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There are several posts about "good" ratios of coffee and water, but the answers are somewhat subjective.

I'm not asking about "good", or "best", or ideal acidity or sourness, or other factor of quality; I'm asking about the maximum possible chemical concentration value.

If I use 1g of coffee and 1000g of water, the result will be extremely weak.
If I double the coffee, the result will be twice as strong.
If I triple the coffee, the result will be thrice as strong.

But if I keep increasing the amount of coffee, eventually it will reach a saturation point, beyond which the concentration will remain the same regardless of the amount of coffee.

(I imagine this would be similar to the concentrate produced during the Swiss Water decaffeination process, though that involves green beans, not roasted and ground.)

The question is, what is the smallest ratio (by weight, not volume please) that will achieve that maximum concentration.

(In case it makes a difference, assume cold-brew for a sufficiently long time.)

Ray Butterworth
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There isn't a maximum concentration you can reach through the coffee:water ratio.

With drip or immersion brewing, the coffee grounds absorb and hold about 2 grams of water for every gram of coffee. If you brew with 1:2 coffee:water, all of your brew would remain trapped in the grounds if you rely on gravity for extraction. Slightly more water would yield some beverage. That would produce the maximum achievable concentration for the specific brewing parameters, but it would not be at chemical saturation.

With an espresso process, you can brew at 1:2, or even 1:1, and still get a substantial portion of the extraction out. This is about as concentrated an extraction as you can get. But even at this concentration, the component compounds are not close to saturation. If you let an espresso cool, none of the compounds will precipitate or crystallize out of solution.

However, let's say that you could reach a saturation-level concentration with some hypothetical form of brewing. There would still be no maximum concentration by your definition of not caring about the flavor.

The brewing parameters determine how much of each compound goes into solution (that's why you can use them to manipulate the flavor profile). Similarly, the concentration would limit the maximum amount of each compound going into solution. The components are each at different concentrations in the coffee beans, and have different saturation points. So as the brew concentration increased, its flavor profile would change, and you could use that to manipulate the taste.

You would still have a substantial amount of each flavor component, but the ratios between the components would change. It wouldn't be much different than varieties of coffee beans having different flavor profiles because those compounds are present in different ratios.

Dolly
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