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Not sure where to start? The .O is the crowd favourite - smooth, strong, not sour.
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Short answer: 1 g of coffee to 16 g of water, which is about 62 g of coffee per litre. That is the ratio for filter coffee. Espresso is about 1:2 and cold brew about 1:8. Pick your method below and this calculator gives you the exact dose, grind, water temperature and brew time in grams and millilitres.
Type in either box - the other one follows. 1 ml of water = 1 g, so a kitchen scale is all you need.
Every number below is grams of water per 1 gram of dry coffee. 1 ml of water weighs 1 g, so you can read ml and g as the same thing. Mild and strong are the same recipe moved about 12% either way.
| Brew method | Balanced | Mild | Strong | Grind | Water temp | Brew time |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pour over (V60) | 1:16 | 1:18.0 | 1:14.0 | Medium-fine, like table salt | 92-96 C | 2:45 to 3:15 |
| French press | 1:15 | 1:16.9 | 1:13.1 | Coarse, like sea salt | 93-96 C | 4:00 then plunge |
| Drip machine | 1:16.5 | 1:18.6 | 1:14.4 | Medium, like beach sand | Machine set, around 92-96 C | 4:00 to 6:00 |
| AeroPress | 1:14 | 1:15.8 | 1:12.3 | Medium-fine | 80-85 C | 1:30 to 2:00 |
| Moka pot | 1:9 | 1:10.1 | 1:7.9 | Fine, just coarser than espresso | Fill the base with hot water | 4:00 to 5:00 |
| Espresso machine | 1:2 | 1:2.3 | 1:1.8 | Fine | 92-94 C | 25-32 seconds |
| Cold brew concentrate | 1:8 | 1:9.0 | 1:7.0 | Coarse | Room temperature water | 16 to 18 hours |
| Turkish (cezve) | 1:10 | 1:11.3 | 1:8.8 | Extra fine, like powder | Low heat, never let it boil over | 3:00 to 4:00 |
Every method pulls flavour out differently, so each one starts from its own ratio.
Balanced is where we start. Go strong if you drink it black or with condensed milk.
Type into either box. Got a 350 ml mug? Put 350 in water and the dose appears.
Too weak, add 2 g of coffee. Too strong, add 20 ml of water. One change at a time.
The science
Brewing ratios are not folklore. They come from published work on how much of a roasted bean dissolves in water, and how much of it should. Here is where the numbers in this calculator come from, and the one place we deliberately step away from the standard.
Only about 30% of a roasted bean can dissolve in water, and only 18% to 22% of it should. The rest is either still locked in the grounds or the bitter, drying part that comes out last.
The ratio sets how much water is available to do that dissolving. Grind size and time set how fast it happens.
SCA Coffee Brewing Control Chart
Sour is not the opposite of bitter. Sour means you stopped too early: the acids came out first and the sugars that balance them never followed. Bitter means you went too far and pulled the compounds that come out last.
So if a brew tastes sour, extract more: finer grind, hotter water, longer time. If it tastes bitter, do the reverse. One change at a time.
SCA Coffee Brewing Control Chart
Extraction happens on the surface of every particle, so a finer grind exposes far more coffee to the same water and extracts much faster.
That is the whole reason espresso is ground fine and finished in about 30 seconds, while a French press sits for 4 minutes on a coarse grind. Same target, different speed.
Extraction physics
Between 90 and 96 C the flavours you want come out faster than the ones you do not. Below that the sour acids dominate because the sweetness never catches up. Above it, the harsh compounds arrive early.
A kettle off the boil for 30 seconds lands in the range. You do not need a thermometer.
SCA and NCA brewing standards
The published target is around 150 mg per litre of dissolved minerals, calcium hardness roughly 50 to 175 ppm, and low alkalinity. Distilled water tastes flat because there are no minerals to carry flavour. Very hard water mutes it the other way.
In practice, KL tap water through a basic filter jug brews well. Water straight from a water dispenser that is heavily filtered can taste hollow.
SCA water for brewing standard
Roasting traps carbon dioxide inside the bean and it escapes for days afterwards. That is the foam you see when you bloom a pour over. Too fresh and the gas physically pushes water away from the grounds, so extraction goes uneven.
Too old and oxygen has flattened the aromatics. Most filter coffee is at its best somewhere between 4 and 21 days off the roaster, which is why we print the date instead of a best before.
Degassing and oxidation after roast
The SCA Golden Cup ratio is 55 g of coffee per litre, near enough to 1:18. Our default here is 1:16, about 62 g per litre, so a little stronger than the book.
That is deliberate. Most people here grew up on strong coffee, and at 1:18 a medium to dark roast reads thin. Every number on this page starts from the published standard and then moves one notch toward the cup Malaysians actually want. If you prefer the book exactly, choose Mild: it lands on 1:18.
Pulmur house standard
Figures above are the published Specialty Coffee Association brewing and water standards. Where our defaults differ from them, we say so rather than quietly rounding.
Ratio questions
For filter coffee the answer is 1 g of coffee to 16 g of water, written 1:16. That works out to about 62 g of coffee per litre, or about 15 g of coffee for a 240 ml cup. Espresso is far tighter at about 1:2, and cold brew concentrate sits around 1:8.
Two 240 ml cups is 480 ml of water. At 1:16 that is 30 g of coffee, which is about 6 level tablespoons of ground coffee if you do not have a scale.
A level tablespoon of ground coffee is roughly 5 to 6 g, so we use 5.3 g. Grind size changes it, which is why a RM30 kitchen scale gives you a more consistent cup than any spoon.
Sour usually means under extracted: grind finer, use hotter water, or brew a bit longer. Bitter usually means over extracted: grind coarser or pull it off sooner. If every cup tastes sour no matter what you do, it is likely a light roast. Ours are roasted medium to dark on purpose, so they come out strong and smooth instead of sour.
1 ml of water weighs 1 g, so the numbers are interchangeable. Weigh it if your scale is out, or measure it in a jug. Either is fine.
Yes. Beans that have been sitting for months give up less flavour, so people push the dose up to hide it. Fresher beans need less coffee for the same strength. Check the roast date on the bag, ours is printed on every one.
Ratios only work with fresh beans
Roasted in small batches in KL every week and shipped within 2 days of roasting, with the roast date on every bag.
