scales additionally have a stopwatch – a practical tool that gives you control over the brewing time.
Paper, cloth, or metal filter paper – what's the difference?
Filter paper works as well as cloth filters or metal filters. All three separate most of the ground coffee from the coffee beverage. Filter paper does this most consistently. While cloth and metal filters let some sediment and coffee oils through, filter paper stops the coffee's solids almost completely, depending on density.
Personally, I prefer to drink coffee filtered through paper. It's clearer as a result, and no sediment residue remains in the cup that bothers me with the last sip. Paper-filtered coffee has a rather lighter body; it feels less heavy on the tongue. When brewed well, this coffee compensates for that with "elegance."
Cloth or metal-filtered coffee is robust and can bring out different notes through the taste of coffee oils than paper-filtered coffee.
When it comes to choosing between cloth or metal, I choose a very fine-mesh metal sieve or screen, such as with the Coffee Dripper. We also made a test video about the Coffee Dripper that highlights the advantages of this fine-mesh filter.
The great advantage over the cloth filter is relatively easy cleaning. Cloth filters get dirty quickly and heavily and need to be cleaned very thoroughly by machine to develop little flavor of their own. When using a cloth filter, you always drink a little patina. Unfortunately, there's no getting around it.
Soft water is good water
When brewing filter coffee, the rule is: the softer the water, the more delicious your coffee. The nice side effect: your kettle will scale up less.
Medium-hard and hard water buffers the acidity in the coffee. Acidity is very important for balance and taste in all complex beverages. Without acidity, coffee tastes bland and empty. It's actually true: hard water turns very good filter coffee into an average one.
A few years ago, I traveled through Switzerland and tested various waters to see which ones were suitable for brewing coffee. You can read the results here.
Soft and very good water for brewing filter coffee has less than 8 German degrees of hardness and more than 2 dH. You can filter this water or use mineral water.
If you want to buy soft water, you'll definitely find the perfect mineral water for your region in this gigantic list.
It may sound exaggerated that water plays a role in this guide for good filter coffee. However, filter coffee consists of 98.5% water and only 1.5% dissolved coffee solids. These figures alone illustrate the importance of water.
Which coffee is best suited for filter coffee?
Coffee beans that are light to medium-dark roasted are better suited for filter coffee. They are more balanced in taste and easier to brew. Darker coffees tend toward bitterness. Lighter roasted coffees more clearly show the typical flavor notes of the region of origin. The method of processing the green coffee after harvest is also not masked by overly strong roasting notes.
Many modern "specialty coffee roasters" tend to roast coffees too light. In this case, the coffee is under-roasted and the flavor is not yet sufficiently developed. This extreme is also not ideal from our perspective.
Many good roasteries now make very good filter coffee. In Switzerland, in addition to our own filter coffees, I like filter coffee from Vertical, Kafischmitte or Stoll Kaffee. From Germany, I like the roasts from Mokuska in Stuttgart, Tegernseer Rösterei, Johannes Bayer, Backyard coffee and many others. Internationally, Coffee Collective is a great choice. I'll expand this list when I get the chance.
How fresh should the coffee be?
Perfect filter coffee is no older than two months. You can tell this when a roast date is on the packaging. If no roast date is visible on the packaging, that's a reason not to buy this coffee.
You can only determine the freshness of the coffee via the roast date. I like to drink filter coffee starting 3 – 5 days after roasting. The opened bag should then be consumed within 2 weeks. The reason is, as with grinding, the reaction with oxygen. Each time you open the coffee bag, fresh oxygen enters the bag, which accelerates the aging of the coffee beans.
The coffee can also be brewed immediately after roasting. However, it is still heavily charged with CO2, which on the one hand does not contribute positively to the taste and on the other hand bubbles so vigorously in the filter that the brew does not proceed evenly. That's why a rest period of a few days after roasting makes sense. When preparing espresso, degassing of carbon dioxide for at least 10 days is advisable.
Prepare filter coffee step by step
With the following pictures and video sequences, we walk you through preparing a filter coffee with the Hario V60 step by step. This guide applies to any standard coffee filter. We use 18 g of coffee and 300 g of water as examples.
Rinse the filter paper with hot water to remove the paper taste. Plenty of water doesn't hurt. About 200 ml rinsed through is a good guideline. Try the rinsed water once. You'll taste that you don't want that in your coffee.
We now add three times the amount of coffee we used as water. In this example, we therefore use 54 g of water at a temperature of 93 degrees. With this water, we saturate the entire coffee bed in a circular motion from the inside outward.
This type of pre-brew is called blooming in English. The coffee blooms as it were, while some of the coffee's carbon dioxide dissolves and is released. Once the CO2 has escaped, a controlled brew becomes possible.
After 30 seconds, we increase the water amount to 125 grams.
At a brewing time of about 0:50 minutes, I increase the total water amount to 200 grams. I do this by pouring in a circular motion from the inside outward and back inward. With a good grind adjustment, the coffee bed rises no higher than halfway up the filter paper (if so, grind slightly coarser next time).
With a fourth pour after about 1:30, I increase the total water amount to 300 grams. Now the water bed level rises to the upper third. With a stirring rod, I set the entire water amount into rotation. This continues to rotate until the coffee finishes dripping after approximately 2:30 minutes.
Summary and brewing recipe
There is no one right brewing recipe! There is also not only one right way to delicious coffee. That's very important. Never let anyone tell you otherwise. With coffee, the rule is: "what matters is in the cup." If your coffee tastes good, you've done everything right.
- 6 grams of coffee per 100 grams of water, for example, 300 grams of water to 18 grams of coffee
- Use 92 – 94 degree hot water
- 2 – 3 minutes contact time
- Soft water with a hardness between 2 - 8 dH
- Fresh coffee = 5 days old and no older than 2 months
Have fun experimenting and brewing. How did it go for you? What tips and experiences have you had? I look forward to your comments and feedback.
If you want to learn more about brewing filter coffee, check out our channel on YouTube
Other brewing methods
- French press and plunger pot
- Tips for outdoor coffee and coffee on the go
-
Kaffeemacher and moka pot
- Important article on the topic: How much coffee per cup?
