how to figure out cooking fractions?

There are four 8 oz. cups in 1 quart, so that means your french press should hold 2 quarts of water, if they are 8 oz. cups. 2 quarts is 1/4 of the 8 quarts. Just check your french press, some coffee makers use 6 oz. as a cup. Use 1/4 the amount called for in the original recipe. For the coffee that would be 4 oz or 1/4 pound.

Of course you could just add an extra measure or two of coffee and make the coffee as you normally would in your French press. (The ice you add will weaken the strength of the coffee.) I just refrigerate my leftover morning coffee and use that for iced coffee.

IF your french press says 8 cups, make sure it is 8 measured cups, not 8 non specific coffee cups full. To know for sure the size of your container...fill your french press, then measure it in a real measuring cup. And go from there. For all practical purposes, they aren't much different but sometimes it does matter.

Mathematically no matter what...you are using a ratio. You must make sure you are using LIKE terms...comparing quarts to quarts, and ounces to ounces...so make the initial conversions. If you are in fact, dealing with 8 cups of water...this is 2 quarts. And convert the coffee from one pound to 16 ounces.

Then set up a fraction of one thing...and a fraction of the other...equal sign in between...cross multiply and divide for the unknown.

16 oz of coffee / (over...as in writing a fraction) 8 quarts of water...= ___ oz of coffee / 2 quarts of water.

Cross multiply...16 x 2 = 32.

Divide... 32 div by 8 = 4

So you use 4 oz of coffee for the smaller container..

Logically this makes sense...your container necessitates that you reduce to a FOURTH the regular recipe...so instead of a POUND of coffee you will use a QUARTER POUND of coffee.

4 cups to a quart add and it should be 32

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