We used to wonder why when we poured out a 12 cup coffee maker carafe that we never got 12 cups of coffee. We get the same question from our Hula Daddy farm visitors. We now know the answer.
On every automatic coffee maker the manufacturer puts measuring marks for the number of cups. If you buy a french press, Clever, siphon, Cafe Solo etc. the box says how many cups it makes. If you think they mean 8 ounce cups, you are a victim of a marketing scam.
All coffee maker manufacturers refuse to use an 8 ounce standard for coffee. Their justification is that a long time ago china coffee sets used to come with 5 and 6 ounce coffee cups. The real reason is that using a fake cup measurement makes their coffee makers look bigger.So if you buy a 12 cup automatic drip coffee maker and expect to get 96 fluid ounces of coffee, you are going to be disappointed when you only get, at most, 72 ounces of brewed coffee, which is 9 cups.
Even worse, some coffee maker manufactures use 4 or 4.5 or 5 or 5.5 ounce “cups.” Customers get fooled by these phony cup definitions and add enough grounds for eight ounce cups. They wind up with extra strong coffee and don’t know why.
You can’t rely on the numbers on the brewer box or on your brewer carafe. The first time your use your brewer fill the carafe with water to the top mark and pour the water into a measuring cup to get the real number of 8 ounce cups. If there are cup numbers on your carafe, divide by the number next to the top mark, then you will know how many “cups” each mark represents. Now you can brew the right amount of coffee for that many cups.
Wow…spot-on here! Mine is a Mr. Coffee and it’s probably 10 years old…I don’t doubt the ambiguity that’s involved here, though…My ratio has always been 5 tablespoon scoops to 6 oz water. My glass carafe does not actually say “oz” either…just all the even number increments up to 12.So I’m pouring in water up to the “6” mark, I take it. Product is not too strong, not too weak. But the end result for me is 3 whole cups of joe altogether. I’m definitely going to try out that tip with my measuring cup, though, and see where those numbers don’t add up. Thanks for the insight.
Jennifer you’re a sadist! 5 Tbsp/6oz. of water, my toes are curling. To each their own I guess.
Divide by what number at the top? 12?
Devide by the number next to the top of the water mark. So if you filled the pot to the number 10 divide the ounces by 10 to get the ounces per “cup”
So, basically, if we thought we’ve been getting ripped off all these years, we were right, and we should feel a sense of vindication in that… So why do I still feel swindled then? Remember Mr. Baseball, Joe DiMaggio as the spokesman for Mr. Coffee? I do. So Mr. Baseball was nothing but a corporate shill… Another childhood delusion shattered like a wine glass falling from a drunk ex-wife’s hand. So my cute little five cup Mr. Coffee actually only brewing 2.5 cups is “normal”… Huh. Who’d have thunk? That’s ok, though. That’s all I wanna drink at Oh-Dark-Thirty anyway. That’ why I bought a little 5 cup for working out of town. I’m not brewing a whole pot for myself and two brothers, I’m only brewing what I personally need to wake up at four am. I used to have a 40 oz Sheetz mug with a pig on it, and I used to fill that MF up every morning. I don’t need that much caffeine to wake up anymore, since I don’t stay at the bar all night til it closes.
It’s a cup of coffee not a measuring cup.. so don’t blaspheme Joltin Joe .. my grinder has similar lines inside so it’s easy to match without using scales or measuring cups