By James Gallagher for Steampunk Coffee
Ratio is one of the many variables that you can customise when you brew a cup of coffee. The coffee ratio you use determines the strength of your cup of coffee. The more coffee you use for a given amount of water, the stronger your cup will be.
Back when I started brewing coffee, I was not very aware of my ratio. I used a scoop and eye-balled how much coffee to use every time I wanted to make a brew with my Aeropress. While I was able to make some great brews, I was not very consistent. Now that I've spent more time brewing at home, I know that it's better to be consistent.
Although I am now more consistent with my brewing, I have still struggled to figure out how to calculate ratios. Ratios can be difficult to work out. In fact, calculating coffee ratios can be an easy step to ignore if you just want to make a cup of coffee without much fuss. I am quite convinced that if I am struggling to spend time calculating ratios for coffee making then there must be other people in my shoes. That's why I decided to build a coffee ratio calculator that anyone can use.
Here is the calculator:
Using the calculator above, I now know that I need to use 19.5 grams of coffee if I want to brew with a 1:16.67 ratio (60 grams of coffee to 1 litre of water) using 325 grams of coffee. I have wanted to calculate how much coffee I would need to brew 325 grams of coffee at a 1:16.67 ratio for the last few days but I've never found the energy to make this calculation.
Now there's a calculator that automates the mathematics behind coffee ratios. You no longer need to do much maths to figure out how much coffee or water to use when brewing with a particular ratio, given either a certain amount of coffee or water you want to use.
Contributed by James Gallagher, a home brewer and coffee enthusiast. View his excellent blog at jamesg.blog
If you are finding brewing ratios confusing (or even if you are not) we really recommend you check out this excellent video by Paul at Brewing Habits. His channel is a brilliant resource for clear and concise coffee information.