Nonstop Single Pour or Pour & Pause

Want to share some personal experience on nonstop single pour and pour & pause method. We all have our preference and there is no absolute good and bad, but it is always good to know the difference. One of the main differences is Extraction Yield. Under same condition, extraction yield of Pour and Pause will always higher than Single Pour, why?

1. Contact time. For Pour & Pause, when you stop adding water, there still some water within the coffee ground, so the contact time for Pour & Pause will be pour time + pause time versus pour time for Single Pour (both methods have the last stage dripping time). Total contact time of Pour & Pause is obviously longer.

2. First we need to understand that “fresh water from our kettle can dissolve more solubles on coffee and the water in dripper dissolve less (because some already dissolved in it). Now for example, Pour & Pause is like 80% fresh water + 20% water in dripper, and Single Pour is like 50% fresh water + 50% water in dripper, which method do you think will extract more?

However, if you stirring too strong at the early stage, Pour & Pause is more likely to clog at the late stage of brewing compares to Single pour, especially for Cone Shaped Drippers. Since every time you pause, the fines will sink closer to the bottom and get together.

For the difference in flavours, it is a bit too subjective, maybe I will do a comparison later. Again, there is no absolute good or bad method, the method that you tried, adjusted, and satisfied is your good method.