Make the best pour over coffee of your life in a Chemex coffee maker! Here’s how to make pour over coffee and all the gear you need to do it.
What’s the best coffee brewing method? Pour over coffee. Take it from us coffee nerds: pour over coffee in the Chemex is the ultimate way to extract all the nuanced flavor of a coffee bean. You know, that oddly shaped glass beaker that looks like it should be in a science lab? The Chemex coffee maker makes the best cup of coffee we know. We’ve tried all sorts of methods, from French press to Moka pot. But for our everyday cup of joe: it’s the Chemex every time. Here’s how to make a perfect pot of pour over coffee!
Why use the Chemex for pour over coffee?
Alex and I have been trying different coffee methods for years! Why did we land on the Chemex as the best pour over coffee maker? We’ve used about every single coffee gadget there is. Here’s why we think it’s the best pour over coffee maker there is:
- It makes the best flavor. The unique Chemex coffee filters bring out the best of quality, single origin coffee. Once you taste it, you’ll never want to go back! It’s fantastic for light and medium roast coffees to let the flavor of the bean shine through.
- It’s beautiful and functional. The Chemex coffee maker is so beautiful to look at, with its organic shape and materials. So it’s a lovely art piece for the counter as well! Obviously the coffee flavor is of top importance to us, so the artistry is an added bonus.
Best pour over coffee maker
Which Chemex coffee maker do we recommend? This Chemex 8 cup coffeemaker! It can make up to 4 cups of coffee at once. We make 2 pots a day in it. There are cute smaller versions of this coffee maker, but they’re much too tiny for our coffee consumption.
Get it: Chemex 8 cup coffeemaker
Chemex coffee filters
The Chemex coffee maker uses special coffee filters that bring out the smooth flavor in the coffee. We recommend these Chemex coffee filters. (Some commenters have mentioned that you can reuse the paper filters a few times if you wash them out.)
Get them: Chemex coffee filters
Best pour over coffee kettle
An electric gooseneck kettle is perfect for using with your Chemex coffee maker. Why use a this special type of kettle? A gooseneck kettle gives you more control so you can slowly pour the water onto the coffee beans, allowing it to extract maximum flavor. Plus, it looks cool! We use this electric gooseneck kettle: it’s perfect for heating water for coffee and tea; we’ve use ours for 6 years and it’s held up great. Or, try this more affordable pour over coffee kettle.
Get it: Electric gooseneck kettle or pour over coffee kettle
How to make pour over coffee
Using a Chemex to make pour over coffee takes a little practice, but it will become second nature! (Trust us: we do it every day.) Here are a few things to know about how to use a Chemex coffee maker, or jump to the recipe below. The major steps are:
- Heat filtered water to 200 to 205 degrees. If you’re a true coffee nerd like we are, the flavor of filtered water is best (here’s the filtered pitcher we use!). As noted above, we use an electric pour over coffee kettle to heat the water.
- Weigh out and grind your coffee. Use a food scale to weigh out the amount of coffee. For 2 cups of coffee, we use 34 grams. Grind it out to a medium coarse grind. Light roast or medium roast beans are best for pour over coffee, which makes the flavors truly shine.
- Add the Chemex filter and coffee, and let it bloom. Next you’ll wet the Chemex coffee filter, then add the coffee and let the it bloom for 1 minute by wetting the grounds and letting it sit. The bloom releases CO2 from the coffee and causes the grinds to rise.
- Add the rest of the water. Then add the remaining water to make your pour over coffee! Our ratio is for every 1 gram of coffee, use 15 to 16 grams of water. So for 34 grams of coffee, we use 520 grams of water.
And that’s it! Once you’ve practiced a few times, it will feel like second nature. It is 100% worth the few extra minutes to use your Chemex coffee maker. Because it truly makes our perfect cup of pour over coffee. Have questions or comments? Let us know in the comments below!
Watch this video first!
A lot of learning how to use a Chemex coffee maker is just watching other people do it! Before you start, watch this video of me showing you how to make pour over coffee.
