Pick your brewer, set the coffee dose and ratio, and press Start as you begin pouring. The timer walks you through the bloom, each pour and the steep or drawdown, telling you exactly what your scale should read at every moment.
Last updated:
Balanced
0:00
of 3:00
Ready
Press Start when your first pour begins
Brew steps
Weigh coffee and water on a kitchen scale for best results: 1 ml of water weighs about 1 g. Tip: press Space to start or pause.
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How to use the Coffee Brew Timer
Choose a brewer: pour-over, Chemex, French press or AeroPress. Each loads a proven default recipe.
Set the dose and ratio: enter the coffee weight and drag the ratio slider (or type the water amount). Water targets update instantly.
Prepare: grind to the suggested size, heat the water, put the brewer with coffee on a scale and tare it.
Start brew as you begin the bloom pour, then follow the on-screen targets: pour until the scale reads the shown weight, wait when it says wait.
Finish and adjust: when the chime sounds, serve. Next time grind finer if the cup was sour or weak, coarser if it was bitter or harsh.
Brew method cheat sheet
The default recipes in the timer follow widely used starting points. Treat them as a base and adjust grind first, then ratio, to suit your beans and taste.
Method
Default dose
Ratio
Grind
Water temp
Total time
Pour-over (V60-style cone)
15 g
1:16 (240 g)
Medium-fine
93–96 °C / 200–205 °F
About 3:00
Chemex
30 g
1:16 (480 g)
Medium-coarse
94–96 °C / 201–205 °F
About 4:00
French press
30 g
1:15 (450 g)
Coarse
93–96 °C / 200–205 °F
4:00 steep + press
AeroPress (standard)
15 g
1:15 (225 g)
Medium-fine
85–95 °C / 185–203 °F
About 2:40
How the water targets are calculated
Total water is simply coffee dose × ratio. With 18 g of coffee at 1:16 you need 18 × 16 = 288 g of water. The bloom uses about 2 × the dose (36 g here). For pour-over the remaining water is split into two pours: the first brings the total to 60% of the water (173 g), the second to 100%. Chemex uses 50% then 100% because its thicker filter drains more slowly.
Because spent grounds keep roughly twice their weight in water, the brewed volume is about water − 2 × dose: 288 − 36 = 252 ml in this example.
Coffee
Water at 1:15
Water at 1:16
Water at 1:17
Bloom water
10 g
150 g
160 g
170 g
20 g
15 g
225 g
240 g
255 g
30 g
20 g
300 g
320 g
340 g
40 g
25 g
375 g
400 g
425 g
50 g
30 g
450 g
480 g
510 g
60 g
40 g
600 g
640 g
680 g
80 g
Dialing in: what to change after tasting
Sour, thin or salty: under-extracted. Grind finer, use hotter water or extend the steep.
Bitter, dry or harsh: over-extracted. Grind coarser, shorten the steep or brew slightly cooler.
Too strong or too weak, but balanced: change the ratio, not the grind. Move toward 1:15 for more body or 1:17 for a lighter cup.
Change one thing at a time and keep the dose the same, so you can tell what made the difference.
Freshness matters: beans roasted a few days to a few weeks ago bloom vigorously; very old coffee barely bubbles and tastes flat whatever the recipe.
Frequently asked questions
What is a good coffee-to-water ratio?
Most brewing guides use between 1:15 and 1:17 (1 g of coffee for 15 to 17 g of water) for pour-over and French press. The Specialty Coffee Association's Golden Cup standard is about 55 g of coffee per litre of water, roughly 1:18. Use a lower number such as 1:14 for a stronger cup and a higher one for a lighter cup.
What is the bloom and why does it matter?
Freshly roasted coffee holds carbon dioxide. When hot water first hits the grounds the gas escapes and the bed bubbles and swells: the bloom. Pouring about twice the coffee's weight in water and waiting 30 to 45 seconds lets the gas out so the following water extracts the coffee more evenly.
How long should French press coffee steep?
Four minutes of total contact time is the classic recipe with a coarse grind, which is what this timer uses (bloom and fill plus a 3-minute steep). Pour all the coffee out after pressing, because coffee left on the grounds keeps extracting and turns bitter.
What water temperature should I use?
Water just off the boil, about 93 to 96 °C (200 to 205 °F), suits pour-over, Chemex and French press. AeroPress is more forgiving and many people use 85 to 95 °C. If you have no thermometer, let boiled water rest for about 30 seconds.
Can I use millilitres instead of grams?
Yes. One millilitre of water weighs about one gram, so the gram targets are also millilitres. A scale is still more accurate than a measuring jug, especially while pouring in stages.
Why is there less coffee in my cup than water I poured?
The coffee grounds hold on to water, typically about twice their dry weight. With 15 g of coffee and 240 g of water you get roughly 210 ml of brewed coffee. The timer shows this estimate in the summary.
My pour-over finished much faster or slower than the timer. What should I change?
Adjust the grind. If the water drains well before the drawdown ends, grind finer; if it is still dripping long after, grind coarser. Total brew time is one of the easiest signs of grind size for pour-over and Chemex.
Are all the tools on FreeToolCabin tested for quality and accuracy?
Yes! Every tool on our site undergoes automated Q/A testing in real browser environments to ensure high precision, correct output, and zero errors. If you happen to spot a bug or have a suggestion, please contact us at [email protected] and our team will review it right away.