Use our Coffee to Water Ratio Calculator to determine exactly how much coffee and water you need to make the perfect cup of coffee!
We have presets for Autodrip, Pour Over, Aeropress, French Press, Chemex, Moka Pot, Cold Brew, Siphon, and Espresso brewing methods that are based on our recommended ratios for each of those.
You can leave the ratios at the presets or adjust them for a stronger or weaker cup of coffee.
You can also change the units of measurement based on your preference. For example, if you want to brew 4 cups of coffee, change the Water Units to Cups and the amount of water to 4.
Table of Contents
Calculator
Brewing Methods
Auto Drip Coffee Maker
For automatic drip coffee makers, you should start with a 1:16 coffee-to-water ratio. This means that for every gram of coffee, you should use 16 grams of water.
If you don't have a scale, then you can approximate by using a tablespoon which contains roughly 5 grams of coffee.
A standard cup of coffee is 6 ounces which would require roughly 2 tablespoons of ground coffee.
Most coffee scoops are 2 tablespoons. So to brew 1 cup of coffee, it requires 1 scoop of ground coffee.
For a 12-cup coffee maker, you should use 24 tablespoons of ground coffee or 12 scoops.
| Cups of Water | Grams of Coffee | Tablespoons of Coffee |
| 2 | 22 | 4 |
| 4 | 44 | 8 |
| 6 | 67 | 12 |
| 8 | 89 | 16 |
| 10 | 111 | 20 |
| 12 | 133 | 24 |
Pour Over
For pour-overs, you should start with a 1:15 coffee-to-water ratio. This means that for every gram of coffee, you should use 15 grams of water.
If you don't have a scale, then you can approximate by using a tablespoon which contains roughly 5 grams of coffee.
For a 12-ounce or 2-cup pour-over, you should use 24 grams of coffee or roughly 4 tablespoons.
We recommend using 32 grams of ground coffee, or roughly 6 tablespoons, for 16-ounce pour-overs.
AeroPress
The best ratio for the AeroPress is a 1:16 coffee-to-water ratio. This means that for every gram of coffee, you should use 16 grams of water.
The AeroPress is designed to brew 8 ounces, or roughly 240ml, of coffee at one time. So to brew a cup of coffee in an AeroPress, you should use 8 ounces of water and 15 grams of ground coffee. If you don't have a scale, this would be roughly 3 tablespoons.
French Press
When brewing with a French press, we recommend a 1:12 coffee-to-water ratio. This means that you should use 12 grams of coffee for every gram of water.
French press cups are only 4 fluid ounces, while a standard coffee cup is 6 fluid ounces. This can cause confusion when trying to figure out how much coffee and water to use. So we recommend measuring in ounces or grams.
To make a cup of coffee (6 fluid ounces) in a French press, you should use 15 grams of coffee or roughly 3 tablespoons.
| French Press Size | Ounces of Water | Grams of Coffee | Tablespoons of Coffee |
| 1 Cup | 4 | 10 | 2 |
| 2 Cups | 8 | 20 | 4 |
| 3 Cups | 12 | 30 | 6 |
| 6 Cups | 27 | 67 | 12 |
| 8 Cups | 34 | 83 | 16 |
| 12 Cups | 51 | 125 | 23 |
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