Best coffee scales for brewing at home, tried and tested

If you’re a coffee connoisseur who likes to be hands-on at every stage of the brewing process, check out our guide to the best coffee scales, tried and tested by trained baristas

By Imogen Hope

Published: Friday, 24 May 2024 at 11:56 AM

If you enjoy the process of brewing your morning coffee just as much as you like drinking it, a set of coffee scales would be a welcome edition to your home brewing setup.

Coffee scales offer a high level of precision, with the ability to weigh in increments of up to 0.1 grams, and also have built-in timers. Many advanced models have additional modes for pour-over coffee methods, taking into account coffee-to-water ratios, or taking you step by step through the brewing process.

Some of these scales are super-compact in order to fit on the drip tray underneath an espresso machine, while others are large to fit under a carafe. Several that we tested also weigh up to more that 2kg, which adds to their versatility as they can be used for other kitchen activities.

There’s no getting around the fact that many of these scales come at a premium price point; they are speciality pieces of kit and are suited to coffee professionals, or those looking to take the next step in their home brewing setup. Read on for our choice of the best coffee scales.

Why not also check out our guides to the best espresso machines, best coffee grinders and best milk frothers.

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Best coffee scales at a glance

Best coffee scales to buy in 2024

Acaia Pearl Model S
best coffee scales

Best coffee scales for espresso

Star rating: 4.5/5

This professional-grade scale is the perfect way to bring precision to your coffee brewing. We were impressed with it straight out of the box, with a sleek, elegant finish and nice touches like a polishing cloth to remove finger marks and a heatproof mat to protect the scale from hot items.

There are eight different modes, including flow-rate mode, portafilter mode and countdown mode. Although the scale comes with a quick-start guide, it’s worth noting that you need to download an app to access the last three modes, and this isn’t made clear in the manual.

The touchscreen ensures the scale remains responsive when recording time; we used the dual-display mode on the drip tray of our espresso machine to extract an espresso in 29 seconds. This is an advanced piece of kit that, although not the most intuitive at first, quickly became a joy to use.

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Acaia Pearl

best coffee scales

Best coffee scales for versatility

Star rating: 4.5/5

The Pearl from Acaia is designed to be used by professionals and coffee enthusiasts alike. You certainly feel like you’re getting a premium piece of kit with this machine. It looks sleek and minimalist, with a clear digital touchscreen display, and emits a pleasant beeping noise to indicate when you’re changing between modes.

You can choose to monitor weight alone, or weight and time simultaneously, which we used to dial in our espresso machine. There’s also a host of additional modes, including a flow-rate indicator which could come in useful for pour-over coffee. We found it to be highly responsive, indicating the weight difference for a single coffee bean, plus it was really easy to start and stop the timer thanks to the touchscreen.

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Fellow Tally Pro Precision scale

best coffee scales

Best coffee scales for pour-over coffee

Star rating: 4.5/5

Fellow is a premium UK coffee brand and this scale reflect that, with its high quality design and sleek aesthetic. It stands out from other coffee scales on test, with rounded buttons and edges, and features a digital display with settings for weight, time, ratio or a combination of these.

Although primarily designed for pour-over methods, we did successfully use it in dual-display mode to dial in our espresso machine. The scale features a range of advanced settings, such as Brew Assist, where you can select a coffee-to-water ratio for pour-over coffee and it will indicate when you’ve reached your desired brew weight.

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Acaia Lunar

Best coffee scales

Best blowout coffee scales

Star rating: 4/5

Acaia’s most compact model on offer, this scale is sleek, elegant and impressive. There’s no getting around the fact that, at £335, it’s an expensive piece of kit, costing more than many espresso machines. But if you’re passionate and have exacting standards about coffee brewing, or are looking for the ultimate present for the coffee connoisseur in your life, it could be the one.

Designed to fit onto the drip tray of an espresso machine, this scale is water resistant and comes with a heatproof mat. It’s extremely precise, detecting the weight difference of an individual coffee bean, and the timer was very responsive. What’s more, there are handy features like the Tare Save feature, which lets you save the weight of your preferred container.

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Wacaco Exagram Compact coffee scale

Best coffee scales

Best budget coffee scales

Star rating: 4/5

This scale from Wacaco is not only super-compact, with a footprint equivalent to a slice of toast, it’s also the most budget-friendly model that we tested, with an RRP of £38.

Considering the lower price, we were impressed by its functionality on test. The display screen is clear and brightly lit, with a matt surround, and the scale comes with a heatproof protective mat, which sits securely over it. The size makes it suited to taking on the go, but does mean it would be better for brewing espresso than drip methods.

Although we found the timer button took up to a second to respond, we were otherwise impressed by this coffee scale and it was accurate for both weighing our coffee beans and extracting espresso.

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Hario V60 drip scales

Best coffee scales

Best sturdy coffee scales

Star rating: 3.5/5

This is one of the more affordable scales on offer, made of sturdy plastic with a minimalist matt black finish. It is battery-operated, though the batteries aren’t provided – but this does mean you don’t have to worry about making sure your scale is charged.

Although the scale should measure in increments of 0.1g, on test we could only access a setting which measured in increments of 0.5g, and there was little guidance on how to alter the settings. This meant that we could add up to four coffee beans before the scale registered a weight change. However, the built-in timer was reactive and accurate, and if you’re looking for a budget scale this could be a good option.

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Why do you need coffee scales?

You might be wondering where coffee scales fit into your home coffee setup and whether you need to invest in a set. Coffee scales are certainly a specialist piece of equipment, and are most useful for those who like to get really hands-on with manual brewing methods, and regularly like to tweak their coffee experience with different beans and brews.

Many speciality bean-to-cup coffee machines are programmed to extract espresso either by time or volumetrically, which is helpful when dialling in the machine and means you’re unlikely to need a set of scales. Where scales are most useful is for dialling in espresso machines, where they can help perfect the extraction, or with manual methods like pour-over or drip coffee, where ratios of water and coffee come into play.

What to look for in coffee scales

There are a few factors to keep in mind when choosing the right coffee scales for you. The first is your preferred brewing method. Some coffee scales are designed for extracting espresso, while other are better suited to use with drip or pour-over methods.

The most high-end models on the market have the capability to cater to every brewing need, but if you generally favour one brewing method it’s important to make sure the scales you choose are adapted for that. Another factor that we found important when looking at coffee scales is size. If you like to brew a carafe of coffee at a time you’ll need a scale large enough for this, whereas if you’re using it to extract espresso you’ll need a scale compact enough to sit under your espresso machine.

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