Coffee to Water Calculator
Coffee is a ratio, not a scoop. Pick how much you are brewing and how strong you want it, and this gives the dose in grams and in tablespoons.
How the math works
Coffee = water weight / ratio. A 1:16 ratio means 1 g of coffee for every 16 g of water. Water at brewing temperature is close enough to 1 g per ml that the two numbers are used interchangeably. A level tablespoon of ground coffee is about 5.3 g.
Common questions
- What is the best coffee to water ratio?
- Start at 1:16, which is 60 g of coffee per liter and sits in the middle of the Specialty Coffee Association range. Move toward 1:15 if it tastes thin and 1:17 if it tastes heavy.
- Why weigh coffee instead of scooping it?
- Because a scoop of coarse beans and a scoop of fine grounds differ in weight by as much as 20 percent. The same scoop can give noticeably different cups, which is usually what people are chasing when the coffee is inconsistent.
- Does grind size change the ratio?
- No, but it changes the extraction. Keep the ratio fixed and adjust the grind: finer if the cup tastes sour and thin, coarser if it tastes bitter and dry. Change one variable at a time.