Light vs Medium Roast Pour Over: What 83 Recipes Say About Temperature, Grind, and Ratio

The Short Answer

Roast level changes your brew less than the internet suggests, and it changes a different variable than you expect. Across the 83 hot pour over recipes in the CUP-TIMER catalog that declare a light or medium roast, the biggest gap between the two is ratio, not temperature: light roast recipes sit at a median of 1:16, medium roast recipes at 1:15.

Here is the whole comparison in one table, counting only hot recipes (62 light, 21 medium):

Read that third row twice. On the same dripper, published light and medium roast recipes are one degree apart.

Temperature: The Gap Is Smaller Than You Think

The standard advice is to brew light roasts near boiling and pull medium roasts back to around 90°C. The recipes that roasters and champions actually publish do not do this.

Light roast recipes in the catalog span 80°C to 100°C, but they bunch tightly in the middle: 23 of the 58 that specify a temperature sit at 92–93°C, and only nine reach 96°C or higher. Medium roast recipes bunch even harder, with 12 of 21 at 92–93°C. Restricting the comparison to the V60 alone, where geometry and flow are held constant, gives a median of 94°C for light (31 recipes) and 93°C for medium (9 recipes).

The outliers are the interesting part, because they run in both directions. Glitch Hot Drip V60 brews a light roast at 88°C, 16g to 260g at 1:17 in about 2:30 — a Tokyo roaster deliberately going cooler to keep a delicate coffee from turning sharp. At the other end, Stumptown V60 brews a medium roast at 96°C, 21g to 360g at 1:17 over three minutes.

The practical reading: temperature is a fine-tuning lever, not a roast-level switch. Start at 93–94°C for almost anything, and move in 1–2°C steps based on what you taste. Going hotter buys you extraction when a dense light roast tastes thin and sour; going cooler buys you restraint when a coffee tastes harsh or drying.

Ratio: Where Roast Level Actually Shows Up

This is the row that separates the two groups. Among light roast recipes, 34 of 62 brew at 1:16 or weaker, and the tail runs all the way out to Momos 1:18 — 18g to 324g at 95°C with a coarse grind, finishing in about 2:20. Among medium roast recipes, only 7 of 21 reach 1:16, and a third of them brew stronger than 1:15.

The logic is straightforward. Lighter roasts carry more acidity and more distinct fruit character, and a weaker ratio gives that character room; the same coffee brewed at 1:14 can read as sour and dense rather than bright. Medium roasts trade some of that aromatic detail for body and sweetness, which a slightly stronger ratio flatters.

Two anchors to feel the difference. Light: Tim Wendelboe Pour-Over, 32g to 500g (1:15.6) at 94°C, medium-fine, 3:30 total. Medium: Kalita Wave 155, 15g to 240g (1:16) at 93°C, medium grind, 3:00 total. Same ballpark numbers — but the light roast recipe is pouring three and a half minutes' worth of water through a bed that has been ground finer to compensate.

Note that the medium roast group also contains the catalog's concentrate-and-bypass recipes, like Blackup Mono Bypass V60 Hot at 1:13.3 and 83°C. Those brew strong on purpose and dilute afterward, so they pull the medium group's average ratio down further than its median suggests.

Grind and Time: Extraction, Not Roast Level

Grind is where the conventional wisdom holds up best, but only as a tendency. Of the 60 light roast recipes that specify a grind, 25 call for medium-fine or finer and 16 for medium-coarse or coarser. Medium roast recipes cluster on the middle setting: 10 of 21 simply say medium.

That matches how the two roast levels behave physically. A light roast is denser and less soluble, so it needs more surface area and more contact time to give up the same amount of material; a medium roast is more porous and gives it up more readily, which is why the same grind setting often over-extracts it into bitterness.

Brew time follows the same shape at the median — 2:45 for light, 3:00 for medium — but the spread inside each group is far wider than the gap between them: the light roast recipes alone run from 1:40 to 6:50. Brew time is mostly a function of dose, dripper and grind, not of how dark the beans are. Do not chase a target time; chase a target taste, and let the clock report what your grind did.

Dialing In a Light Roast

1. Start at 1:16, 93–94°C, medium-fine. For an 18g dose that is 288g of water. Scott Rao V60 is a clean template at this setting: 22g to 352g at 96°C, medium-fine, 3:00.
2. Taste for sourness and thinness first. Both are signs of under-extraction, which is the common failure with dense light roasts.
3. Fix it with grind before anything else. One step finer moves extraction more than a 2°C temperature change will.
4. Then raise temperature, not strength. If a finer grind starts to stall the bed, go back one step and add 2°C instead.
5. If it is bright but hollow, go weaker, not stronger. Try 1:17, as Counter Culture V60 does at 30g to 500g, 93°C, 3:45. More water through the same bed extracts more while thinning the cup — often exactly what a high-grown washed coffee wants.

Browse the full set at the V60 light roast hub.

Dialing In a Medium Roast

1. Start at 1:15, 92–93°C, medium. For a 20g dose that is 300g of water — the exact setting of Basic V60, 20g to 300g at 92°C, 3:00.
2. Taste for bitterness and dryness first. Those are the over-extraction signals a medium roast reaches sooner than a light one.
3. Fix it by coarsening, then by dropping 1–2°C. Tetsu Kasuya's 4:6 Method leans on this — 20g to 300g at 1:15 and 92°C with a deliberately coarse grind, spread over 3:30 in staged pours.
4. If it tastes flat rather than bitter, keep the ratio and shorten the pour structure. Fewer, larger pours agitate the bed less and pull less of the roast character forward.
5. For larger batches, expect a longer bed. James Hoffmann's Chemex runs 30g to 500g at 1:16.7 and 94°C for a full 5:00, with a medium-coarse grind to keep the deeper bed draining.

The V60 medium roast hub collects the rest.

What to Change First

If you remember one thing, make it the order of operations. Ratio sets the character your roast level wants — 1:16 and out for light, 1:15 and in for medium. Grind is your correction lever for whatever the cup tastes like afterward. Temperature is the last 5%, worth 1–2°C at a time and almost never worth the 6°C jump that the "boiling water for light roasts" advice implies.

And when you buy a bag with no roast level printed on it, brew it at 1:16, 93°C, medium-fine, and taste. The catalog's own recipes suggest that is the honest centre of gravity for both.

Brew These Next

• Tim Wendelboe Pour-Over — light roast, 32g/500g, 94°C
• Scott Rao V60 — light roast, 22g/352g, 96°C
• Momos 1:18 — light roast, 18g/324g, 95°C
• Tetsu Kasuya 4:6 Method — medium roast, 20g/300g, 92°C
• Stumptown V60 — medium roast, 21g/360g, 96°C
• Kalita Wave 155 — medium roast, 15g/240g, 93°C