Make Iced Pour Overs That Don’t Suck with the Japanese Method

If you’ve ever tried making iced pour overs before, you’ll get the title. Compared to brewing them hot, they normally just don’t taste as good. But some days, you really just want your coffee cold. 

After experimenting with different ways to make iced pour overs, I’ve settled on a recipe that doesn’t taste watery. The ice also does not mask the flavor notes you’ve worked so hard for to extract. 

Read on to find out how. 

What is Japanese-style iced coffee?

In the coffee community, Japanese iced coffee refers to one of the ways you can make an iced pour over. 

This is different from cold brew and there are other ways to brew iced pour overs. But this method involves placing some ice into your mug or server and brewing hot coffee directly on top of that. 

This rapidly chills the hot coffee. But at the same time still allows you to have control over each aspect of the extraction process. More on that later.  

Recipe Guide

What you’ll need:

• Gooseneck kettle
• Thermometer
• Scale
• Timer
• Filtered water
• Cone-shaped dripper (Hario V60, Origami, Chemex, Kono Cafec Flower, etc.) 
• V60 / cone filters 
• Good coffee

Parameters

• Dose (g): 15
• Total amount (ml): 225
• Ratio: 1 : 15
• Grind size: medium-fine
• Water temperature: 95°C / 203°F
• Pouring pattern (ml): 45 – 40 – 40 (65% of brew weight0
• Ice (g): 100 (45% of brew weight) 
• Agitation: swirl the coffee bed after each pour
• Total time (minutes to seconds): Between 2:00 – 2:30

Step-by-step brewing process

1. Weight out 15g of coffee and grind it with a medium-fine setting.
2. While your grinder is working, place your filter into your brewer of choice. 
3. Pour hot water onto the filter to remove any papery taste. Remember to discard this water. It doesn’t taste good. 
4. Put 100g of ice into your mug /server/whatever you’re brewing into. 
5. Place the ground coffee in the dripper and start your timer.  
6. Pour the first 45ml of hot water in a circle to saturate the grounds. Do a quick swirl to the coffee bed to make sure all the grounds get wet.
7. After letting the coffee bloom for 45 seconds, slowly pour the next 40ml. Swirl the dripper again to agitate the coffee.
8. Slowly pour the remaining 40ml at 1 minute and 10 seconds and do one last swirl. The coffee should drain no quicker than 2 minutes. 
9. Serve and enjoy.

Read more: What is pour over coffee?

Recipe discussion

Grind size and dose

Most iced pour over recipes will recommend grinding finer and up-dosing. I personally just stick to the same dose and pour slowly to extend the brew time.  

Remember, we’re trying to make iced coffee taste similar to its hot counterpart. Based on my tests, increasing the dose along with using a finer grind size will taste too concentrated. Diluting with more ice also wouldn’t balance the flavor as well compared to using the same dose as a hot brew and extending the time to extract more flavor. 

Dripper to use

For this recipe, I prefer to use cone drippers since they highlight acidity and complexity more than flat bottom drippers. These are what I’d really try to focus on when brewing over ice since the ice tends to mute those aspects first. 

If you don’t have a cone-shaped dripper, though, don’t worry. This recipe will work with a flat-bottom or Bonmac-style dripper. But you’ll need to adjust the brew to focus on extracting more acidity upfront. 

Ratio

I like to keep a 1 : 15 brewing ratio for this recipe to still get a proper extraction with a decent amount of strength. In any case the coffee is too strong, an extra ice cube (or two) will do the trick.

Shorter ratios (1 : 14 and below) are more intense and acidity-forward. But they normally don’t extract enough sweetness to balance out with the ice.

Longer ratios (1 : 16) might extract the coffee better. But when ice gets added the cup can sometimes turn out to be watery. Especially if you’re brewing a fruity and light-bodied coffee.

Water temperature and agitation

To get the iced coffee to taste balanced, it’s important to extract as much as possible with the smaller amount of hot water we’re using. Using a higher water temperature and agitating heavily will help out with this. 

Brew time

I mentioned earlier that I prefer to do slow pours and agitate after each pulse to keep the brew time to at least 2 minutes. The idea here is to extract body since that gets extracted much later in the brew. This helps keep some structure to the cup so that it doesn’t taste diluted with ice. 

Click here to learn more about how coffee flavors get extracted. 

What makes this method so good?

The ice doesn’t mask the flavors

My problem with iced coffees in general has always been that they never taste anything near like what they are when brewed hot. 

Regardless of the coffee used, they usually all taste the same because the ice tends to mute a lot of the flavors. Worse even, it can sometimes add bitter flavors. 

With this method, I’ve found that I can taste a lot of the same things I’d normally taste when brewing hot. But I’d also taste flavors I otherwise wouldn’t with hot coffee since flavor perception changes with different temperatures.   

It doesn’t taste watery

Another problem I hear when it comes to iced coffee is that it usually results in a weak brew.

In my testing, this happens more with another type of recipe for iced pour overs. This one involves using a tight brewing ratio (usually between 1 : 10 – 1 : 13) and adding ice after the fact. 

But because you’re introducing ice into a larger amount of hot coffee (instead of letting it immediately cool small amounts of hot coffee), more of the ice melts. Thus, resulting in a watery cup. 

It doesn’t need extra time

This method takes about the same time it would take to make a regular pour over compared to cold brew or the iced pour over method where you leave it in the fridge. 

While those methods are fine, sometimes you just don’t want to wait. 

You might also find yourself in instances where you’re brewing for other people. You wouldn’t want to keep them waiting too long either, right?

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you store Japanese Iced Coffee?

You can but it might taste watery because all the ice would have melted by then. It might also end up tasting too much like cold brew if you leave it in the fridge for too long – not that that’s a bad thing though

Can you use a flat-bottom dripper for this method?

Yes but this method works better with cone drippers since they bring out more acidity and complexity. 

Is this method only for single servings?

No. You can use the same ratios and adopt them for larger brews. A Chemex would make things easier since they’re meant for larger servings. 

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