Espresso and brew ratio calculator

Dose and yield for espresso, coffee for a batch brew and water for cold brew. Time and taste a shot to get the next change to make, print a recipe card for the machine, and see how many kilos of beans a week your café goes through.

Free, no sign-upRuns in your browserChecked 28 October 2026

What are you brewing?

Each has its own recipe. The bean planner and card follow your choice.

Your espresso recipe

Weigh the dry coffee in the basket and the espresso in the cup. Your roaster's recipe for the blend is the best place to start.

The dose, dry. Many cafés use 20 to 24 g; traditional shots about 14 to 18 g.g
14182024
Grams of espresso out for each gram in: 1:2 is a classic espresso, about 1:1 a ristretto, 1:3 a lungo.1:
1:11:21:3

Dial in a shot

Pull a shot at your recipe, time it, taste it. Get one change to make next.

From starting the shot to stopping it
sec
How does it taste?

Pull a shot and time it

Start the timer as you start the shot and stop the shot at 40 g on the scales. Put in the time and how it tastes.

Starting points from Australian roasters' and BeanScene's guides: fast and sour means under-extracted, slow and bitter means over-extracted. Change one thing at a time, and let taste have the final say.

More options28 to 32 seconds, open 6 days a week, beans at $40.00 a kilo.
sec
sec

Use your roaster's target time if it gives one. Market Lane's recipes run 28 to 32 seconds; Padre Coffee calls 28 to 34 a standard window.

Stamped on the basket. It goes on the recipe card.
g
Purging, remakes
%
$

Stop the shot at

40 g

Classic espresso

From 20 g of coffee at 1:2. Aim for 28 to 32 seconds.

Ratio1:2
Shot time to aim for28 to 32 seconds
Shots from a 1 kg bag, before waste50
Espresso drinks, at 20 g each. Tells you how many beans to order.
Beans a week25.3 kg
Beans a month109.5 kg
At your bean price, a month$4,379
What does each cup cost?

1:2 is the classic espresso starting point. About 1:1 is a ristretto, more intense; about 1:3 is a lungo, lighter. Your roaster's recipe for the blend beats any rule.

Your recipe in detail

How strong is your recipe?

Coffee to liquid by weight, from the strongest shot to the weakest brew, with published starting points marked.

StrongerWeaker
  • 1. Ristretto: about 1:1
  • 2. Espresso: 1:2
  • 3. Lungo: about 1:3
  • 4. Cold brew concentrate: about 1:5
  • 5. Ready-to-drink cold brew: 1:8 to 1:10
  • 6. Batch brew: 1:15.4 to 1:18.2
  • Your espresso: 1:2

A card for the machine

Name the coffee, add the grinder setting, and print the card on its own for the wall or the tablet by the group heads.

Tasting notes, milk or black, who dialled it in

Everything stays in this page's link, so copying the link saves the card too. Nothing is sent anywhere.

Espresso recipe

House coffee

Dose
20 g
Yield
40 g
Ratio
1:2
Time
28–32 s
Basket
20 g
Grinder setting
—

Notes

 

UpdatedBy

backagain.au/tools/coffee-ratio-calculator

How to use it

  1. 01Set the recipe
    Pick espresso, batch brew or cold brew. For espresso, put in the dose in the basket and the ratio; the tool gives the weight to stop the shot at.
  2. 02Pull, time, taste
    Put the cup on scales, stop at the yield, and enter the time and whether it tastes sour, balanced or bitter. You get one change to make next.
  3. 03Print it for the machine
    Name the coffee, add the grinder setting, and print the card on its own. The link keeps everything, so you can save it or send it to staff.

How to read the answer

A brew ratio is coffee to liquid by weight. For espresso it is the dry coffee in the basket against the espresso in the cup, so 1:2 means twice as much out as in. Weigh both: set the cup on scales under the group head and stop the shot when it reaches the yield.

A 20 g shot at 1:2
Dose, dry coffee in the basket
20 g
Ratio
1:2, two grams out for each gram in
Shot time to aim for
28 to 32 seconds
Stop the shot at40 g

The bean planner turns that dose into an order for your roaster:

Beans for 200 coffees a day
200 coffees at 20 g
4,000 g
Plus 5% waste (divided by 0.95)
4,211 g a day
Times 6 days
25.3 kg a week
Times 52 weeks, divided by 12
109.5 kg a month
At $40 a kilo, a month$4,379

Every gram on the dose moves that by about 5.5 kg a month.

Dialling in, one change at a time

The shot time tells you which way to move the grind; the taste tells you whether to move it at all. The helper in the tool follows these starting points, drawn from Australian roasters' guides and BeanScene:

  • Fast and sour: grind finer. A grind that is too coarse pours fast and tastes under-extracted, thin or sour. Keep the dose and yield the same.
  • Slow and bitter: grind coarser. Too fine pours slowly and tastes over-extracted: bitter, burnt or astringent.
  • On time but sour: a slightly longer shot. Running a couple of grams more water through the same dose extracts a little more. Still sour, grind a touch finer.
  • On time but bitter: a slightly shorter shot. Stopping a couple of grams earlier extracts a little less.
  • Tastes good: keep it. Even outside the time window. Update the window on the card so the next barista aims for the same shot.

