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Brew Guide

Coffee ratio calculator and brew guide

Pick your brewer and your mug. You get the coffee, the water, the temperature, the grind and every pour, timed, then you can brew along with it.

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Rinse the paper filter with hot water and tip the rinse out. Add the coffee, shake it level, tare the scale.

Then press Brew along and follow the timer.

Brewer
Your cup
Units
Strength
Roast
Coffee25.3groughly 4 tbsp beans; spoons vary
Water406g13.7 fl oz
In the cup12.0fl ozgrounds keep ~2 g per g
Water temp201°F94°C · Off the boil, rested about 30 seconds
Ratio 1 : 16 ≈ 1.36–1.50% strength (TDS), our estimate

Our estimate, from the 19–21% extraction the guide assumes for this brewer (not a measurement): a fuller-strength starting recipe. It can sit above reference ranges without being over-extracted; if it tastes too strong, add a little water to the cup.

GrindMedium-fine, like table salt · about 450–650 µm

  1. Before Rinse the paper filter with hot water and tip the rinse out. Add the coffee, shake it level, tare the scale.Flat bed, scale at zero.
  2. 0:00 Start the timer and pour just enough to wet every ground.The bed swells and bubbles; no dry patches. → 65 g
  3. 0:45 Pour slowly in small circles at the center, without stopping. Make one lap near the edge as you pass the third and two-thirds marks.Reach the total by 2:30. → 406 g
  4. 2:30 Let it drain.Done around 3:00–4:00. Much faster: grind finer next time. Much slower: coarser.

Steps from Jessica Easto's continuous-pour V60, scaled to your cup. The drawing shows the target pace; real drawdown depends on your grind and filter.

Coffee-to-water ratios by method

A ratio of 1:16 means 16 grams of water for every gram of coffee. Lower numbers make a stronger cup. These are the starting ranges the guide uses, from stronger to lighter.

MethodRatioWaterGrindTime
V601:15–1:17196–205°FMedium-fine3:00–4:00
Chemex1:15–1:17196–205°FMedium3:30–4:30
Kalita Wave1:15–1:17196–205°FMedium3:00–4:00
French press1:14–1:16199–208°FExtra coarse8:00
AeroPress1:12–1:16176–205°FMedium-fine50–90 s
Cold brew1:5.5–1:7cold or room tempCoarse12–18 h
Drip machine1:15.5–1:18198–205°FMedium4:00–8:00
Espresso1:1.5–1:2.5 (yield)196–203°FFine25–30 s
Moka pot1:10 (the pot sets it)just boiledMedium-fine (coarser than espresso)4:00–5:00
Phin1:8.45 (Nguyen's recipe)195–200°FFine5:00

Espresso is measured differently: the ratio is the liquid in the cup to the dry coffee, so 18 g in and 36 g out is 1:2. The guide keeps the shot at 25–30 seconds at every ratio: Scott Rao's range is 25–40 seconds, and he puts machines without pressure profiling at its low end. It does follow his temperature advice, cooler for a longer shot and hotter for a shorter one, within his 91–95°C range. Cold brew is brewed as a concentrate at 1:6.25 (Jessica Easto's 96 g to 600 g, which she calls about 1:6) and diluted one to one before serving; its ratios, including any from 1:3 to 1:10 you set yourself, are for that concentrate, not a ready-to-drink batch. The phin follows Nguyen Coffee Supply's recipe, 14 g to 4 oz of water, and its micron range is our estimate, borrowed from the moka pot, which Nguyen likens its grind to.

Why your cup is smaller than the water you pour

The grounds hold on to water. A filter bed keeps roughly two grams of water for every gram of coffee, so 400 g of water through 25 g of coffee leaves about 350 g in the cup. The guide works backwards from the cup you want, which is why a 12 oz mug at 1:16 needs about 25 g of coffee and 405 g of water, not 355 g.

Strength and extraction are different things

Strength is how concentrated the cup is, measured as total dissolved solids (TDS). Extraction is how much of the coffee's soluble material made it into the water, as a share of the dry grounds. The SCA's March 2019 brewing control chart, which grew out of E. E. Lockhart's work in the 1950s, plots one against the other and uses 1.15–1.45% TDS and 18–22% extraction as its reference range; earlier Golden Cup guidance used 1.15–1.35%. These ranges help compare brews, and your preferred strength can fall outside them.

The ratio sets strength most directly. Grind, temperature and time mostly set extraction. That's why a cup can be strong and sour (too little extracted) or weak and bitter (too much water through tired, over-extracted grounds). The strength the guide shows is our estimate, worked out from an extraction band the guide assumes for each method; those bands are its own estimates, not published measurements, and it shows none for the moka pot or the phin.

If the cup tastes off

Sour and thin usually means under-extracted: grind finer or use hotter water. Bitter and dry usually means over-extracted: grind coarser. Fix My Coffee asks a few questions and gives you one change for the next brew, and the Grind Guide shows what each grind should look like.

Related guides

Sources