Why should you use a kitchen scale when brewing coffee?

Why should you use a kitchen scale when brewing coffee?

For years I used a tablespoon when preparing my coffee. I scooped what I thought was the right volume of ground coffee, put it in a paper filter, and turned on the coffee maker. Sometimes I didn't even use a spoon and instead relied on my sixth sense to see the right volume.

I honestly admit that this was all wrong, and looking back on time, I deeply regret it. I know a great abundance of people still use a tablespoon (or measuring spoon) to prepare their favorite drink, and I want to help those people get better coffee. How? By clearly explaining in this article why they should use a kitchen scale, I have personally found that this seemingly small change can make a big difference in the coffee you get. I'll show you.

Weight matters

There are several reasons to consider weight over volume — not just with coffee beans but any dry ingredient you might use in the kitchen.

Particularly with coffee beans, there are essential questions about size and density. Take a handful of beans from a coffee bag and check them out: These aren't all perfectly uniform, are they? In addition, they are round instead of flat. They will never, ever be perfectly even or compressed in a measuring spoon, tablespoon, or measuring cup, meaning those ways of measuring aren't very accurate.

In addition, everyone has a different idea of an overflowing, rounded, or whatever spoon. Such instructions are very vague and difficult to establish.

For example, I scooped an overflowing tablespoon of coffee beans from my pocket. According to the instructions, it should be 7 ounces, but the content of my spoon was 8.7 ounces. I tried other spoons, 7.5 ounces, 9 ounces, 9.4 ounces, and 7.3 ounces.

Any difference by itself seems very small and negligible, but your coffee recipe only uses 30 grams of beans per 350 to 475 ml of water. A difference of almost 2 grams per tablespoon will change your entire recipe or at least give each preparation a completely different taste.

I did a little test, intending to measure enough coffee to make about 500ml of coffee; enough for my guest and me. Based on weight, I needed 50 grams of coffee beans for this, per volume, this is about 7 heaped tablespoons. However, when I weighed 7 tablespoons of coffee beans on my kitchen scale, I arrived at 55 grams.

It didn't get much better when I tried it with ground coffee. Four tablespoons of ground coffee and coffee beans gave a difference of nearly 5 grams (39.3 and 34.8 grams, respectively), and neither was the 30 grams I needed for my recipe.

Things get even more complicated when you consider that not all ground coffee is the same. A coarser grind will have more volume than a fine grind, but the latter will typically have a higher density, giving you more coffee. Four tablespoons of coarse and fine coffee gave me 39.3 and 38.5 grams of coffee, respectively.

Why weigh water?

Why on earth would you measure the weight of your water? Again: consistency and accuracy. If you measure the volume of your water in a measuring cup before boiling it, you're not considering what turns into steam and evaporates. In addition, if you measure water in a measuring cup after boiling it before adding it to your coffee, you will lose heat and valuable time.

When you put your coffee machine fully prepared (whether it's a French press with the ground coffee or a filter with ground coffee on a cup) on a scale and press 'tare' before adding water, you will know exactly how much water you are using, which will give you much more control over the strength and extraction rate of your drink.

Consistency is critical

With a cheap kitchen scale, I avoid all inconsistency. Every time I prepare coffee, I know how many dry ingredients I have and can use that knowledge to determine how many wet ingredients (in this case, water) I need to prepare a drink that suits my taste.

For example, if I want to fill a 300 ml mug with coffee, I will use 280 grams of water for the preparation (I don't want the coffee to overflow, of course). With my cheap, small, and durable kitchen scale, I can weigh 20 grams of coffee for a more robust cup or 16 grams for a weaker cup, and I know exactly how much coffee I'm adding because my recipe is not ruined by using a volume (tablespoons). Using a scale allows me to make today's coffee as good as yesterday's or even better. I know what I started with and what I want to achieve.

Hopefully, by the end of this article, I have convinced you to buy/use a kitchen scale. It's probably the most minor investment you'll have to make for your coffee, but it ultimately impacts the drink you get.