2 Easy Kalita Wave Recipes for a Balanced Pour Over

The Kalita Wave is a popular brewer used by many specialty coffee shops. It features a flat-bottom design that allows for easy, no-fuss, brews. While these recipes for the Kalita Wave work well with any coffee, these pour over recipes were created to balance the characteristics of certain coffees.

Recipe Guide

Recipe	Taste Description	Ideal Coffees to Use
Jump to Recipe 1	Medium-bodied with balanced sweetness and acidity	Light to medium roast African coffees
Jump to Recipe 2	Vibrant and full bodied	Light to medium roast Latin American coffees

What You Need

• Scale
• Timer
• Gooseneck kettle
• Thermometer
• Filtered water
• Kalita Wave (stainless steel version)
• Paper filters
• Fresh coffee (grind right before brewing)

Read more: The best scales for coffee

Recipe Breakdown

For any of these Kalita Wave recipes, always make sure to pre-rinse the paper filter to wash off the papery taste. Remember also to give the brewer a quick shake to level the coffee bed. Start your timer the moment you start pouring. 

Recipe 1 – Small Kalita Wave (155 Size)

Dose (g): 13

Brew amount (ml): 200

Ratio: 1 : 15

Grind size: medium

Water temperature: 95°C / 203°F

1. Pour 40ml of water over the coffee. You can stir the grounds to make sure all the ground are covered. Let the coffee bloom for 40 seconds.
2. Once the gasses have released from the coffee, pour the remaining 160ml in a slow and steady manner. Start at the center and pour in 5 circles going outward, then back inward, then back outward again.
3. Pouring should finish by 1 minute and 20 seconds.
4. The brew should end between 2:30 to 2:45 (minutes)
5. Enjoy a nice and balanced cup.

This is our take on a classic Kalita Wave recipe that many coffee shops also have their own version of. The flat-bed construction of the Kalita Wave helps to balance out flavors by highlighting body and sweetness. This makes a good match for African coffees since they are naturally light-bodied and high in acidity.

The long and slow pour does two things:

First, it keeps a consistent temperature throughout the entire brew. This is important because stainless steel (the most common material for the Kalita) is not good at keeping temperature.

Second, it keeps a steady flow of water at a consistent level. Keeping the water level high will help force the water to go through the coffee quick enough to prevent any clogging – without having to compromise by grinding coarse.

Click here to learn more about how the bloom affects your coffee’s flavor.

Recipe 2 – Big Kalita Wave (185 Size)

Dose (g): 17

Brew amount (ml): 250

Ratio: 1 : 14.5

Grind size: medium-coarse

Water temperature: 94°C / 201°F

1. Pour 50ml of water over the coffee. You can gently stir the grounds to make sure everything is wet. Let the coffee bloom for 30 seconds.
2. Once the gasses have released from the coffee, pour another 50ml at around 30 seconds. The target weight on the scale should be 100g.
3. By 1 minute, pour 50ml again with a target reading of 150g on your scale.
4. At the 1:30 mark, pour another 50ml. The target weight on the scale is 200g. By this pour, you’ll notice the water will drain more slowly. But no need to worry.
5. Do the last 50ml pour at 2 minutes and let everything drain. The brew should take between 2:45 to 3:00 (minutes) to finish.
6. Enjoy a vibrant and full bodied cup.

Pulsing / splitting the pour is a less common when brewing with the Kalita. Since it naturally has a slow flowrate, pulsing can unnecessarily extend the brew.

This recipe allows for more control over coffees that tend to drain very fast, like many Latin American coffees. To prevent clogging, use a medium-coarse grind. The continuous agitation from the pulsing will help with proper extraction. While the shorter ratio will help keep a good acidity and big mouthfeel.

Stirring or spinning the brewer is optional since the coffee will receive a lot of agitation throughout the brew.

Understanding the Kalita Wave

The Kalita Wave is known in the coffee community for making consistent pour overs. While brewing with it is easy, calibration for this dripper is fairly limited.

The challenge many brewers face when using the Kalita Wave is its slow flow rate. This generally means grinding coarser – compared to other filter brewers. But this can be a problem for those that want to push finer grinds to maximize extraction.

Some modifications to the dripper can be done to get around this problem. If you’re using the stainless steel version, you can use a drill bit to make the holes larger. If you’re not confident with using power tools, Scott Rao recommends placing a mesh cutout at the bottom of the Kalita to raise the paper filter.

There are only 2 sizes for the Kalita Wave. The 155 is the smaller size, and the 185 is the larger one. In terms of flowrate, the 185 is only slightly faster. This difference though is minimal since the overall flowrate of this brewer is quite slow.

Similar to other brewing devices, the size of your Kalita Wave can affect the final cup taste. This is a matter of pouring height since it will be higher to compensate for the larger size of the brewer. This higher pouring level will cause more agitation.

Stainless vs Ceramic vs Glass Kalita Wave

Not all Kalita Waves are made equal. Both literally and figuratively.

Among the different materials used for the Kalita Wave, the most common one is the stainless steel. Compared to a V60, for example, heat retention is not the only factor that affects your brew.

Both Kalitas in the image above are made of stainless steel but have different flowrates because they are constructed differently. In this case, the Tsubame has a notably faster flow.

The main issue with the stainless steel version is that the ridges at the bottom don’t raise the paper filter high enough. As a result, one or two holes are prone to getting blocked by the paper filter as the weight of the coffee and the water push the filter down when brewing.

The Kalita Wave is also available in glass, and ceramic. Again, both still have very different flowrates from one another. The Coffee Chronicler did an experiment on all constructions of the Kalita Wave and found the glass version to have the quickest flow.

Suji Wave 155 – Plastic Wave Brewer

Since none of the Kalita patented brewers are made of plastic, the Indonesian coffee gear brand, Suji, jumped on the opportunity. The design of their wave dripper is almost identical to the stainless Kalita but with 2 differences:

(1) the brewer is made out of plastic and (2) the holes are drilled in different spots. Instead of being in between each line of that “Y-shape” at the bottom of the dripper, they are now right next to the edges of Y-shape.

Note: this dripper only comes in the 155 size.

The result is a dripper that solves both the heat retention and flow rate issues of the original Kalita designs as this brewer retains heat well and has a fast flow rate.

Final Thoughts

Compared to a V60, the Kalita Wave will produce more consistent pour overs. But the challenge will be in communicating the same recipe across the different constructions of the brewer. Since each version has different flow rates, you’ll need to tweak your grind size to the type of Kalita you have.

That aside, pour overs with the Kalita Wave are safe and easy to enjoy. Try the recipes shared here to get yourself started.

We’d be happy to hear your results, especially if you have more than one type of Kalita Wave!

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