I have an escali arti scale but it does not measure a tenth of a gram. I know it can make a difference in espresso. But how important is it for other methods like French press, aeropress, or my Hario V60?

I think it comes down to pickiness and if you're measuring grinds or water/coffee.

1 g in 15 g is 7%, which is probably significant enough to justify a $15-class scale

1 g in 250 g is hard enough for me to hit when pouring, 0.1 g is nearly impossible, even midday.

The batteries were out on my "usual" grinds scale this morning, and I used my $12 one for espresso. I can't say this MAXUS 1000 x 0.1g one at Amazon is "the ultimate" cheap scale, but it works well for me. It's available under probably a dozen different brands, with a couple variants in button location. There have been a couple threads around modestly priced scales that aren't "Robot-sized" as well.

It may result in a noticable inconsistency in extraction yield strength and flavor for small batch brewing like your Aeropress and will have less impact on larger volume brew methods.

My scale goes to 1/10 of a gram, and in my experience, coffee beans weigh about 0.1 gram according to my scale. Google says 0.13g on average. So taking Google's average, and assuming your scale measures in whole grams, each gram holds about 8 coffee beans. So you are probably only going to be off by no more than 8 beans, but probably less than that.

If you are measuring out say 25 grams of coffee, where does it flip from 24 grams to 25? Right at 25g? If that's the case case you are exactly where you want to be. I've never seen recipes that go to the 10th of a gram.

One test you can try is put 24 grams on your scale then add 1 bean at a time until it hits 25 grams. Then add 1 bean at a time until it hits 26. How many beans did it take to go between 25 and 26?

But ... I have to say that I wouldn't worry about it too much. When I'm measuring a 25g dose, as long as my scale reads between 25.0 and 25.5, I call it good. I can't usually tell the difference in brews with 1/2 a gram difference.

Added: Reading the other responses, and folks brought up a good point - inaccuracies when measuring smaller doses means the error is a bigger part of the whole - that makes a lot of sense. I'm going to pay attention to that going forward.

Digital scales usually have a minimum accuracy of the least significant digit. Typically the display will be ± 1 count. So a 1 gram scale has range of ±2g. The less you weigh, the more significant it becomes.

Ok, so what's a decent scale for under $30

BuzzedLightyear wrote:I have an escali arti scale but it does not measure a tenth of a gram. I know it can make a difference in espresso. But how important is it for other methods like French press, aeropress, or my Hario V60?

I can't say for a V60 but for immersion brewing like the French press or Aeropress the amount of coffee has very little effect on the extraction yield. It primarily impacts the strength of the coffee. For example, suppose you aim for 20g of coffee and 250g of water and you get an extraction of 21%. That would give you a coffee that is 1.65% TDS. But if because of the imprecision of your scale you really use 18-22g of coffee and 248-252g of water the strength would be 1.48-1.83%.

So it would make a difference, perhaps one you would notice. But it probably wouldn't ruin the coffee.

FWIW, when I travel I take an Aeropress and don't take a scale. I just eyeball the amounts. It works fine for me.

Good Cheap Pourover Scale?

Espresso scales - revisited

Mini scale for Cafelat Robot

I have not tried one, but the ERAVSOW at $16.99 and then a 10% coupon (on Amazon) looks decent, based on some comments in those threads.

I've given up trying to decipher Amazon reviews. So many products have > 85% four and five star reviews, then a bucket of damning one star reviews.

I had read the reading jumps around, but I know there can be bad ones so I decided to try it. On the FIRST day I was making my chemex and the grams started jumping around. And whenever I turn it on in the morning it starts out with 0.5grams even though there's nothing on it. Overall, I want to love it but when your grams are jumping around- NOT GOOD! I am returning it and getting a Hario because I KNOW that will work!

While the scale was accurate for the first few months of use, I've recently encountered an issue where the reading will vary wildly when weighing something; for a coffee scale, it has become incredibly cumbersome to weigh coffee beans since the reading will vary within a range of 1 gram (Ex. initially reading 24, then gradually jumping to 24.5, then slowly back to 23.5). This is likely a defective unit but definitely look into other options before buying this coffee scale!

Received this scale today (Amazon's Choice). Inserted the included two AAA batteries. First thing I noticed was that the LED display did not show all the LED number segments. Next, I tried measuring coffee beans. Placed a small cup on the scale, hit the TARE button, display showed 000 weight (with missing LED segments) and the weight values were wildly inaccurate. Immediately packed it all up, requested my refund, and will return it to the UPS store tomorrow. Cheap, foreign-made garbage.

As a scale, the most important thing is accuracy. I'd leave my Chemex on this thing weighing in at 650g, walk away to let it finish brewing, and it would drop weight second by second - up to 20+ grams at a time. Great design, but unacceptable accuracy for a drip scale, returned.

For what it's worth, I have several cheap no-name scales and none of them have given me trouble.

LMAO!!!! You made my day!!!

I have never been so perplexed buying a piece of coffee equipment....the highly passionate negative reviews on Amazon have me fearing for my life!!!