Sugar Syrup Ratio Calculator
Mix a simple syrup at exactly the strength your drinks need.
Result
How it is calculated
You enter the weight of water in grams (1 g is treated as 1 ml) and the ratio of sugar to water by weight: 1 means 1:1, 2 means a 2:1 rich syrup. The tool computes sugar = water × ratio in grams, then Brix = sugar ÷ (sugar + water) × 100, the percentage of sugar by weight. Finished volume uses a fixed assumption that each gram of dissolved sugar adds about 0.63 ml: volume = water + sugar × 0.63. Both fields are required and must be above zero. The ratio is capped at 4.87 (about 487 g of sugar per 100 g of water, roughly what sucrose can dissolve in boiling water, a Brix near 83%); a higher ratio shows no result because no syrup can be that rich.
Worked example
A rich syrup from 250 g of water at a ratio of 2. Sugar needed is 250 × 2 = 500 g. The total mass is 500 + 250 = 750 g, so Brix is 500 ÷ 750 × 100 = 66.67%. Volume is 250 + 500 × 0.63 = 565 ml. The 250 g of water becomes about 565 ml of finished syrup, noticeably less than the 750 ml you might expect from adding grams to millilitres.
Common mistakes
- Measuring sugar by volume with a cup. The tool works in grams of sugar, and a cup of sugar weighs much less than a cup of water.
- Adding the weight of the sugar to the water to estimate the volume. Dissolved sugar adds only about 0.63 ml per gram, so 250 g water plus 500 g sugar makes roughly 565 ml, not 750 ml.
- Typing 2 and expecting 2 cups of water. The ratio is sugar parts per one part of water by weight, not the volume of the batch.
- Entering a ratio above 4.87, for example 5, hoping for an extra-thick syrup. The tool gives no result there, and in practice a ratio far above 2 is hard to dissolve without heating.
- Reading Brix as sweetness in the glass: it is percent sugar by weight of the syrup, before you dilute it in a drink.
About this calculator
Simple syrup is made at a 1:1 ratio of sugar to water by weight (or volume, since both are close to equal density), yielding roughly 50° Brix — meaning the syrup is about half sugar by weight — while "rich" simple syrup uses a 2:1 ratio of sugar to water, yielding around 66° Brix and a noticeably thicker, sweeter, longer-lasting syrup because the higher sugar concentration resists mold better.
Bartenders and mixologists choose between the two ratios based on how much sweetness and body a drink needs without diluting it further — rich syrup lets you add strong sweetness with less added liquid volume, which matters in spirit-forward cocktails, while simple syrup is easier to dissolve cold and blends more readily into shaken drinks. The Brix reading is also a practical shelf-life indicator, since higher-sugar syrups resist spoilage for weeks longer than 1:1 syrup.
This calculator takes the amount of water in grams (or millilitres) and your sugar-to-water ratio by weight (1 for simple syrup, 2 for rich), and returns the sugar to dissolve in grams, the resulting Brix and the finished syrup volume.
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