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Coffee brewing is an extraction problem disguised as a daily ritual. The balance between coffee mass, water mass, contact time, and temperature decides whether a cup tastes thin, balanced, or dense, so small changes are easy to feel in the mug. This planner turns that balancing act into a brew plan you can weigh, time, and repeat.
Instead of starting from guesswork, the tool works backward from the beverage size you want to serve. It calculates how much dry coffee and total water are needed, estimates how much liquid the grounds will hold back, and lays the brew out as a bloom plus one or more pours. The result is a schedule you can take to the kettle, not just a static ratio.
That matters most when you move between brew styles. A 360 mL pour-over, a 36 mL espresso, and a one-liter cold brew concentrate do not share the same strength target or contact time, so the presets change ratio, brew time, retention, and expected strength band before you make custom adjustments.
A practical example is a morning filter brew for two small cups. Enter a 360 mL target, keep the pour-over preset, and the planner produces a coffee dose a little above 27 grams, about 420 grams of total water, and a timed pour sequence near the preset strength window.
The planner is still a starting model rather than a taste guarantee. It does not know your grinder alignment, roast age, water chemistry, or how evenly the bed drains. The numbers are most useful when you combine them with taste, drawdown time, and the actual water you pour.
Start with the preset closest to the brewer on your counter, then leave the default ratio, brew time, bloom share, and retention alone for the first pass. That gives you a realistic baseline before you begin chasing taste with custom numbers.
The Brew Control Map is best read as a quick orientation, not a verdict on flavor. It compares your current ratio and estimated strength with the chosen preset's target band, so it shows whether the plan sits inside or outside that expected zone. Verify the plan by weighing both coffee and water and checking how close the real brew time lands to the planned one.
The planner models four linked quantities: coffee dose, total brew water, retained water in the grounds, and estimated beverage strength. It starts from your target beverage size, then asks how much coffee is needed so that total water minus retained water lands near that target. That makes retention a structural part of the calculation rather than an afterthought.
Estimated strength is handled separately from the pour schedule. You choose an extraction target, the tool divides that value by the water-to-coffee ratio, and the resulting total dissolved solids estimate is compared with the preset's expected range. That is why two brews can share the same beverage size but land in different strength bands when ratio or extraction target changes.
The schedule itself is deterministic. Bloom water is taken as a share of total water, the remaining water is split across the selected number of pours, and each pour inherits a time slice from the total brew time after bloom. All calculations stay in the browser and no network call is made while you use the tool.
The core math answers a practical question: how much coffee and water are required to yield the drink size you want after the grounds keep some liquid back?
| Symbol | Meaning in this tool | Unit | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vtarget | Requested beverage size | mL | Brew size |
| R | Water per gram of coffee | g/g | Water to coffee ratio |
| A | Retained water per gram of coffee | g/g | Coffee retention |
| E | Chosen extraction target | % | Extraction target |
| TDS | Estimated strength of the brewed liquid | % | Computed in Brew Snapshot |
With a 360 mL pour-over at ratio 15.5 and retention 2.2, the planner computes about 27.1 g of coffee and 419.6 g of total water. At an extraction target of 20%, estimated TDS is about 1.29%.
Each preset loads a full starting profile, not just a ratio. The shipped set includes pour-over, Chemex, espresso, French press, AeroPress, cold brew concentrate, and moka pot, each with its own yield, brew time, bloom settings, retention assumption, and expected strength band.
| Method | Default yield | Ratio | Brew time | Expected TDS band |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pour-over | 360 mL | 15.5:1 | 210 sec | 1.25% to 1.45% |
| Chemex | 600 mL | 16:1 | 270 sec | 1.25% to 1.40% |
| Espresso | 36 mL | 2:1 | 28 sec | 8.00% to 12.00% |
| French press | 480 mL | 15:1 | 240 sec | 1.20% to 1.50% |
| AeroPress | 230 mL | 13:1 | 120 sec | 1.30% to 1.60% |
| Cold brew concentrate | 1000 mL | 5:1 | 43200 sec | 3.00% to 5.00% |
| Moka pot | 180 mL | 7:1 | 320 sec | 3.00% to 5.00% |
After the preset is chosen, the schedule is built in three passes: reserve bloom water, split the remaining water across the selected pours, then spread those pours across the available post-bloom time. That is why increasing Pour steps changes both the table rows and the line in Pour Timeline.
The most important boundary is ratio versus retention. If the ratio is less than or equal to retained water per gram of coffee, the planner cannot produce a liquid yield, so it shows the warning about increasing ratio or reducing retention and suppresses the schedule and charts. A softer boundary appears when final yield drifts more than 5% from the requested beverage size; in that case the recipe still renders, but the warning reminds you that the served cup will not match the target closely.
| Input or output surface | What changes when you move it |
|---|---|
| Brew size | Scales coffee dose and total water upward or downward. |
| Water to coffee ratio | Changes dose math, expected yield behavior, and the strength point on Brew Control Map. |
| Extraction target | Changes estimated TDS and the strength label, but not the water schedule. |
| Bloom share, Bloom duration, Pour steps, and Coffee retention | Reshape the timed recipe, final yield, and warning behavior. |
The fastest way to get a trustworthy plan is to set a realistic brew target first, then let the schedule explain how to get there.
A good finished plan gives you a believable dose, a schedule you can follow by timer and scale, and a strength estimate that suits the cup you want.
The most important outputs are the coffee dose, total water, expected final yield, and estimated TDS. The schedule tells you how to execute the plan, but the summary tells you whether the plan is internally coherent.
The false-confidence trap here is treating estimated TDS as a measured number. It is an estimate derived from your chosen extraction target and ratio, not a refractometer reading from the actual cup. The best verification step is to brew once, compare the real drawdown and served volume with Recipe Breakdown and Yield, then decide what to adjust for the next round.
Use the pour-over preset with a 360 mL target, ratio 15.5, brew time 210 seconds, bloom share 16%, bloom duration 45 seconds, and retention 2.2 g/g. The planner produces about 27.1 g coffee, 419.6 g total water, 67.1 g bloom water, and an estimated TDS of 1.29%.
In Recipe Breakdown you get one bloom row plus three pours, and Brew Control Map places the brew close to the preset target zone. That is the kind of plan you can brew once and then keep as a stable house recipe.
Keep the same pour-over method but push the ratio to 17:1 and lower Extraction target to 18% for a 350 mL brew. The planner drops the dose to about 23.6 g, raises total water to about 402.0 g, and estimates TDS near 1.06%.
Now the summary badge turns light-bodied, and Brew Control Map shifts into the diluted and weak region. That tells you the plan is intentionally outside the default pour-over strength window.
Set ratio to 2.0 while leaving Coffee retention at 2.2 g/g. The planner can no longer make total water exceed retained water, so Brew Snapshot clears and the warning says to increase ratio or reduce retention so the brew yields liquid coffee.
The corrective path is straightforward: raise ratio above retention or lower retention to a realistic figure for the brew style. Once that inequality is fixed, Recipe Breakdown, Pour Timeline, and Brew Control Map return automatically.
No. It estimates TDS from your chosen extraction target and ratio. The calculation is useful for planning, but it is not a direct reading from brewed liquid.
Because the tool subtracts retained water from total brew water. If retention is high relative to the ratio, expected final yield can drift away from the size you asked for.
Yes. The preset list includes espresso, cold brew concentrate, moka pot, French press, AeroPress, Chemex, and pour-over. Each preset changes the default yield, ratio, brew time, retention, and strength band.
No. This package runs locally in the browser and the tool files do not include a server request path for your recipe inputs.