Why 1:17 Coffee Ratio Doesn't Work For Me

In this episode, I dive deep into a brewing experiment that challenged my coffee preferences and taught me valuable lessons about knowing what you truly enjoy. I challenged myself to brew a medium roast coffee at 200 degrees Fahrenheit using a 1:17 ratio, pushing the boundaries of my usual brewing comfort zone. Through this experiment, I discovered that this weak brewing ratio simply doesn't work for my palate - it tastes like tea rather than the robust coffee experience I crave.

I share my honest thoughts about how the 1:17 ratio creates a muddy, unclear cup that lacks the personality and character I've come to love in coffee. I explain why I prefer the 1:15 ratio, which delivers the perfect balance of heaviness and clarity that allows me to actually taste what I'm drinking. By listening to this episode, you'll learn the importance of understanding your own coffee preferences rather than following what others say you should like, and how experimenting with different brewing parameters can help you discover your personal coffee sweet spot.

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro
• 1:30 Why 1:17 Ratio Doesn't Work for Medium Roast
• 3:15 Understanding Personal Coffee Preferences
• 5:00 Comparing 1:17 vs 1:15 Brewing Ratios
• 6:45 Brewing Variables and Extraction Science
• 8:30 SCA Experience and Light Roast Preferences

Transcript

[00:00:00] We love coffee right now. Today is Tuesday, June 29th, 2025. I'm doing pretty good right now. I hope you're doing pretty good right now. This one's going to be cool, I think so.

[00:00:21] It's been the past couple of days. I'm doing another challenge. We'll talk about that more in detail as we go through the challenge. And I'm not really feeling this coffee. The coffee's not bad. It's actually decent, actually. And I challenged myself to brew it at 200 degrees Fahrenheit. And the other challenge I gave myself was to brew it at a 1:17 ratio.

[00:00:55] And I was going to go about it because I was challenging myself to just see if it's possible to have a tasty cup of coffee at a medium roast. Right. And I know. I don't know. Let's bring you closer in a little bit. The thing here is that I realize at least for medium roast, I think dark roast is actually going to probably be just okay. Is that 1:17 is hard to crack.

[00:01:58] It's hard to enjoy. It really is. And to enjoy a coffee at a 1.2, 1.3 level is tough. It's not fun. It's not exciting. It doesn't sing to me. It doesn't do anything to make me happy about drinking coffee right now.

[00:02:18] I'm going through this experiment just trying to see if I can enjoy the coffee from start to finish. I don't want a 1:17 ratio. But I think it's like with a lot of things with coffee is that as much as we say that we like this, we like that. We like that. We like that. If we like whatever it may be. We don't like everything about coffee.

[00:02:45] And in this case, I may try it down the road. I think I'll finish this bag of coffee with another medium roast to see if that's more consistent is that I don't like a medium roast at least at a 1:17 ratio. It doesn't work. It's crap. It doesn't do anything for me. It's one of those things where I don't enjoy drinking coffee. Kind of reminds me of a lightly roasted coffee to an extent. That's the topic for another day, right?

[00:03:31] But I guess what I'm saying here is that for me to keep going down this road, I don't like the 1:17 ratio. And there's other things, as I mentioned already, even cold brew that I don't really like coffee. I don't like a 1:17 ratio. I don't like my coffee to taste like tea. I don't like the grapefruit aftertaste of a coffee from time to time. I don't like it at all, really.

[00:04:02] But I guess what I'm saying here is that I think once we get closer to understanding what we like about coffee, then we can really operate in that tight narrow window of happiness. Right. Don't get me wrong. Go ahead and experiment from time to time like I'm doing right now. But I think what this has taught me, at least right now is that you can truly really get to the place of knowing what you like and the reasons why you like it. The reasons why you don't like it. You can explain this to others or just know that at least at this time in your life that you don't like something because of whatever reason. Right.