Variation: iced pour over coffee
Love iced coffee? You can make that with pour over too! Head to our Chemex Iced Coffee recipe. A major pro for this method? It’s seriously quick and takes only 10 minutes! You don’t have to chill overnight or for hours: you can make it right when you’re craving it. The main idea is that you’ll make the hot coffee over ice, which instantly cools it. Because it’s so quick, we make pour over iced coffee all the time.
More coffee methods
Outside of pour over coffee, our Barista series shows you how to make coffee using all sorts of methods! Here are some of our favorite coffee drinks:
- Make French press coffee
- How to make espresso
- Best espresso drinks: latte, cappuccino, macchiato, flat white, and Americano
- How to make Moka pot coffee
- How to make Aeropress coffee
- Make Iced coffee or Cold brew coffee
Perfect Pour Over Coffee
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 0 minutes
- Total Time: 10 minutes
- Yield: 2 cups 1x
Description
Make the best pour over coffee of your life in a Chemex coffee maker! Here’s how to make pour over coffee and all the gear you need to do it.
Ingredients
- 34 grams light or medium roast coffee beans*
- 520 grams filtered water (the flavor is best with filtered water)
Instructions
- Heat a pot of filtered water to 200 to 205F. We use an electric kettle that shows us the exact temperature. You could also use a teapot on the stove — just heat to boiling, then let the water cool down for a few minutes.
- Use a food scale to weigh out 34 grams of coffee, then grind it to a medium coarse grind (about the size of kosher or sea salt). We use an electric burr grinder to get a consistent grind.
- When the water is heated, place the filter in your Chemex (see the video below for exact instructions). Pour in just a bit of water to wet the filter, then pour out the water into the sink. Place the ground coffee into the Chemex and shake it to level it out.
- Place the Chemex on the food scale and tare it so the scale reads 0. Slowly pour in 70 grams of water in a circular motion. Then stop and wait for 1 minute: this allows the coffee to bloom (you may have to tap your scale once so that it doesn’t time out!).
- Then slowly add the remaining 520 grams water in two batches, pouring very slowly in concentric circles, pouring right onto the coffee and not touching the coffee filter. Fill to about ½ inch from the top (it will likely be around 400 grams water), wait for the water level to go down a bit, and then fill the remaining water up to 520 grams.
- After a few minutes, all of the water will filter through the coffee grounds into the pot below. Remove the filter and discard it (we compost ours). Enjoy!
Notes
*In our large Chemex, the most you can make at one time is 50 grams of coffee and 800 grams water, which makes about 3 to 4 cups of coffee. To scale up or down, just use our magic ratio: 15-16 grams water to 1 gram of coffee.
- Category: Drink
- Method: Pour Over
- Cuisine: American
Keywords: Best Pour Over Coffee Maker, Chemex coffee filters, How to make pour over coffee, Pour over coffee kettle, Chemex coffee maker, Chemex filters
Yeah, a Chemex is OK (I gave mine to my son, but he prefers my 50-some-odd-year-old Vesuviana), but my Corning 4-cup dripolator beats it out.
Hi Sonja and Alex,
I use the pour-over coffee method as my naturopath says it’s the best method for people who lean toward high cholesterol, since residual grounds aren’t so great and this method minimizes contact with grinds.
Have never heard of the Chemex, but live in rural Nova Scotia, so that’s not surprising. Delighted to read your tips, was utterly ignorant of “blooming.” I wonder why light or medium roast coffee is recommended, though. I always go for dark roast , since lighter roasts taste weak to my palate. Would appreciate your comments.
Hi! So glad you enjoyed the recipe! We use both a chemex and a more simple v60 or Melitta style pour over frequently. The method works great for dark roast too! We have fallen in love with craft roasted light coffees of a single origin — the flavor really comes out when made in a pour over style. I agree that traditional grocery-store style light roast coffee is very weak in flavor!
Also, if you can find a Chemex, the filters are very thick and your get zero grounds coming through.