The Coffee Quantity Calculator App

Use this little app to work out the perfect amounts of water and coffee for your brew!

Are you in search of the perfect cup of coffee? We have the secret to turning your coffee beans into something magical every time you brew!

By nailing down how strong you like your coffee, and taking the time to measure out your coffee and water in your own ideal ratio, you can get a cup of coffee that is consistently perfect each time you brew.

To help you to calculate your perfect amounts of coffee and water, in your own ideal ratio, we created The Coffee Quantity Calculator. Just enter in how much coffee you are planning to drink, and the calculator will tell you how exactly how much water and coffee grounds to use.

Brew time and temperature can influence the taste of your coffee, but your coffee to water ratio is arguably the biggest factor when it comes down to taste. While you can adjust the ratio you use to make your brew stronger or weaker, the golden ratio of coffee is a good starting point to work from.

The Golden Ratio of Coffee

To get your perfect cup of coffee down to a science, it’s important to take the time to measure your grounds and your water.

When you bake a cake, you follow a recipe and measure your ingredient out if you want the cake to turn out well. If you don’t measure your ingredients, you might still manage to make a decent cake, but the next one will probably be pretty different. Coffee is a recipe too, so why are we not measuring out our coffee and water?

With coffee, I am willing to take the extra time to measure out the water and grounds properly to get a consistently good cup every time. Because I know the difference it can make. Life is too short to drink bad coffee!

So what is this perfect ratio of coffee and how do we measure it? The numbers can vary based on your personal preference and your brew type. The standard “Golden ratio” is a 1:15 ratio of coffee to water. Using a 1:10 ratio in your coffee maker would give you a stronger coffee, while 1:18 would be weaker.

The standard 1:15 ratio is a good starting point to work from while you out try different brew methods. This means for every 1 part of the coffee grounds you use, you should use 15 parts of water. It can be pretty difficult to eyeball 15 parts of water, so that’s where grams and milliliters come into play.

Grams and Milileters

We measure out our coffee in grams and our water in milliliters. Luckily for us, 1 milliliter of plain water weighs exactly 1 gram. This makes it easy for us to weigh both our coffee grounds and our water using a gram scale.

So for every 1 gram of coffee grounds, we want to measure out 15 grams of water. Then, since no one drinks just 15 grams of coffee, we have to adjust this ratio to fit how many cups of coffee we want to brew.

If the perfect coffee to water ratio for you ends up being a 1:13 ratio, this can require you to get out your pen, paper, and a calculator just to make your morning cup! This is too much of a task for my pre-coffee brain, which is why we created a coffee calculator app to make the process simpler.

Using Our Coffee Calculator App

On our coffee calculator app, we have 3 ways you can go about measuring the coffee to water ratio for your cup of coffee: how much coffee grounds to use, how much water to add, or you can just input how many mugs you are planning to drink and let it give you the numbers.

Note: When measuring your coffee grounds and water, don’t forget to subtract out the containers you use so this doesn’t skew your brew ratio!

How Much Coffee Do I Need?

If you have already filled your container with how much water you will use, you can ask the water ratio calculator how many coffee grounds you will need to make your brew. Here’s a quick walk-through of how it works on the app:

1. Adjust the coffee to water ratio as desired.

2. Weigh your water container on your kitchen scale or use a pyrex liquid measuring cup to measure your water.

3. Plug in the grams (ml) of water into the coffee calculator and click on “How much coffee do I need?”

4. The calculator will let you know exactly how many grams of coffee you should use.

How Much Water Do I Need?

If your coffee is ground, measured, and ready to go, then you just need to know how much water to use to get the best brew ratio.

1. Adjust the ratio if desired.

2. Plug in how many grams of coffee you will be using.

3. Click the “How much water do I need?” button.

4. The coffee calculator will tell you exactly how many milliliters or grams of water to use.

How Much Coffee and Water Do I Need?

My favorite option to use is “How much coffee and water do I need?” This option allows you to simply plug in how many mugs of coffee you are planning to drink, along with your perfect ratio. Then it will give you back exactly the amount of coffee and water that you will need to get the coffee taste you are looking for.

The coffee calculator cuts out a lot of the guesswork (and math!) needed to create your morning brew. Aside from digging into the TDS of your coffee with a refractometer that can cost up to $1,000, this tool will be one of the most effective out there for getting your coffee recipe right. Simply plug in what you want to know, and the calculator will give you back a consistently good cup of coffee.

Your Brewing Method and its Ratio

The most desirable coffee to water ratio will vary along with your brew method. We’ll briefly discuss which ratios you may want to try with different brew types.

Espresso

The golden ratio of coffee did not include espresso in its 1:15 calculation. When you are brewing with an espresso machine, the extraction rate is measured in seconds instead of minutes. This means that you will need a bigger dose of fine ground coffee to get a good flavor extraction. An ideal ratio for espresso will be closer to a 1:1.5 or 1:2 ratio. One shot of espresso will usually be equal to 1 fluid ounce in your demitasse.

Aeropress

An Aeropress coffee has a taste that is reminiscent of espresso, but its brewing method is a bit different. Instead of forcing out coffee using 9+ bars of pressure, you are pressing out coffee out of a tube with your bare hands. Also, the brew time is a bit longer at around 2 minutes. For this brew method, a 1:10 coffee to water is recommended.

French Press Coffee

For French press coffee, you should use a coarse grind size. This will keep the grounds on the right end of the filter and out of your cup. The coarser grind means that you will have a slower flavor extraction so you can use less water in your ratio. Using a 1:13 coffee-to-water ratio will give you a brewed coffee that is medium strength.

Cold Brew Coffee

Cold brew coffee is a favorite for its strong taste and low acidity. It is the longest brewing method at 16-18 hours. Since you are not using hot water to extract the coffee, most recommend using a larger amount of ground coffee in a 1:5 ratio.

Pour Over Coffee

The Chemex pour-over is similar to drip coffee in its brew style. The main difference between these two is that the manual pour gives you a much more nuanced coffee flavor. You will want to use a medium coffee grind for either a pour-over or a standard coffee machine method. Also, the 1:15 golden ratio should be a perfect fit for both.

Wrap Up

We’re excited to introduce you to our new coffee calculator tool, which tells you the amount of water and coffee you should use to get the best coffee. We’ve, also, laid out some of the most common coffee to water ratios to try for different brew methods Now it’s up to you to choose the brew strength that appeals to your tastebuds. From now on, you can drink a consistently perfect cup!

This app was made with special thanks to Sean Davies. It would not have been completed without his consultation and patience.