<p>In general, the coarseness of fine sand. It will be difficult to effectively communicate grind size here, and what is recommended is to go to your local coffee shop, have them grind a sample of coffee for you on their drip grind, and then have you take that home and calibrating your grinder to a similar size, adjusting for taste.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-01-27T21:12:16.330Z
2015-01-27T21:12:16.330Z
John Snow
<p><strong>In general consistency is more important than a specific setting.</strong></p>

<p>The key is that you can actually control both the size of the grind and actually achieve a homogenous grind allowing you to increase the consistency in the coffee when you brew it as you can assertively control the service area being exposed during the brewing process. Since you stated that you have a burr grinder you are off to a great start. There is no defined, agreed upon coarseness of grind for pour over coffee, but I would definitely say that you would want a courser grind than you would for espresso. Experiment to find the sweet spot by making sure you use exactly the same water, coffee bean roast, and number of beans (and thus volume) between different grind settings to find what meets your flavor best. </p>

<p>If you are particularly worried about "getting it right" or do not want to do a ton of experimentation an easy and quick way to jump to a grid would simply to go to a coffee shop, buy a bag of whole beans, ask them to grind it and query them for how coarse of a grind is. </p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-01-27T21:12:35.147Z
2015-01-27T21:12:35.147Z
Joshua Aslan Smith
<p>I manually grind coffee beans for drip coffee but I thought that depending on whether the coffee is intended to be used for a cafetiere or espresso machine then the fineness needs to be varied.</p>

<p>So what is the optimum fineness for drip coffee?</p>

<p>Does it matter so much given that I am not using pressure (typically 15 bar in an espresso machine) to force hot water through the coffee grounds.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-02-11T16:10:31.503Z
Also another from [cooking.se] about [grind for pour-over in particular](http://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/22941/25286).
hoc_age
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-01-27T21:06:00.563Z
Related http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/35543/finding-the-right-coffee-grind
Joshua Aslan Smith
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-01-27T21:06:53.763Z
Are you using a burr grinder?
Joshua Aslan Smith
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-01-27T21:07:29.830Z
@JoshuaAslanSmith yes, I read this was better than using metal blade grinders, mine is ceramic
EdChum
<ground-coffee><drip-brew><pour-over>
How fine should I grind coffee for drip/pour over coffee
EdChum
# How fine should I grind coffee for drip/pour over coffee

(Asked by: username_0 on 2015-01-27)

I manually grind coffee beans for drip coffee but I thought that depending on whether the coffee is intended to be used for a cafetiere or espresso machine then the fineness needs to be varied.

So what is the optimum fineness for drip coffee?

Does it matter so much given that I am not using pressure (typically 15 bar in an espresso machine) to force hot water through the coffee grounds.

**Tags:** ground-coffee, drip-brew, pour-over

> **Comments:**
> **username_2**: Related http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/35543/finding-the-right-coffee-grind  
> **username_2**: Are you using a burr grinder?  
> **username_0**: @JoshuaAslanSmith yes, I read this was better than using metal blade grinders, mine is ceramic  
> **username_1**: Also another from [cooking.se] about [grind for pour-over in particular](http://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/22941/25286).  

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## 2 answers

### Answer by username_2 on 2015-01-27. Score: 7 | Accepted answer

**In general consistency is more important than a specific setting.**

The key is that you can actually control both the size of the grind and actually achieve a homogenous grind allowing you to increase the consistency in the coffee when you brew it as you can assertively control the service area being exposed during the brewing process. Since you stated that you have a burr grinder you are off to a great start. There is no defined, agreed upon coarseness of grind for pour over coffee, but I would definitely say that you would want a courser grind than you would for espresso. Experiment to find the sweet spot by making sure you use exactly the same water, coffee bean roast, and number of beans (and thus volume) between different grind settings to find what meets your flavor best.

If you are particularly worried about "getting it right" or do not want to do a ton of experimentation an easy and quick way to jump to a grid would simply to go to a coffee shop, buy a bag of whole beans, ask them to grind it and query them for how coarse of a grind is.


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### Answer by username_3 on 2015-01-27. Score: 4

In general, the coarseness of fine sand. It will be difficult to effectively communicate grind size here, and what is recommended is to go to your local coffee shop, have them grind a sample of coffee for you on their drip grind, and then have you take that home and calibrating your grinder to a similar size, adjusting for taste.


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