Measure Your Coffee by Weight

Why should I measure coffee by weight?

The whole point of measuring coffee is to get the recipe right. The recipe is right when the amount of water and the amount of tasty stuff in the coffee are in the right ratio. Measuring the beans/grounds by weight results in more consistent measurement of the tasty stuff than measuring with a count of scoops or a measuring cup.

Why is weight a more accurate measure than volume?

The density of coffee can vary a lot from bean to bean. Tons of things affect the density of the coffee—from the specific breed of the coffee plant to the altitude that the coffee was grown at. Variable density means that a single "scoop" or other volumetric measurement has quite a wide margin of error from sample to sample.

For the record, measuring by weight also varies between samples. But it tends to vary less, since the same weight of coffee tends to have similar amounts of tasty stuff, even if that means twelve beans on one side and eight on the other.

How do I measure coffee by weight?

You'll need a cheap counter-top kitchen scale. These are commonly available from big-box retailers or online for around $12, so it is not a huge investment.

To use the scale, you'll put some kind of container on the scale first and zero out the scale. Then add coffee beans into the container until you get to the amount you need for your recipe. Because you told the scale to treat the weight of the container as "zero," the final measurement you get will be for just the coffee itself. Neat!

Coffee is commonly measured in grams, and you'll often see recipes online with gram measurements. But ounces works fine too, if you're comfortable doing conversions back and forth.