Dosing Guide
Dose by weight?
Why Dose by weight?
Coffee has a different density depending on its roast level, moisture content, and where it was grown. We recommend using weight or mass to measure coffee to make sure we always use the right amount of coffee no matter what kind of coffee we are using.
Is dosing by weight inconvenient?
We find it surprisingly easy! No need for a special scoop. Level spoon or heaping scoop? 2, 3, 4 scoops? How many scoops for how much water? Do I have the right scoop? Is it teaspoon or tablespoon? Oh no! My coffee doesn’t taste good this time! Leave all that behind. With measuring by weight, we use the same weight every time. We can change the weight slightly to preference and always hit the same great flavor without guessing.
How do I know what weight to use?
Check out our handy brew guide for recipes using a variety of coffee brewing methods. Each recipe gives you common weights and water amounts. They also include a coffee to water ratio in case you want to use a different amount of water. With weight, it is easy to convert between different water amounts without having to use fractions of scoops.
What do I need?
So I have to buy more coffee stuff?
An accurate scale to measure coffee to 0.1g is surprisingly cheap. A small jewelry scale as seen here is around $8-10 shipped from Amazon. Most kitchen scales sold at department stores are not good for accurately measuring small amounts of coffee, so we do recommend getting a scale accurate to 0.1 or 0.01g. For espresso, accuracy to 0.01g is recommended.
For pour over…
The jewelry scales are a little small for pour over since we need room to set either a carafe or a coffee cup on it with the pour over unit on top. We recommend a scale with a timer built in with accuracy to at least 0.1g and a capacity of 1kg. There are many scales marketed to pour over but most of them have features that aren’t really needed. A good scale with plenty of space and an easy to read timer is really all that is needed.
How do I dose by weight?
Dosing is easy!
The process of dosing by weight is very simple. Grab the scale and turn it on. If doing a filter brew then put the filter in the basket and place the basket on the scale. Tare the scale and add coffee until the weight is achieved. Done! Alternatively, we like to dose into a coffee tray like the one pictured at the top of the page. For pour over, place the carafe/cup on the scale with the brewer on top. Tare the scale before adding coffee.
What about with a grinder?
If you grind your own beans then dosing by weight actually saves money. Measure the amount of coffee needed as whole bean first. Then grind the coffee making sure as much coffee as possible is through the grinder. No more guessing how much to grind for a certain amount of scoops. This saves a lot of wasted and stale coffee over time.
How do I use coffee to water ratios?
The beauty of dosing by weight is how easy it is to know how much coffee to use for different batch sizes. In our brew guides we give a certain coffee to water ratio for a variety of brew methods. Once you know your ratio then all you do to figure how much coffee to use is divide the amount of water you want to use by the large number in the ratio. That gives you the amount of coffee to use. For example: The ratio is 1:15. We want to make 300ml of coffee. So take 300/15 and we get 20g of coffee. No more guesswork. All you need to know is the ratio you like and you can figure any amount of coffee needed.
Weighing in grams vs ounce?
We like to use grams and milliliters to measure our doses. The main reason is because 1g of water is equal to 1ml of water. This means we can easily convert volume of water to the weight of water. 1g is also a lot less that 1 ounce, so we don’t have to deal with fractions or decimals as much to get the accuracy we need. It makes the math easier. For example, if a pour over needs a 60ml pour then we simply measure 60g of water on the scale. That’s it!