When making coffee in my first brewer – moka pot, I never used to measure much. I used to fill the basket with as much pre-ground coffee as I could pack, and put it to brew.
Later while making it in french press, I wasn’t really sure how much coffee to put and how much water to fill. So, I looked up online and followed the recipes asking to add 15 grams and pour 250 g of water, and steep it for 4 minutes. I didn’t have a weighing scale, however I did have measuring spoons and cups in the kitchen. So happily, I measured 250 ml of water roughly using a measuring cup (1 cup = 240 ml + a bit more) and boiled it. While for coffee, I leveraged an approximation with tablespoons based on google’s top search result (2 tablespoons = 14 grams + a bit more). My folks were amused to see my dedication to level the tablespoon full of pre-ground coffee with care. However, things go complex when moving over to more brewing techniques like pour over. In such cases, weighing scales really come handy.
I looked up and found all the coffee scales with capability to measure up to decimal places of grams. However, since it was out of my budget, I went for a food scale with lesser accuracy (up to a gram), a fraction of cost. In the market, there are various options of gearing up.
Levels of gearing up
- Level 0: Eyeball
- Example – Add coffee till our moka pot basket is full.
- Level 1: Volumetric measurements
- Example – Add 2 leveled tablespoon coffee, 2 cups of water.
- Volumetric measurements are not too accurate, as based on grind size different weights of coffee can get packed in a tablespoon.
- Tablespoons are helpful when you are buying pre-ground coffee beans and you don’t have a scale. Definitely get some weighing scale before buying a grinder.
- Level 2: Food Weighing Scale
- Example – Add 14 grams of coffee.
- These are often used for baking, and hence can weigh up to 5 kgs. But on the flip side, the accuracy is at 1 gram level. A 14 grams measure could actually be 13.6 or 14.4 grams.
- Level 3: Coffee Weighing Scale
- Example – Add 14.0 grams of coffee.
- Apart from higher accuracy, these scales also have timers on them. No need to use a stopwatch or mobile phone separately.
- Hacky alternative – You can do with one of the jewelry scales on amazon, as all you need is accuracy up to 0.1 grams. It may not look that cool though.
- Level 4: Smart coffee scales
- Example – Pour water at the rate of 4g/sec for the next 30 sec.
- These scales often come with connected apps that make graphs to satisfy extra data needs and measurement needs.
What is my take?
Without the basic measurements I have made terrible coffee. It’s important to have some weight scale. Currently I am using a basic food scale. I am not planning to upgrade further, as I am yet to detect and appreciate coffee brewing differences at the accuracy of 0.1g. The day I am able to, I will buy the coffee scale.
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This is a part of the overall article – Unofficial Roadmap for a Coffee Enthusiast
I write articles about my beginner to inetermiedate level specialty coffee journey. If you liked what I write you might want to read more from my coffee blog and follow my journey on Instagram @journal_of_a_coffee_enthusiast.
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