Change one thing, pull another shot, taste again. Coffee changes as it ages after roasting, so expect to adjust through a bag, and to start again with a new coffee. Training someone new? The guide to hiring café staff covers the rest of their first weeks.

Batch brew and cold brew

For batch brew and cold brew the ratio is coffee to water. Ground coffee holds back roughly twice its weight in water, more in some brewers, so you always get back less than you put in. Put any batch size into the tool and it scales the recipe.

2 litres of batch brew at 1:16
Water
2,000 g
Divided by 16
125 g of coffee
Held back by the grounds (about 2 × 125 g)
250 ml
Reaches the jug
1,750 ml
250 ml cups7
500 g of cold brew at 1:5, diluted 1:1
Water to steep with (500 × 5)
2.5 L
Held back by the grounds
1 L
Concentrate
1.5 L
Served, with the same again of water or milk
3 L
250 ml serves12

Where the starting figures come from

  • A 20 g dose. BeanScene puts traditional Italian-style shots at 14 to 18 g and modern espresso at around 20 to 24 g. 20 g is also the dose in the coffee cost calculator, so the two tools agree. Use what your basket is made for.
  • 1:2 in 28 to 32 seconds. Market Lane's espresso recipes typically sit at 17 to 18 g in, 35 to 40 g out and 28 to 32 seconds. Padre Coffee calls 28 to 34 seconds a standard window when a roaster hasn't given one.
  • Batch brew at 1:16. That is 62.5 g a litre, inside the 55 to 65 g range around Five Senses' 60 g a litre starting recipe.
  • Cold brew at 1:5, diluted 1:1. The concentrate recipe in both Coffee Parts' and Devoción's guides. Their ready-to-drink versions are 1:8 and 1:10.
  • 200 coffees a day, six days, 5% waste, $40 a kilo. The same starting figures as the coffee cost calculator. The 5% waste is an assumption, not an industry figure: weigh a week of purges and remakes to get yours.

Frequently asked questions

1:2 is the most common starting point: 18 g of ground coffee in, 36 g of espresso out. Melbourne roaster Market Lane's espresso recipes typically sit at 17 to 18 g in and 35 to 40 g out, in 28 to 32 seconds. About 1:1 is a ristretto, more intense; about 1:3 is a lungo, lighter, with individual flavour notes more pronounced. Ask your roaster what they recommend for your blend.
Sour usually means under-extracted. If the shot also ran fast, grind finer and pull it again at the same dose and yield. If the time was on target, try a slightly longer yield, a couple of grams, before you touch the grind. Bitter is the opposite: if the shot ran slow, grind coarser; if the time was right, stop the shot a little earlier. Change one thing at a time, and let taste have the final say.
Use your roaster's target time if they give one. Without one, Padre Coffee calls 28 to 34 seconds a standard window, Market Lane's recipes run 28 to 32 seconds, and BeanScene suggests about 25 to 30 seconds as a place to start. The time is a guide to the grind, not the goal: a shot that tastes good outside the window is a good shot.
Crema makes volume unreliable: a fresh shot can look much bigger than it really is. Weighing the cup on scales gives the same answer every time, which is what keeps every barista on a shift pulling the same coffee.
Around 60 g a litre, about 1:16.7, is a common starting recipe. Five Senses suggests going to 65 g if it tastes weak and 55 g if it tastes strong. The grounds hold back roughly twice their weight in water, so a 2 litre batch with 120 g of coffee gives about 1.76 litres.
Multiply coffees a day by your dose and the days you open, then allow for waste. 200 coffees a day at 20 g, six days a week, with 5% waste, is about 25 kg a week or 110 kg a month. Roasters quote and lend equipment by weekly volume, so it's worth knowing before you talk to them.
Guides vary. Devoción says its concentrate lasts 7 days refrigerated in an airtight container, and 3 to 4 days once diluted; Coffee Parts says up to 2 weeks in a sealed bottle in the fridge. In a café, label each batch with the date it was made and follow your own food safety plan, which should set the limit.

Starting points from roasters' and industry guides, not rules: your roaster's recipe for your coffee comes first. How long you keep cold brew is a food safety question for your food safety plan and your state or council food authority, not this tool.

Sources

8 sources

  1. 1Market Lane Coffee: How to make espresso coffee at home (recipe and shot time)marketlane.com.au
  2. 2Padre Coffee: Home espresso coffee, the definitive guide (grind, extraction and timing)padrecoffee.com.au
  3. 3BeanScene: Creating espresso recipes (Ethan Miller, March 2022)beanscenemag.com.au
  4. 4Perfect Daily Grind: How to better control your espresso's brew ratio (2018)perfectdailygrind.com
  5. 5Five Senses Coffee: Batch brew fundamentalsfivesenses.com.au
  6. 6Coffee Parts: Cold brew guideknow.coffeeparts.com.au
  7. 7Devoción: Cold brew guidedevocion.com
  8. 8Blackout Coffee: How much water coffee grounds absorbblackoutcoffee.com

Keep going

All tools and guides
GuideCafé equipment guideChoosing an espresso machine and grinder, buying new or used, and what else you need.GuideHow to price your café menuFood cost targets, coffee margins and how to price without scaring off regulars.Free toolCoffee cost and price calculatorThe true cost of every cup, from beans to lids, and the price that hits your margin.