Coffee Brew Planner
Plan coffee dose, brew water and timed pours from served volume and ratio with absorption, bloom and projected strength guidance.{{ summaryTitle }}
{{ summaryLine }}
Brew plan
Calculation method:
The chart renderer is unavailable. The same timed values remain available in the pour schedule.
| Step | Start | End | Add | Scale target | Copy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| {{ row.label }} | {{ formatTime(row.start_sec) }} | {{ formatTime(row.end_sec) }} | {{ formatMass(row.addition_g, 'g', 1) }} | {{ formatMass(row.cumulative_g, 'g', 1) }} |
Adjustment brief
{{ section.title }}
{{ section.badge }}{{ section.body }}
Projected strength is a recipe-position estimate, not a refractometer reading. Brew once, taste, and change one variable for the next comparison.
Introduction:
A finished cup contains less water than the brewer received. Some water remains in the wet grounds, while filters, walls, and transfers can hold a little more. Planning backward from the drink you want therefore requires both a brew ratio and an estimate of grounds absorption. Treating served volume as the full water dose usually produces a short cup.
Coffee ratios are commonly written as one part dry coffee to a number of parts water. A 1:16 recipe uses 16 grams of brew water for each gram of coffee. Smaller ratio numbers produce more concentrated recipes, which is why espresso, moka pot, and cold-brew concentrate should not be compared directly with ordinary filter coffee.
| Quantity | Practical meaning | Common mistake |
|---|---|---|
| Served yield | Liquid intended to reach the cup, carafe, or concentrate vessel. | Using it as the water poured into the brewer. |
| Brew water | Total water applied to the coffee. | Ignoring water held by the spent grounds. |
| Extraction yield | Estimated share of dry coffee mass dissolved into the beverage. | Assuming it can be known from recipe settings alone. |
| Total dissolved solids | Concentration of dissolved coffee material in the beverage, usually abbreviated TDS. | Treating projected TDS as a refractometer reading. |
A pour schedule controls when water reaches the coffee, not only how much. A bloom wets fresh grounds before the main additions, and pulse pours divide the remaining water and time into repeatable targets. Immersion, espresso, moka pot, and cold brew have different physical paths, so their timing presets are starting recipes rather than universal brewing rules.
Strength and extraction are related but not interchangeable. A concentrated cup can be under-extracted, and a dilute cup can still have a high extraction yield. Grind size, contact time, water temperature, agitation, filter material, roast, and water chemistry all change the actual beverage. Taste and measurement are needed to judge the brewed result.
Repeatable brewing comes from weighing inputs and changing one variable at a time. Once coffee dose, water, and timing are stable, a grind or temperature adjustment has a clearer effect. Changing ratio, grind, temperature, and pour rhythm together makes the next cup harder to learn from.
How to Use This Tool:
Choose the brew method and target drink first; its preset supplies a coherent starting recipe that can then be adjusted.
- Select Brew method, then enter the Final beverage volume. Changing between mL and fl oz preserves the same physical serving volume.
- Set the Brew ratio, total brew time, pour-step count, and water temperature. The schedule divides the post-bloom time evenly across the chosen main pours.
- Open Advanced when you need to change the extraction target, bloom share and duration, grounds absorption, or kettle reserve. Keep the ratio greater than the absorption estimate.
- Check Brew plan for coffee dose and water, then follow Pour schedule as cumulative scale targets rather than separate amounts to reset between pours.
- Use Adjustment brief after tasting. Change one variable, brew again, and compare the cup rather than treating the projected strength as a measurement.
Interpreting Results:
Coffee dose and Brew water are solved backward from the requested served volume. Kettle fill adds the optional reserve without changing the recipe, while Grounds retention explains the modeled gap between water added and beverage served.
- Projected TDS is a recipe-position estimate. Confirm actual strength with a suitable coffee refractometer when measurement matters.
- Below band and Above band compare the projection with the selected method's preset range. They do not declare the cup bad or good.
- The pour schedule ends at the entered brew time and reaches the full brew-water target. Real drawdown, pressure, immersion release, or filtration may continue differently by method.
- Use taste to choose the next change. Sourness, bitterness, dryness, thinness, and heavy body can arise from several interacting variables.
Technical Details:
The mass-balance model assumes one milliliter of served beverage corresponds to one gram for recipe planning. Final volume is converted from fluid ounces when necessary, temperature is converted to Celsius for validation, and all coffee and water calculations use grams. Full precision is retained internally; display values are rounded according to the result field.
Formula Core
Coffee dose is solved from the requested served yield, water-to-coffee ratio, and grounds-absorption ratio. The ratio must be greater than absorption so the denominator remains positive.
The projected strength uses the entered extraction target divided by the brew ratio. This is the implemented planning approximation, not the full mass-balance relationship used to interpret measured coffee TDS.
| Symbol | Meaning | Unit |
|---|---|---|
| C | Dry coffee dose. | g |
| Y | Requested served yield. | mL, modeled as g |
| R | Water-to-coffee brew ratio. | g water per g coffee |
| A | Grounds absorption ratio. | g water per g coffee |
| W | Total brew water. | g |
| H | Water retained by the grounds. | g |
| PE | Entered extraction target as percentage points. | % |
For the default 360 mL pour-over plan, a 1:15.5 ratio and 2.2 g/g absorption produce about 27.1 g coffee and 419.5 g brew water. A 16% bloom allocates about 67.1 g to the first 45 seconds, and the remaining water is split equally across three main pours. A 20% extraction target projects about 1.29% TDS.
Lookup Core
Method presets supply starting values and the comparison band used for projected strength. They are recipe defaults, not mandatory standards.
| Method | Ratio | Time | Temperature | Projected TDS band |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pour-over | 1:15.5 | 3:30 | 94 °C | 1.25% to 1.45% |
| Chemex | 1:16 | 4:30 | 93 °C | 1.25% to 1.40% |
| Espresso | 1:2 | 0:28 | 93 °C | 8% to 12% |
| French press | 1:15 | 4:00 | 95 °C | 1.20% to 1.50% |
| AeroPress | 1:13 | 2:00 | 90 °C | 1.30% to 1.60% |
| Cold brew concentrate | 1:5 | 12 h | 20 °C | 3% to 5% |
| Moka pot | 1:7 | 5:20 | 92 °C | 3% to 5% |
Bloom water equals brew water multiplied by bloom percentage. Kettle fill equals brew water multiplied by one plus the reserve percentage. When a bloom is present, its duration is removed from the total brew time; the remaining time and water are divided evenly among one to eight main pours, with the final addition absorbing any floating-point remainder.
Accuracy Notes:
The recipe is a planning model. Actual beverage yield and strength depend on equipment, coffee, grind, pressure or flow, evaporation, filter retention, and measurement technique.
- The 1 mL to 1 g assumption is convenient for recipe scaling but does not capture every beverage-density difference.
- Projected TDS uses the simplified extraction-target ÷ ratio calculation. It is not a measured TDS value and does not implement the full corrected mass-balance equation from brewing-control-chart research.
- Preset TDS bands span several brewing styles, while the cited sensory research focuses on drip-brewed coffee. Espresso, moka pot, and cold-brew projections should be treated as method-specific planning cues.
- Inputs and results remain in the browser; no recipe or measurement is uploaded.
References:
- A new Coffee Brewing Control Chart relating sensory properties and consumer liking to brew strength, extraction yield, and brew ratio, Journal of Food Science, 2023.
- UC Davis Coffee Center Contributes Research to New Brewing Control Chart, UC Davis Coffee Center, January 2, 2025.