Free pour over timer for V60 Chemex and Kalita. Track bloom and multiple pours. Brew barista-quality pour over coffee at home.
I use a V60 and aim for 3:00-3:30 from first pour to last drip. My friend with a Chemex goes 4:00-4:30 because those thicker filters slow everything down. When I was pulling 2:30 the coffee tasted weak and sour but when I went past 4:00 it got bitter and harsh. Your grind size controls this completely - I grind finer when it's too fast and coarser when too slow. The nice thing about pour over compared to espresso is you have a wider window where coffee tastes good so there's more room for error.
Blooming changed my pour over game completely. You wet all the grounds with about twice the coffee weight in water then wait 30-45 seconds for CO2 to escape before adding more water. Fresh roasted coffee has trapped gas that repels water if you don't bloom first causing really uneven extraction. You'll see the grounds puff up and bubble during bloom which is the CO2 escaping. I used to skip this step to save time and my coffee was inconsistent - sometimes great sometimes terrible. Now I bloom every time and results are way more predictable.
I do bloom at 0:00 then second pour at 1:00 then third at 1:45 and let it drain. Multiple pours let me control flow rate and maintain water temperature better than one continuous pour. My first few attempts at continuous pouring were disasters - either too fast and it stalled or too slow and I overflowed. The pause between pours lets the bed drain slightly which resets everything. I've seen competition baristas do single continuous pours but that takes tons of practice and I'm happy with my three-pour method that works every time.
Pour over uses medium-fine grind - finer than drip coffee but way coarser than espresso. It should feel gritty not powdery when you rub it between your fingers. I was using drip coffee grind at first and everything drained in under 2 minutes tasting weak. Then I went too fine and it took 6 minutes and tasted bitter. Each method is slightly different too - my V60 likes medium-fine my friend's Chemex prefers medium and Kalita sits between them. A good burr grinder is worth every penny because blade grinders give mixed sizes and your coffee extracts unevenly no matter what you do.
Technique matters way more than I expected. I pour in slow spirals from center outward staying about half an inch from the filter walls. Pouring directly on the walls causes bypass where water goes straight down without touching coffee. I used to pour only in the center and created a cone that channeled badly. The smooth circular spiraling ensures all grounds contact water evenly. Your pour should be thin and steady not glugging from the kettle. Once I got a gooseneck kettle my pour over improved dramatically because I could finally control where water went.