If you want to try a pour-over coffee setup, we’ve pulled together the things you’ll need in addition to the dripper itself.

Grinder

If you’re after the absolute best-tasting coffee, you’ll have to buy a burr grinder, regardless of the brewing method you use. After multiple rounds of testing since 2015, we think the Baratza Encore is the best electric grinder for most people because of its low cost (relative to other good burr grinders) and consistent performance. It’s easy to use and reliable, and it produced some of the most evenly ground coffee in tests for our full guide to coffee grinders.

The Best Coffee Grinder After over 70 of research and testing, we think the reliable, consistent, no-frills Baratza Encore is the best home coffee grinder.

A good burr grinder allows you to make minute adjustments to the coarseness of your ground coffee and will grind it very evenly. In contrast, a cheap blade grinder will haphazardly chop coffee beans into particles that are all different sizes, giving you a mix of very fine bits and much coarser ones. Our guide to the best coffee grinders explains all of this in greater detail. But, as a reminder here, the more evenly you grind your coffee, the more evenly it will brew. The difference this makes is especially pronounced with pour-over. Uneven, poorly ground coffee will yield an unbalanced, often bitter brew. Even a cheap burr grinder will be a major improvement over a blade grinder.

If you’re planning to travel with your pour-over dripper, a manual grinder is a good option, and the Porlex Mini Stainless Steel Coffee Grinder is the best we’ve tested. It’s easy to hold and has a relatively fast hand-cranking action. Plus, because it’s stainless steel, the Porlex won’t crack if you drop it. The problem is that it can take several minutes of painful cranking to grind enough beans for even just one cup of coffee. So if you’re grinding any more than that every morning, you should just get an electric grinder.

Kettle

A pour-over kettle is defined mainly by its elongated spout, which should allow you to precisely control how much water you’re pouring, how fast the water comes out, and where you’re directing it during brewing. Since pour-over coffee requires water that’s heated to a temperature below boiling, we preferred electric kettles with temperature control, because you don’t have to worry about using a thermometer or waiting for your water to cool.

Over the years we’ve tested dozens of models for our guide to electric kettles, and for pour-over we recommend the OXO Brew Adjustable Temperature Pour-Over Kettle. The controls are clean and simple, and they allow you to adjust the water temperature in 1-degree increments, from 140 to 212 degrees Fahrenheit. Plus, this kettle will automatically hold the water at your set temperature for up to 30 minutes. In our tests we found this kettle to be accurate to the degree, and it was one of the fastest models to boil water. The kettle’s spout allows you to control the stream of water, which is crucial for perfecting your technique. And this kettle has a great bonus feature: a built-in timer, which allows you to track the timing of your pours.

The Best Electric Kettle Through multiple rounds of testing since 2013, the Cuisinart CPK-17 has remained our favorite electric kettle because it’s fast, accurate, and easy to use.

Scale

Making use of a scale is one of the best ways to brew a consistent cup of coffee. As we explain in our measuring cup guide, volume measurements are not to be trusted for accuracy. And when it comes to brewing great coffee, even a gram or two of extra coffee can make the difference between a too-strong and just-right cup.

In our guide to kitchen scales, we recommend the American Weigh Scales LB-3000 for precise measurements. Of all the scales we tested that are capable of reading fractions of a gram, it was by far the most accurate, so it’s the scale to get if you’re really trying to perfect your recipe. That said, a basic kitchen scale, like the Escali Primo Digital Scale we recommend, may be sufficient if you’re just getting into pour-over coffee. It reads only in whole grams, so it’s not as precise, but it’s still accurate enough to produce good coffee.

The Best Kitchen Scale After around 60 hours of research and testing since 2013, we think the accurate and inexpensive Escali Primo Digital Kitchen Scale is the best for most people.

We also tested a few coffee-specific scales (all of which came with a built-in timer and sometimes other features) for this guide. Of those, we like the Hario V60 Coffee Drip Scale/Timer the best. It’s lightweight and compact, and the timer is convenient—it’s a little easier than timing pours on your phone or another device. Though it can read ½ grams, it’s not as accurate as the LB-3000. But this model is generally quick to register changes in weight.

In contrast, the measurement readings on the OXO Precision Coffee Scale with Timer oscillates, so we found it harder to determine the true amount of coffee we were dosing and the amount of water we were pouring. And though we were intrigued by the Brewista Ratio Pour Over Coffee Scale, which comes with a progress meter to help guide the pacing of your pours, we found its timing to be a bit too rigid. Since every pour-over will be a little bit different, we think you’re better off developing your technique over time. And you’ll get better at tasting coffee by exercising your own judgment over how much water you should pour and how often.