A pour over timer is only useful if it knows the recipe, because the stages are defined by weight, not by the clock. The National Coffee Association publishes the numbers a timer should be built on: a coffee to water ratio of 1:13 to 1:16 by weight, water at 90 to 96 C, and 2 to 4 minutes of total contact between coffee and water, with a bloom pour of double the coffee weight held for 30 to 45 seconds (NCA). Set the dose, and every stage time and pour weight follows from those figures.
Let the timer call the pours
Pick your dose, press start, pour when it says pour. The ratio is built in.
The recipe the timer runs
| Dose | Bloom water (2x dose) | Total water at 1:15 | Range at 1:13 to 1:16 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 15g | 30g | 225g | 195g to 240g |
| 20g | 40g | 300g | 260g to 320g |
| 22g | 44g | 330g | 286g to 352g |
| 30g | 60g | 450g | 390g to 480g |
Multiplication from the NCA figures: bloom is double the coffee weight and the ratio band is 1:13 to 1:16 (source). The 1:15 column is the middle of that band, not a separately published recommendation.
Why the stages exist
The bloom is the only stage with a mechanism you can see. Fresh grounds hold carbon dioxide, and the first water pushes it out as visible bubbling. Until those gases leave, water cannot wet the bed evenly, so the NCA has you wet double the coffee weight and wait 30 to 45 seconds before the main pour. Skip it and the first part of your brew is water travelling through gas pockets instead of coffee.
After the bloom, the timer is really tracking total contact time, and the NCA target is 2 to 4 minutes for pour over. That window is the diagnostic. Draining much faster means the grind is too coarse for the recipe, and running long means it is too fine. The pours themselves are just a way of feeding water in at a rate the bed can accept.
Temperature, and the one thing worth checking
The NCA gives 90 to 96 C, citing SCA Standard 102-2024 for the 93 C midpoint with a 3 degree tolerance. If your kettle has no thermometer, boiling and resting the water for about a minute is the method the NCA describes. Both ends of that band brew fine coffee; what does not work is pouring straight off a rolling boil onto a light roast and then blaming the grinder.
One more NCA instruction that gets skipped: use cold, filtered water if you can, and avoid distilled or softened water. Distilled water has nothing in it for extraction to work with.
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A timer only helps if the pour rate is controllable, which is the entire argument for a gooseneck spout: search gooseneck kettles on Amazon. Links are searches, not stocked listings.
Related reading
FAQ
How long should a pour over take? The NCA gives 2 to 4 minutes of contact between coffee and water, including a bloom of 30 to 45 seconds.
How much water do I use for the bloom? Double the weight of the coffee. For 15g of coffee that is 30g of water, and for 22g it is 44g.
What water temperature is right for pour over? 90 to 96 C, which the NCA states as 93 C with a 3 degree tolerance, citing SCA Standard 102-2024. Without a thermometer, boil and let the water rest about a minute.
Sources: the 1:13 to 1:16 coffee to water ratio, the 93 C plus or minus 3 C brewing temperature attributed to SCA Standard 102-2024, the 2 to 4 minute contact time, the bloom pour of double the coffee weight, the 30 to 45 second bloom and the guidance to avoid distilled or softened water are all published by the National Coffee Association at aboutcoffee.org/brewing/pour-over, fetched and cached 2026-08-18. Every water weight in the table is multiplication from those figures.
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