Weigh the water your machine actually holds, then use 55 g of ground coffee for every litre of it. A “12-cup” carafe is not a fixed size: Cuisinart’s 12-cup coffeemaker holds 60 fl oz and needs about 98 g of coffee, while a carafe built on the 6 fl oz coffee cup holds 72 fl oz and needs about 117 g. That is roughly 20 and 23 level tablespoons. Tablespoons are how this page got the answer wrong for years, so use a scale if you have one.
Table of Contents
Corrections to an earlier version of this page
This page previously carried four dosing figures that could not all be true at once. Naming them is more useful than quietly deleting them.
- It said that at 1:18 you need “about 4 ounces, which is roughly 1.25 cups or 20 tablespoons”. Those three numbers are not the same number. Four ounces by weight is 113 g. Twenty tablespoons, at the 5 g per tablespoon the same page states, is 100 g. The page was quoting a weight for one carafe size and a volume for another.
- It then said that at 1:15 you need “approximately 3/4 cup” of ground coffee. That is 12 tablespoons, about 60 g — less than its own 1:18 figure. This is backwards. A 1:15 brew is stronger than a 1:18 brew because it uses more coffee per litre of water, not less. At 1:15 a 60 fl oz carafe wants about 118 g and a 72 fl oz carafe about 142 g.
- Its FAQ added a third figure: “For 12 ounces of water, you’ll need about 2 tablespoons of ground coffee, if you prefer a strong brew.” Two tablespoons per 12 oz is one tablespoon per 6 oz — the weak end of the National Coffee Association’s range, and about half the dose the rest of the page recommended. It was labelled as the strong option.
- It said the brew cycle “should take about 5 to 6 minutes per cup”. For a 12-cup pot that is 60 to 72 minutes. The NCA’s figure for drip coffee is “5 minutes, approximately, of contact between coffee and water” for the whole brew, not per cup.
The ratio, and where it comes from
The reference figure is set by SCA Standard 310-2021, Home Coffee Brewers. Section 7.1.5 reads: “The standard brew ratio of 55 g of coffee per 1.000 kg of 17±3°C water shall be used for both batch sizes as per 7.1.1.” Section 6.7 requires manufacturers to print “a coffee/water ratio of 55 g/kg (or its equivalent in other units)” in the instructions that ship with the machine. Dividing through, 55 g per 1,000 g of water is 1:18 by weight.
One caveat on that link: the SCA has taken 310-2021 off its own website, so the copy above is an SCA-branded PDF hosted by CoffeeGeek. We have checked that the quoted sentences appear in it verbatim, and this page will be re-pointed if the SCA republishes the standard.
The NCA states the same idea in kitchen units as the Golden Ratio: “1 to 2 tablespoons of ground coffee for every 6 ounces of water”. The strong end of that range is the SCA figure — 6 fl oz of water weighs 177 g, and 5.5 per cent of that is 9.8 g, which is what two level tablespoons of medium-ground coffee weighs. The two standards agree; only the units differ.
A 12-cup carafe is not 12 cups of anything
This is the actual source of the confusion, and it is worth being blunt about it. There are three different “cups” in play:
- A US measuring cup is 8 fl oz. Your coffee maker does not use this one.
- A coffee “cup” is 6 fl oz. This is the unit behind the NCA’s Golden Ratio and behind most published brewing advice.
- Many drip machines mark the carafe in 5 fl oz cups. The Cuisinart DCC-1120 instruction booklet, served from Cuisinart’s own manuals page, is explicit: “The maximum capacity for ground coffee is 15 scoops (15 tablespoons) for this 60 oz. (twelve 5 oz. cups) coffeemaker.”
So “12 cups” can mean 60 fl oz or 72 fl oz depending on whose carafe is on your counter — a 20 per cent difference in water, and therefore a 20 per cent difference in the dose. Nobody can tell you your answer without knowing which one you own. Fortunately your carafe can: fill it to the 12 mark and either read the total ounces printed on the glass or tip it into a measuring jug once. Write the number on a sticky note and you never have to think about it again.
The table
| Your carafe at the 12 mark | Water | Coffee at 55 g/kg | In ounces | Level tablespoons |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 60 fl oz (twelve 5-oz cups) | 1.77 L | 98 g | 3.4 oz | about 20 |
| 72 fl oz (twelve 6-oz cups) | 2.13 L | 117 g | 4.1 oz | about 23 |
If you want a single sentence to remember: 55 g of coffee per litre of water, or about 10 g per 6 fl oz cup and 8 g per 5 fl oz cup.
Why tablespoons keep going wrong
A tablespoon is a measure of volume and coffee is sold by weight. How much a spoonful weighs depends on the grind, the roast level and whether you level it off or heap it, so the tablespoon column above is a conversion rather than a measurement. Around 5 g per level tablespoon is the figure that makes the NCA and SCA numbers line up with each other; nothing on this page rests on it except that one column.
Two things worth knowing about your machine’s own advice. Cuisinart caps the DCC-1120 basket at 15 tablespoons and warns that “exceeding this amount may cause overflow if the coffee is too finely ground” — a full-strength 60 oz dose sits close to that cap, so if the basket floods, grind coarser before you cut the coffee. And Cuisinart’s starting suggestion, “Add 1 level scoop of ground coffee per cup”, works out at 12 tablespoons for a full pot, which is well under the standard dose. Manufacturer starting points tend to run weak. That is a taste decision, not a technical one, and you are entitled to disagree with it.
We have not weighed tablespoons of coffee on this site’s scale, and this page will not publish a measured figure it did not measure. If you own a 0.1 g scale, the useful thing to do once is weigh three level tablespoons of your usual grind and divide by three. That number, for your coffee, beats every general figure on this page.
Stronger means more coffee
This trips up more people than any other part of brewing, partly because pages like this one used to get it backwards. In a ratio written as 1:18, the second number is how many parts of water you use per part of coffee. Making it smaller — 1:15, 1:14 — means less water per gram of coffee, so a stronger cup. Making it larger means a weaker one. If you want a stronger pot, add coffee; do not take it away.
| Ratio | 60 fl oz carafe | 72 fl oz carafe | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1:15 | 118 g | 142 g | Noticeably stronger |
| 1:16 | 111 g | 133 g | Slightly stronger |
| 1:18 (standard) | 98 g | 117 g | The reference point |
| 1:20 | 89 g | 105 g | Lighter, more tea-like |
Pour-over and French press are usually brewed stronger than drip — commonly 1:13 to 1:16 for pour-over and 1:10 to 1:16 for French press. Those are different methods with different contact times, not disagreements with the drip figure above.
The rest of the brew
- Time. The whole cycle, not each cup. The NCA gives approximately 5 minutes of contact between coffee and water for drip. If your machine takes much longer than that, it is usually a scale or flow problem rather than a dosing one.
- Temperature. SCA 310-2021 section 6.2 requires the slurry to reach 90 to 96 °C and stay there for the rest of the cycle. See our page on the best temperature for French press coffee for the full range with its source rather than a second copy of it here.
- Grind. Medium, for a flat-bottom or cone basket. Adjust grind before you adjust dose — it changes extraction without changing strength on paper.
- Water. Filtered is fine. The standard specifies fresh cold water at 17±3 °C, free of chlorine, at 50 to 175 ppm calcium hardness.
If you would rather count whole beans than weigh grounds, see how many beans per cup of coffee, which works from the same 55 g/kg figure. If you drink your pot with creamer, how much creamer in coffee covers the other half of the measurement, and corrects a version of the Golden Ratio that had swapped coffee for creamer.
Thank you! Best information I’ve ever read!