Pour Over Ratio Chart: 1:14 to 1:18, and What 221 Recipes Actually Use

The Short Answer

If you want one number and nothing else, use 1:16: 18g of coffee to 288g of water. That is both the median and the single most common ratio among the 195 hot pour over recipes published in the CUP-TIMER catalog. Everything below is what to do when 1:16 is not the right answer for the coffee in front of you.

The Chart

Multiply your dose by the second number to get water weight. The three dose columns cover a small single cup, a standard single cup, and a large mug or two small cups.

Two practical notes before you use it. First, these are brew ratios, not cup ratios: a cone holds back roughly 2g of water per gram of coffee, so a 1:16 brew on 18g yields something closer to 250g in the cup than 288g. Second, the ratio sets strength, not extraction. Pouring more water through the same grounds makes a weaker cup and a more extracted one, which is why ratio and grind have to move together — more on that below.

What the Catalog Actually Uses

Ratio charts usually run from 1:12 to 1:20 and imply the whole range is in play. The published recipes say otherwise. Across the 195 hot recipes in the catalog:

• 1:16 — 39 recipes
• 1:15 — 38 recipes
• 1:16.7 — 31 recipes
• 1:17 — 28 recipes

Those four values alone account for 136 of 195 recipes. Widen the window slightly and 158 of 195 recipes — 81% — sit between 1:15 and 1:17 inclusive. The median is 1:16 and the mean is 1:15.6. Outside that band things thin out fast: only five recipes brew at 1:18, and just two go weaker still — Scott Rao's Tricolate at 1:20 and a Korea Brewers Cup competition recipe at 1:20.8.

It is also worth knowing that one of those four peaks is partly an artefact of round numbers. Of the 31 recipes at 1:16.7, twelve are 15g → 250g and eleven are 12g → 200g. Nobody chose "one to sixteen point seven"; they chose a tidy dose and a tidy water weight, and 1:16.7 is what fell out. The same happens at 1:15, where 18 of the 38 recipes are the familiar 20g → 300g. Read the peaks as clusters of convenient numbers around a broad balanced centre, not as seven distinct schools of thought.

Ratio by Dripper

Does the brewer change the number? Less than you would expect. Median ratios by dripper, for drippers with at least five published recipes:

Six of the seven land within a third of a point of each other. The outlier is the Hario Switch at 1:15, and it makes sense: the Switch brews by immersion, so all the water stays in contact with the grounds rather than partly bypassing them, and a stronger ratio is the usual compensation. The same logic runs the other way for no-bypass percolation. Scott Rao's Tricolate recipe brews 20g with 400g at 100°C — a 1:20 that would be watery in a cone, but which works because a Tricolate forces every drop through the bed over a ten-minute drawdown.

So: pick your ratio from the coffee, not the cone, unless the brewer changes how water and coffee meet.

Roast Level, Dose, and Temperature

Roast level nudges the number, though the evidence here is thinner than the headline counts: only 89 of the 195 hot recipes declare one. Among those that do, the 62 light-roast recipes have a median of 1:16, while the 21 medium-roast recipes sit at 1:15 with a noticeably lower mean of 1:14.4. That matches how most people brew — denser light roasts give up less at the same ratio, so they take more water, while medium roasts get muddy if you push them past 1:17.

Water temperature drifts along the same axis. Recipes stronger than 1:15 run a median of 92°C; those in the 1:15–1:17 band run 93°C; those at 1:17 and weaker run 95°C. The weaker the ratio, the hotter the water — one more sign that ratio is never adjusted alone.

Dose barely matters, and that surprises people. The median dose across the catalog is 18g, with recipes running from 10g to 50g, and the big ones do not systematically brew stronger. A Chemex Classic at 40g → 600g is a plain 1:15; Sweet Bloom's Chemex at 41g → 700g is 1:17. Scale the ratio, extend the pour schedule, and coarsen a little to keep the drawdown from stalling.

Iced Brewing Needs a Different Chart

Do not carry these numbers over to iced coffee. The 26 iced recipes in the catalog have a median ratio of 1:10, with 14 of them at exactly that number — because part of the water is already in the carafe as ice, and the brew has to be concentrated enough to survive melting. Momos Iced 1:10 brews 22g with 220g at 98°C over ice. Use the hot chart for iced and you will get a thin, sour cup every time.

How to Move on the Chart

Change one thing at a time, and know which lever you are pulling.

• Too weak or watery? Move 1 point stronger (1:17 → 1:16) before you touch the grinder. Ratio changes strength directly and predictably.
• Bitter, drying, or hollow? That is extraction, not strength. Grind coarser or drop the water 2°C first; the ratio is probably fine.
• Thin and sour? Both levers are wrong. Go finer and stronger together, or start over from a known recipe.
• Changing dose? Keep the ratio and adjust grind slightly coarser as the dose grows, since a deeper bed drains more slowly at the same setting.

One useful habit: write the ratio on the bag when you find one that works for a given coffee. Ratios are far more portable between brewers than pour schedules are.

Brew These Ratios

Pick the row you want from the chart and start it in the timer:

• HARIO V60 Basic Recipe — 1:14, 15g → 210g
• Tetsu Kasuya 4:6 Method — 1:15, 20g → 300g
• Basic Kalita Wave — 1:16, 25g → 400g
• Scott Rao V60 — 1:16, 22g → 352g
• James Hoffmann V60 — 1:16.6, 30g → 500g
• Stumptown V60 — 1:17, 21g → 360g
• Momos 1:18 — 1:18, 18g → 324g
• Momos Iced 1:10 — 1:10, 22g → 220g over ice