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Find Your Perfect French Press Ratio With This Coffee Calculator

Find Your Perfect French Press Ratio With This Coffee Calculator
Credit: Lisa M. Robinson - Getty Images

If you’re trying to dial in your morning brew using a method other than a Keurig pod or a few scoops of grounds in an automatic coffee maker, it can be a challenge to figure out the exact right ratio of ground beans to water. And that’s where a coffee calculator, like this one from Handground, comes in handy.

If the French press is your preferred method, you can use a coffee calculator to figure out how many grams (or tablespoons) of ground coffee you need in comparison to how many grams (or ounces) of water in order to make a mild, medium or strong brew.

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Credit: Emily Long

To use the calculator, you first need to know how many fluid ounces of coffee you’re brewing—basically, how big is your French press?

For more on cleaning a French press, check out the video below:

Next, you’ll want to decide how strong you want your brew. There are a couple of ways to change the flavor strength of your final cup, and with an immersion method like the French press, an easy option is to use more or less coffee relative to the amount of water. The calculator uses a scale of 1 (“bold, thick and heavy”) to 7 (“lighter, subtle and tea like”) as a proxy for the coffee-to-water ratio.

From there, simply plug in those two numbers and the calculator will spit out exactly how much coffee and water you need. A kitchen scale that works in grams can give you more precise measurements, but the calculator also tells you how many tablespoons of coffee and ounces of water to use if you don’t have a scale.

Keep in mind that the grind size also matters. Generally, you’ll want a coarser grind for a French press to prevent anything from slipping through the sieve and into your brew. But really, since coffee preferences are so personal, all you really need is a brew that tastes good to you.