How to Grind Coffee for Pour Over: Finding the Right Grind Size?

A pour-over bed that drains in a thin, fast stream leaves you with sour, watery coffee — and a grind that’s too fine stalls the whole brew. The target sits in the middle: fine enough to slow the water and pull flavor out, coarse enough to keep the flow moving. Getting that particle size right matters more than almost any other variable in the cup.

What Grind Size Does Pour Over Actually Need?

Start with a medium to medium-coarse grind — coarse sand or table salt is the texture most guides point to. From there, adjust finer or coarser based on how your brew tastes and how fast it drains.

That single starting point splits into different targets once you account for dripper shape. A conical brewer like a V60 tends to want medium to medium-coarse, roughly 600–900 microns per one grinding guide. A flat-bottom Kalita Wave usually lands at medium, around 500–800 microns. A Chemex, with its thick filter, calls for a coarser grind — roughly 800–1200 microns. As a broader reference, pour-over as a category is often described as falling between 400–930 microns, a texture close to granulated sugar or sand.

Those numbers are starting points, not rules. Grind size shifts with roast level, dose, pour pattern, and the grinder itself, which is why no chart replaces tasting your own cup.

Dialing In The Grind For Your Brewer

The reliable way to find your setting is to brew two cups side by side and taste the difference.

1. Set your grinder to its recommended pour-over midpoint.
2. Brew two cups from the same recipe — one slightly finer, one slightly coarser.
3. Let both cool for a few minutes, then taste and note which you preferred.
4. If the brew ran too fast, tasted weak, or came out sour, go finer. If it ran too slow or tasted bitter, go coarser.

Brew time gives you a second signal for free. One guide puts a single cup at roughly 2.5 to 3.5 minutes; another places pour-over more broadly at 4 to 6 minutes depending on method and recipe. Treat those as guidance ranges, not universal standards — a slow-draining brew that tastes good doesn’t need fixing.

Dose affects grind too. One guide suggests 15–20 g of coffee per person, or 30–40 g for two, while another gives a general rule of 17–19 g per person. A larger dose in the same dripper means a deeper bed, which often needs a slightly coarser grind to drain evenly.

Quick Grind Reference By Brewer

Picking gear that can hit these ranges consistently is the other half of the equation — a grinder with stepless or wide-step adjustment gives you room to dial in, while a blade grinder leaves you guessing. Our tested pour-over coffee grinder picks cover which models hold a setting well enough to repeat a good cup.

When To Change Your Grind Setting

Any time the bed stalls or drains too fast, the grind is the first thing to adjust — before you touch dose or water temperature.

Extraction targets are worth knowing as a reference point, not a scoreboard. Some sources cite SCA-style targets around 18–22% extraction yield and 1.15–1.45% TDS, though these weren’t confirmed from an official SCA page. Unless you’re measuring with a refractometer, taste and drain time tell you more than a number will.

Move in small steps — one click or one notch at a time — and change only one variable per brew so you know what made the difference.