Pour-Over Ratio Calculator
Coffee, water, and the ratio between them, then a pour schedule you can brew to. Change any one and the others follow. Start the timer and the table tells you when to pour.
320g
10.8 fl oz
| Step | At | Pour | Scale reads |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bloom | 0:00 | +40 g | 40 g |
| Pour 1 | 0:45 | +93.3 g | 133.3 g |
| Pour 2 | 1:15 | +93.3 g | 226.7 g |
| Pour 3 | 1:45 | +93.3 g | 320 g |
| Drawdown ends | 2:30–3:30 | ||
20 g of coffee to 320 g of water at 1:16. Bloom with 40 g, then 3 pours of 93.3 g, the last landing at 1:45. The drawdown should finish between 2:30 and 3:30.
How to Use This Calculator
- Enter your coffee in grams. The water updates to hold the ratio.
- Or enter the water you want to end up with. The dose follows.
- Pick a strength, or type a ratio. 1:16 is our default; 1:15 is heavier, 1:17 lighter.
- Set the bloom and the pours. Two times the dose is the usual bloom; three pours is a forgiving shape.
- Press Start when the bloom water goes in. The current step inverts, and the line beneath the table counts down to the next pour.
Once you have touched the tool, the address bar carries the recipe. Send the link to yourself and it opens on the same dose, ratio and schedule.
Understanding the Ratio
A pour-over brew ratio is coffee to water by weight, written 1:x. Twenty grams of coffee to 320 g of water is 1:16. The water is the water you pour, including the bloom; the coffee absorbs about two grams per gram of dose, so the cup weighs less than the number on the scale. Unlike an espresso ratio, which counts what comes out, a filter ratio counts what goes in.
Most pour-overs land between 1:15 and 1:17. Go lower for body and a heavier cup; go higher for clarity and sweetness at the cost of weight. Light roasts often want the stronger end because they are denser and harder to extract; dark roasts often want the lighter end for the opposite reason. The Chemex calculator makes that roast adjustment for you; this one leaves the ratio in your hands.
The Pour Schedule
The bloom wets the grounds and lets carbon dioxide escape. Fresh coffee bubbles and swells; coffee a month off roast barely moves. Forty-five seconds is enough for either. After that, the schedule splits the remaining water into equal pours thirty seconds apart, or forty seconds once the dose passes 25 g and each pour is a real volume.
One pour after the bloom is a simple, hands-off recipe that suits a Chemex or a large batch. Four pours is the shape of Tetsu Kasuya's 4:6 method, where the first two pours set the sweetness and the last three set the strength; our schedule keeps them equal, which is a fine place to start before you begin weighting them. The V60 recipes we keep coming back to are all variations on this frame.
Reading the Drawdown
The finish window is a rule of thumb, not a target. If the water is still sitting on the bed long after the window closes, the grind is too fine or the pours were too aggressive, and the cup will lean bitter. If it races through and finishes early, the grind is too coarse and the cup will lean sour and thin. Change the grind first, one step at a time, and hold the ratio still. Our grind size chart shows where pour-over sits against the other methods.
New to the dripper? The pour-over kit guide covers what you need and what you can skip, and the V60 versus Chemex comparison explains why the two brew so differently from the same ratio.