Try 20 g of coffee with 300–320 g of water: a ratio between 1:15 and 1:16. Use the same coffee, grind and steeping time to compare the two strengths, then keep the ratio you prefer.
Weighing both ingredients makes the recipe easy to scale. Stay within the press’s fill limit and leave room for the grounds and plunger.
What 1:15 and 1:16 mean
The first number is coffee, the second is water. At 1:15, multiply your coffee dose by 15 and that's your water weight: 20 grams of coffee calls for 300 grams of water. At 1:16 the same 20 grams takes 320 grams. Going the other direction works too—divide the water weight by 15 or 16 to get the dose.
For home brewing, 1 gram of water is close enough to 1 milliliter that the number on the scale doubles as a volume reading. The printed lines on the press are handy for a rough fill check, but they can't replace the scale, because the grounds, the foam on top, and the raised plunger all take up room that the markings don't account for.
Well-known recipes don't all land on the same number. Stumptown's French press guide uses 56 grams of coffee to 850 grams of water, which works out to roughly 1:15, with a four-minute brew. If the press you own came with its own instructions and they say something different, follow those first.
Use 1:15 or 1:16 as a starting ratio, then adjust for your coffee and preferred strength. These are recipes to test, not a universal standard for French press. Hold the ratio steady while comparing grind and steep time.
French press ratio chart
Pick a water weight that stays under your press's safe fill line once the dry coffee is already inside. The doses below are rounded to whole grams, which is as precise as a home recipe needs to be.
| Water | Coffee at 1:15 | Coffee at 1:16 |
|---|---|---|
| 240 g | 16 g | 15 g |
| 300 g | 20 g | 19 g |
| 450 g | 30 g | 28 g |
| 500 g | 33 g | 31 g |
For a batch that isn't on the chart, divide the water by the ratio number. 420 grams of water at 1:15 comes out to 28 grams of coffee. If you brew several methods, the pour over coffee ratio chart uses the same math with a slightly different starting range.
A straightforward four-minute starting recipe
- Heat enough water for the brew plus a splash to preheat the press. Use the temperature your coffee or brewer instructions recommend. A French press doesn't need the controlled pour that pour-over does, so any kettle will do.
- Weigh and grind the coffee. Start coarse. For a 300-gram batch at 1:15, that's 20 grams.
- Add 300 grams of water. Wet every bit of the grounds without splashing past the safe fill level. A gentle stir is fine if you see dry pockets; otherwise leave it alone.
- Set the lid on with the plunger pulled all the way up. Steep for four minutes unless your coffee or press instructions say otherwise.
- Press slowly, with the press sitting on a stable counter. If the plunger fights back harder than usual, stop and check rather than forcing it.
- Pour right away. Anything you won't drink in the next few minutes goes into a separate carafe or mug so it stops steeping on the grounds.
This is the same broad approach most established roasters teach. The ratio is the part to hold onto when you scale up or down; grind, water, roast, and filter will still shape the cup.
Scale the Recipe Without Overfilling the Press
Work from water weight
For 400 g of water, 1:15 needs about 26.7 g of coffee and 1:16 needs 25 g. Those numbers describe what goes in, not how much coffee comes out—the grounds hold onto some of the water. If the water plus grounds would crowd the working fill line or leave no room for the plunger, drop to a smaller batch instead of pushing it.
Separate a strength test from an extraction test
When the coffee tastes balanced but simply too strong, brew the next one at 1:16 with the same grind and steep time. When it tastes sharp, drying, or harsh, that's not a ratio problem—hold the ratio steady and look at grind, stirring, and time instead. Write down whichever change you made so the next cup can tell you whether it helped.
How to fit the recipe to a 350 ml or 600 ml press
The Yozcoffee double-wall glass French press comes in nominal 350 ml and 600 ml sizes. Both use a stainless steel mesh plunger and carry printed milliliter and ounce markings. You pick one size per order; the listing doesn't bundle both.
Nominal capacity and finished coffee are two different things. A 350 ml vessel should not get 350 grams of water after the coffee goes in. Start with a batch that leaves visible headroom for the grounds, the bloom, and the raised plunger, then let the markings and the product instructions tell you where the real safe fill is.
The 350 ml size fits a one-person routine. The 600 ml size gives you room to pour more than one small cup without brewing twice. Neither one is the right pick if what you actually want is paper-filter clarity or a machine that heats its own water. Our guide to reducing French press sediment covers what metal mesh can and can't hold back, and the paper vs metal filter comparison explains the texture difference in more detail.
Adjust strength without losing the plot
Balanced but too intense? Move to 1:16 before you touch the grinder. Balanced but thin? Try 1:15. Either way you've changed the concentration while keeping the brewing process the same, so you know exactly what you're tasting.
If the cup is sharply sour, drying, or harsh rather than just strong or weak, the ratio probably isn't the culprit. Hold the dose and water steady and look at grind and brew time. The coffee taste troubleshooting guide walks through how to tell flavor problems apart from concentration problems.
And don't try to fix a gritty cup by adding more water—that just makes weak, gritty coffee. Check the filter fit, the pour, and the grind instead. A manual steel-burr grinder with 40 settings gives you a numbered position to return to and lists French press among its intended uses. It does mean grinding by hand every morning, and no grinder can promise a sediment-free cup through mesh. The coffee grinders collection compares manual and electric options by adjustment range.
Tools that make the ratio repeatable
A scale beats a scoop the moment you switch beans. Scoops measure volume, and bean density and grind texture change from bag to bag. The Yozcoffee digital coffee scale with timer handles up to 2 kg on a 140 × 124 mm platform. Make sure the press sits flat on it and the combined weight stays under the limit—and lift the press off the scale before you plunge. The rest of the coffee scales collection covers smaller and Bluetooth-connected models if this one isn't the right fit.
Any kettle can heat French press water. If you also brew pour-over and want to set a temperature, the 0.9 L electric gooseneck kettle adjusts from 40–100°C (104–212°F) and only heats on its supplied base. The gooseneck spout is a pour-over feature, though. French press doesn't require one, so don't buy it for that reason alone.
A two-batch adjustment test
- Brew one batch at 1:15. Write down the coffee, water, grind setting, and the four-minute brew time.
- Brew the same coffee at 1:16 with the grind and time unchanged.
- Taste both at about the same temperature. Pick by strength and balance, not by which number sounds more correct.
- Keep the ratio you preferred, then adjust grind only if the flavor still needs work. Use the grind size chart as a starting reference rather than copying a setting from someone else's grinder.
The useful ratio is the one you can repeat and actually enjoy drinking. Once it's written down, a bigger or smaller batch is arithmetic, not a new recipe.
Product specifications checked September 11, 2026. Cover: AI-generated editorial illustration, not a product photograph or measured test.
After brewing, follow the French press cleaning routine to remove grounds from the screen and dry the parts before reassembly.