[00:05:01] But to me, this 1:17 is weak doesn't do anything for me. It really doesn't. I don't know how people can do 1:17, let alone 1:18. But that's just me, right? That's just the way I feel.

[00:05:17] I love the 1:15 every single time. Most of the time, it just works. You get that balance of everything like you get that heaviness of the coffee and I can still translate to what I'm actually tasting. And a lot of times people say 1:17 you can taste clarity. You can taste the nuances a little bit more. Probably depending on the roast of the coffee. Sure. But the way it sits right now, it's hard.

[00:05:45] And you would think that if the bean's a little bit heavier, more developed that you'll probably be able to actually decide what you're tasting. But in this case to me, it tastes like a muddy mess. It tastes like a French press from time to time. Like that consistency of a wall of just flavor or something like that. I'm not explaining it correctly, right? But that's just the way I see it right now.

[00:06:07] And a 1:17 ratio doesn't do anything for me. It may be the water, which I doubt it because I use different types of water. I used to still water, light medium and dark kind of change it up that way. I don't think it's that. I don't think it's the way that I actually brew the coffee. Single pour, double pour, whatever pour using the Mukunin, which is a great brewer, by the way. Singapore, double pour 32 second bloom, 45 second one minute bloom. It doesn't matter.

[00:06:49] All the cups taste the same. There are little variations. Don't get me wrong, but it still tastes like that coffee at a 1:17 ratio. It doesn't have that personality that I'm used to. And it's interesting because I bring up personality a lot in coffees. At least to me, that personality is just like whispering in my mouth, in my head, in my ears. I can barely hear that person talking. I don't understand what they're saying. I have to like get closer and get closer and try to push it like over extract the coffee in order to get anything fantastic out of it. But it's not fantastic. The damage is already done.

[00:07:31] It was already brewed at a 1:17 ratio. So even at a 1:17 ratio at 1.5 TDS still not working, which is mind boggling. If you think about it, I do want to over extract it. Try not to curse, but that was more a curse word, but I don't think that's where it needs to be. The reason why I'm saying that because if you grind it at this certain time and you brew it this way, you're going to get an extraction that's going to be less than the extraction of a stronger cup. That's what you're going to get.

[00:08:12] That is what the coffee is going to taste like for the most part. Yeah, you can play around with different variables here and there to over extract it. But for the most part, a 1:17 ratio is going to be similar to a 1:15 ratio. It's just going to be a little bit weaker just because that's the nature of the brew and the science of it. It could be just that I don't like coffees at 1.25, 1.3 TDS, which to me is just weak sauce. It doesn't taste like anything.

[00:08:45] I am tasting something a little bit different when it comes to lighter roast. That's where we come more of who we are. We like what we like. Even if we don't know how to explain it, it doesn't matter. We like what we like because of whatever reasons whenever we drink something. It is what it is. Right. It's even to the point where when I went to the SCA in Houston many months ago now. All the coffee tasted like crap.

[00:09:39] Except for a couple of exceptional. I was magical. And to an extent, the coffees also were very lightly roasted. But it just let me know or reinforce me forth and reinforce to me that a lighter roast or in this case, a 1:17 ratio is not part of my preferences. It's not a part of my role, so to speak. It's not a part of the thing that I like about coffee. And I think that's really what we're talking about here. We're talking about liking and enjoying coffee. That's it.

[00:10:17] Liking and enjoying coffee. And it's okay for us to not like it the way others say that we should like it. And hopefully you're making up your own decision even though you may see this bias towards something that I'm saying. I'm just a person just talking about it. But at the end of the day, it's you kind of figuring out what your preferences are. That's really what I'm talking about here.

[00:10:47] So if you love the 1:17, keep it. And I think that once we get closer to the preferences that we do like about whatever that we're doing within coffee, I think we're going to be in a better place. We're going to be enjoying coffee even more. We're going to get to the place where it's like wow. This is why I got into this. This is the thing that gets me going every day. And it just gives you that opportunity to look through your journey and see why you like what you like and the reasons why you like it.