Coffee weight to volume calculator
How to measure ground coffee without scales
If you ever find yourself without scales to weigh coffee, there's still a way to measure your coffee precisely – as long as you have a spoon, scoop or a cup of some kind.
Spoon / scoop / cup
By knowing what type of spoon or cup you have, as well as the roast level and relative grind size of your coffee, we can estimate how many scoops you'll need to achieve the right amount for your brew method.
Any receptacle that you can level off (measuring spoons, scoops and cups) will be more accurate than tablespoons or teaspoons so if you have a choice, go for the former.
Roast level
Darker roasted coffee weighs less than light roasts, because they contain less water. This is because more water evaporates the longer the roasting process.
Use this image as a guide to determine the roast level of your coffee:
Grind size
The same coffee weighs the same no matter what grind size it is, but they don't take up the same volume. Coarser grounds take up less space, so a spoonful of coarse coffee will be a bit heavier than finer coffee...
But only to a certain extent. When fine enough (like for espresso) coffee starts to clump, so a heaped spoonful of espresso grounds will actually weigh more than coarse grounds (see image below).
Not only that, the randomness of clumping means that the weight of the coffee in the spoon can vary in weight up to 5g. Even when using measuring spoons, fine coffee can compact and still create disparity in weight.
So when measuring without scales, estimating the weight of coarser grounds is easier and more accurate than finer grounds.
