Enjoying a pour over brewed over ice brings out another world of nuance and flavor. In this guide, we’ll tell you everything you need to know about iced pour overs and how to brew an exceptional cup of coffee for a hot summer day.
What is an Iced Pour Over
An iced pour over is a method to brew an iced coffee by brewing hot coffee over ice.
How Does an Iced Pour Over Work?
A pour over brew basket containing a filter and ground coffee sits above a carafe filled with ice. Hot water is poured over the ground coffee and brews as it passes through the coffee. The freshly brewed coffee exits the brew basket and over the ice in your carafe. The ice cools the coffee while also diluting the brewed coffee to a proper coffee to water ratio.
Iced Pour Over Coffee Ratio
Because we’re brewing over ice, the brewed coffee will be diluted from the ice melting. So we’ll brew a coffee concentrate. We recommend a coffee to water to ice ratio of 1:10:6. This means 1 gram of coffee to 10 grams of water and 6 grams of ice. At the end, we’ll pour the coffee into a glass filled with ice but we’re not measuring the ice we're puting in that glass.
Learn more about coffee to water ratios.
Iced Pour Over Coffee Grind
You will want to grind your coffee with enough coarseness that the water passes through the grounds within your desired brew time. To achieve this, we recommend a medium grind consistency which feels similar to table salt. Most pour overs use a paper filter. Paper filters produce a very clean cup of coffee because of how well they capture small particles of coffee.
Learn more about coffee grinding on our How to Grind Coffee guide.
Iced Pour Over Coffee Recipe
- Coffee to Water to Ice ratio: 1:10:6
- Water: 280g
- Ice: 170g
- Coffee: 28g
- Grind: Medium (table salt)
How to Make Iced Pour Over Coffee
This method brews hot coffee over ice to make an iced pour over coffee. The recipe already takes into account dilution from the ice melting when the hot coffee hits it. To get started, add 170g of ice to a carafe and set your pour over basket on top. Add your filter but don’t pre-rinse it, or if you’d like, rinse it over the sink to avoid melting your ice. Add your ground coffee and make sure the coffee bed is flat. Tare your scale and start your timer.
- Step 1 - 0:00 Add 50g of water to allow freshly roasted coffee to degas
- Step 2 - 0:30 Slowly add 100g of water using circular motions
- Step 3 - 1:30 Add the remaining water again with circular motions
- Step 4 - 3:30 Pour your coffee over a cup filled with ice and enjoy!
