I am waiting for a digital scale to arrive next week. Until that I do not know how much should I put in my Mazzer Mini, to get approximately 14 grams. I have no point of reference yet—what 14 grams look like in a double basket 58 mm.

Some time back I saw somebody here say how many regular sized beans make one gram. Was it 3, was it 5? I am not sure now, and I can not find the post now.

Can somebody suggest a poor man's way to get 14 grams of coffee in the basket?
Thank you.

14 grams is approximately two tablespoons.

Light roasts weigh more than dark roasts (they still have more moisture in them) and some beans are much larger than others, so my guess is that without a scale your best estimate will be one double basket of unground beans.

Thank you for the quick replies.

Two tablespoons? It is a little bit dependant on the fluffiness of the grind, is not it? And how big the hill on the spoon should be? And it depends on the table spoon design and shape

As for the double basket of the beans, it is a better suggestion. But how big the hill over the top should be?

Vad wrote:Thank you for the quick replies.

Two tablespoons? It is a little bit dependant on the fluffiness of the grind, is not it? And how big the hill on the spoon should be? And it depends on the table spoon design and shape

As for the double basket of the beans, it is a better suggestion. But how big the hill over the top should be?

That would be two tablespoons of beans before grinding, and as I said, it's an approximate measure, which is the best you're going to do without a scale.

A tablespoon is a measure of volume, so a tablespoon measure should hold the same amount, regardless of its design and shape.

I don't have a scale, but I can tell you that I routinely use my single shot basket to measure beans to grind and fill my double shot basket. If I fill the single shot basket (no hill over the top) just to the top with beans and grind those beans I have the correct amount of coffee for a double shot basket.
Take care,
Mark

Vad wrote:Some time back I saw somebody here say how many regular sized beans make one gram. Was it 3, was it 5?

Can somebody suggest mi a poor man's way to get 14 grams of coffee in the basket?

I just weighed 50 beans at 6.5g, which works out to about 8 beans per gram. That's 108 beans per 14g, but remember that this will vary with the type of bean and degree of roast.

Poor man should work on patience, and wait until scale arrives next week.

Vad wrote:Thank you for the quick replies.



As for the double basket of the beans, it is a better suggestion. But how big the hill over the top should be?

You don't need a big hill over the top. For me a level basket is close to 14 g's. You would think that ground coffee would be more compact, but if you have a fluffy grind I tend to find it is less compact than the original beans.

If you can adjust your input so that your output has little waste if you first do the WDT and then level it off, you probably won't be off by more than a gram. (At least that has been my experience with my equipment)

Hugh

Then again, Beethoven used exactly 60 beans for each cup of coffee, so that would make a double 120 beans. Provided you like Beethoven.

GVDub wrote:14 grams is approximately two tablespoons.

You mean two scoops. One of the common sized coffee scoops out there, e.g the one that comes standard with Bodum FPs is a 7.25 gram scoop or 1.5 tablespoons, thus three tablespoons is what you want for a ballpark 14 grams.

GVDub wrote:Then again, Beethoven used exactly 60 beans for each cup of coffee, so that would make a double 120 beans. Provided you like Beethoven.

If that is the case, it explains why his face is always so miserable looking! (BTW, I thought it was 16 beans, I'll have to go to my Solomon bio and look it up - gotta be in there somewhere!)

Thank you again for all your suggestions. While poor man waits for the scale, he will try to combine somehow all your suggestions to get closer to the goal He will count the beans, put them in the single basket, fill the double basket, then put them in the spoon, and check. Then ground, and do as HB suggests.
Thank you.

But most important of all, dont forget to pick out which of the Beethoven symphonies best accompanies your espresso and play it while enjoying your drink!

BTW George, perhaps I was mistaken. Cannot find any hard sourced references to the Beethoven 60 bean assertion, but all of the internet references seem to repeat 60. (If its on the internet, it MUST be true!!) Still, at 60 beans, he was either drinking from an elephant sized cup, or his coffee was the consistency of the bottom of a poured french press. Gross.

I have counted 108 beans as RapidCoffee suggested, and it was spot-on. It filled two single baskets and then I put it into a double basket:


Then I grinded them on Mazzer Mini, that created this amount:


After WDT and leveling (only about about half of a coffee spoon has to be thrown away, wiped off—talk about luck):


Tampered at 30 pounds of pressure using batchroom scale:


Since it was an older coffee, Brazilia Santos (I guess 4-6 months after roasting—yesterday I finished the batch of a week-old-after-roasting Columbia Huila, and will have to buy more today), the crema was very bad. Very flat taste, yes, you guessed right.


And a coffee puck after the extraction:


No Beethoven music playing around, but thank you again for your time and help. Much appreciated.

Well, maybe LVB DID use 60 beans! Now I will have to put my other foot in my mouth, revise my comments again and now say that Beethoven must have been growling because his coffee was too weak! Its a bit like jelly beans in a jar at the fair (I was always about a thousand short in my guesses). I never would have believed that you could fit over 100 beans in the basket like that. Unbelievable. Sorry George!

noah wrote:I never would have believed that you could fit over 100 beans in the basket like that.

Yes, the compactness of the beans amazed me too. While I began to count I was saying to myself "that's going to be too much". In the middle of counting I was not so sure. And at the end I was saying that it "was going to be too much" again. But when I put them in the basket, then another—it just shrinked, fell down, as Alice into the Rabbit hole.

RapidCoffee wrote:I just weighed 50 beans at 6.5g, which works out to about 8 beans per gram. That's 108 beans per 14g, but remember that this will vary with the type of bean and degree of roast.

Another potential variable - the degree of "retainage" in one's grinder...

Interesting... looks like I'll be doing some "bean counting" this weekend...

When I thoroughly brush out the mini, the weight of retained coffee is always close to 1 gram.

Fullsack wrote:When I thoroughly brush out the mini, the weight of retained coffee is always close to 1 gram.

Thank you, good to know.
My scale arrives on Tuesday