Dial in coffee and water by brew ratio

Recipes say 1:16 like it's obvious. It means 1 gram of coffee per 16 grams of water — here's the number either direction.

Tools used in this guide

Coffee brew ratio
Recipe scaler
Cooking converter

The job

Brew ratios are weight-to-weight: 1:16 is 20g of coffee to 320g of water. Smaller second number = stronger. The confusing part is knowing whether you weigh the beans or the brew — this handles both directions.

Pick a ratio, enter what you have

Choose water→coffee (you know how much you want to brew) or coffee→water (you have beans weighed already). Presets sit at 1:14 strong, 1:16 standard, 1:18 light; custom ratios run 1:10–1:22.

Water grams ≈ millilitres — pour to the number on the scale directly.
A typical mug is ~240–300ml; at 1:16 that's 15–19g of coffee.

What the number doesn't cover

Ice and bypass water (Japanese iced coffee, concentrated brews diluted after) aren't broken out — include them in the total. Amounts up to 100,000g — batch cold brew counts too.