Is Your Pour-Over Coffee TOO Bitter To Drink? Fix It Easily

Is your pour-over coffee too bitter and you end up throwing away every single time? 

Let’s face it, great coffee can make our day, you brew a delicious cup of coffee and seize the day. What happens when the coffee you had in the morning wasn’t that good though? To avoid the frustration of making bitter coffee with your pour-over, I compiled a guide and I’d like to share brewing tips and tricks with you to help you make nothing but top-notch coffee every single time. 

Let’s jump straight into it. 

Why is your pour-over coffee too bitter? 

The most common reasons that make your pour-over coffee bitter are the grind size, whether your gadgets are in perfect condition and clean enough, how fresh your coffee beans are and the quality of the water you use for brewing. 

4 reasons why your coffee made with a pour-over tastes bitter

Let’s go over 5 common reasons that make your pour-over coffee bitter. 

1. Water temperature

Every single gadget or machine you use for brewing has its own best practices.

One of these, when it comes to a pour-over gadget, is the water temperature. Too cold and the water won’t extract enough flavours and aromas, making weak coffee that is watery. Too hot and you’ll over-extract coffee aromas and flavours which practically means your coffee turns bitter.

What’s the ideal water temperature then? 

The perfect temperature, in this case, is between 195°F-205°F (90.5°C-96.1°C). As long as the water you use is within this temperature range you’re going to brew coffee that tastes delicious.

How can you measure water temperature? 

The best and most efficient way is to use a coffee thermometer which you can easily find online (they often come with espresso machines with a jug for frothing milk).

2. Coffee filter

The coffee filter you use for brewing can spoil the taste of your coffee. 

There are 3 different options when it comes to coffee filters for pour-over gadgets:

• Stainless steel
• Cloth 
• Paper

The taste of your coffee can’t be spoiled when using a filter made of stainless steel or cloth, but paper filters can change it. 

The most popular paper filters are white ones (they contain chlorine) and grey ones (they don’t contain chlorine). The white ones do a better job when it comes to filtering out coffee grounds but because they contain chlorine they might spoil the taste of your coffee – it happened to me and it was far from a pleasant experience. 

For that matter, I suggest you opt for a stainless steel, cloth or grey paper filter, so you keep your coffee’s taste pure.  

3. Quality of water

What sort of water do you use for brewing? 

If you use tap water for brewing, consider switching to alkaline, bottled or filtered water. Because tap contains hard minerals including calcium and magnesium, they make your water less pure and they could even spoil its taste. 

One thing you can do is to search online about the water in your area and find out whether it’s regarded as high in hard minerals or not. 

If it does, I suggest you stop using tap water for brewing and go for alkaline, bottled or filtered water that is pure and doesn’t make your coffee bitter.

4. Clean pour over

Let’s talk about cleaning, arguably the most boring part of brewing. 

It’s wise to clean your pour-over properly right after you’re finished with brewing, otherwise, coffee residue builds up and this can spoil the taste of your coffee (some of the residues might end up in your cup).

All you need to do is use water and soap to clean the inside and outside and put it under a dry cloth upside down to dry out and be ready for next time. 

It’s also a good idea to mix up vinegar (white preferably) with soap and water to clean it once in 2 months (depending on the use). To keep it in boss condition and prolong its lifespan.  

How to brew the ‘perfect’ coffee with a pour over step by step 

Let’s go through the steps of brewing the ‘perfect’ coffee with a pour over.

Heat the water

Start by heating up water with the use of a kettle or alternatively, you can use a pot and pop it on a stove. 

How much water would you need in this case? 

It really depends on how much coffee you want to make – simply use 8oz of water if you just want to brew 1 cup of coffee. 

What about the coffee/water ratio? 

A great rule of thumb is to go for 1/18 so the coffee you brew isn’t going to be too strong. If you’re into strong coffee you can go for 1/16 or less. 

Wet the filter and the coffee grounds

This is a key part of the brewing process.

All you need to do is put the coffee grounds and filter in place and pour over around 50 ml of hot water and give it around 45 seconds, so the coffee blooms and starts releasing its flavours and aromas

Pour over the rest of the water

Start pouring water slowly until the upper part of your gadget is filled, give it some time to drain and then repeat the process until you’ve used all of the hot water. 

Give it a minute to properly bloom and you’re good to go, you can enjoy delicious pour-over coffee.

Let’s wrap it up

You made it to the end of this article, well done you. I hope you can now identify the reason your pour-over coffee is too bitter and use 1 of the methods I went over to fix it quickly and easily. Go ahead and read more articles on this blog, you’ll find plenty on bitter coffee and how to brew delicious coffee.

FAQ

Let’s quickly go over a couple of FAQs to help you get a better understanding of the topic.

How do you reduce bitterness in pour-over?

Here are 4 ways of reducing bitterness in pour-over: 

• Use the right temperature: it should be between 195°F-205°F
• Filter material: go for a filter made of stainless steel, cloth or grey paper
• Water: skip tap water and opt for bottled or filtered coffee to keep the taste of your coffee pure.
• Cleaning your gadget: keep your pour over cleaned and ideally give it a wash right after you’re done with brewing. 

Why is my pour over sour?

One of the most common reasons your pour over coffee is sour is because short brewing time. When you wet the coffee grounds make sure you give it 45 seconds to bloom which practically does the warm-up of what comes after and helps in the process of extracting the right amount of flavours and aromas from the coffee grounds.

How do you fix bitter coffee with a surprising ingredient?

Did you know that salt makes your coffee less bitter and more sweet? How come? You put it in chips to make them more salty, how does it make coffee more sweet? It contains sodium which stops our taste buds from tasting bitter and at the same time sweeter, odd right? It works like a charm, but don’t overdo it, you need just a pinch of and you’ll be fine. 

Another surprising ingredient is butter which contains fat that takes the bitterness away and makes your brew taste sweeter. Similar to salt, you just need a little bit of it, otherwise you’ll spoil the taste of your coffee.