Getting started

Brewlang is a way to write coffee recipes as plain text, the way you would note them in a notebook. A tool can then check them, scale them to your dose, convert their units and show them as a recipe card.

You don’t need to install anything: open the playground and type along.

Your first recipe

@V60 15g 250g 94°C
grind medium-fine

/rinse
0:00 50g bloom
0:45 150g spiral
1:30 250g spiral

target 3:00

Read it line by line:

1. @V60 15g 250g 94°C is the header: the brewer, the coffee dose, the total water and the water temperature. Only the brewer and the dose are required.
2. grind medium-fine sets the grind for the whole recipe.
3. /rinse is an action. Without a time, it is done before you start the timer: it is a preparation.
4. 0:00 50g bloom means: at 0:00, pour until the scale shows 50 g. It is the bloom.
5. 0:45 150g spiral means: at 0:45, pour in a spiral until the scale shows 150 g. Amounts are always what the scale shows, not what you add.
6. target 3:00 is when the brew should be done.

Add details when you need them

---
title: My morning V60
filter: paper
---

@V60 15g 250g 94°C
grind medium-fine

/rinse
0:00 50g ~10s bloom center -- wet all the grounds
0:45 150g ~15s spiral
90°C
1:30 250g ~20s center
2:00 /swirl

target 3:00

• The block between --- lines holds the title and anything else you want to note.
• ~10s says how long the pour lasts.
• 90°C alone on a line lowers the temperature for every following step.
• -- starts a comment, until the end of the line.

No timer? No problem

Times are optional. Without them, steps follow each other at your pace:

@FrenchPress 30g 500g 95°C
grind coarse

500g
/stir
/wait ~4m
/press ~30s

When something is wrong

The playground underlines mistakes and says how to fix them:

@V60 15g 94°C
0:00 50g bloom
0:45 40g

The scale is already at 50g: pour to a higher total, or add water with ‘+’

Messages come in three levels: an error makes the recipe invalid, a warning is probably a mistake, and a suggestion is a possible improvement.

Next

• Writing recipes covers every part of a recipe.
• The vocabulary lists the brewers, actions, grind sizes and units.
• The playground’s Examples menu holds real recipes from baristas and roasters.