The ratios I keep coming back to
Scoops lie. A scoop of a light, dense roast and a scoop of a dark, puffy one are different amounts of coffee, and the cup tells on you. The day I bought a cheap scale that reads to a tenth of a gram, my brewing got consistent in a way no technique had managed before.
I only really use two ratios.
- Unknown beans
- 1:15 — stronger, forgiving
- Trusted roast
- 1:16.6 — clearer, sweeter
- Write on the bag
- dose · grind · time
When a new bag arrives I start at 1:15 — 20 g to 300 g. It is harder to make something undrinkable at 1:15, so it is a safe place to meet a coffee for the first time. Once I know how it behaves, I open it up to 1:16.6, which for me lands sweeter and lets the more delicate flavours through.
The three numbers
On the front of every bag, in pencil, I write three things: the dose I settled on, the grind setting, and the brew time that gave the cup I liked. Next time I don’t re-derive anything; I just read the bag. It sounds obsessive written down, but it turns the second bag of a coffee into a solved problem.
None of this is about precision for its own sake. It is about being able to repeat a good cup, and — more usefully — to describe a bad one well enough to fix it.