Coffee Dialling-In Sheet
Change ONE thing per brew and write down what happened. Three or four rows is usually all it takes to find your cup.
BFCBrilliance · bfcbrilliance.com/tools/coffee-ratio-calculator
The setup
- Beans
- Roast
- Roast date
- Brewer
- Grinder setting
- Water temp
- Carafe REAL volume
- Ratio you settled on
One row per brew — change one thing at a time
| Date | Water (g) | Coffee (g) | Grind | Time | How it tasted |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
The numbers
- Coffee needed
- water in grams / the ratio
- 1 US fluid ounce
- 29.5735 ml
- Water
- 1 ml weighs 1 g
- 1 ounce by weight
- 28.3495 g
- Starting ratio
- 1:16
- Usual range
- 1:15 (stronger) to 1:17 (weaker)
- Cold brew concentrate
- 1:5 to 1:8, diluted after
- Machine 'cup'
- often 5 fl oz, NOT 8 - measure yours
Reading the cup
- Thin, watery, sour finish - use MORE coffee (try 1:15)
- Heavy, bitter, drying - use LESS coffee (try 1:17)
- Sour AND weak together - grind finer before changing the ratio
- Bitter AND harsh together - grind coarser before changing the ratio
- Tastes flat and papery - rinse the paper filter first
- Different every morning - weigh the coffee, stop scooping
- Good for a week then dull - check the roast date, not the ratio
- Only ever change ONE variable between brews
Ratio last, freshness first
No ratio rescues stale beans. Coffee is at its best from roughly three days to three weeks after roasting, and supermarket bags often carry a best-before date rather than a roast date - which tells you nothing. If the coffee is dull whatever you do, the answer is not on this sheet.
Measure the carafe once
Fill your brewer to its top mark, pour it into a measuring jug, and write the real number in the box above. A '12 cup' machine that actually holds 60 fluid ounces rather than 96 will throw every calculation off by more than any adjustment you make on purpose.