Rice Gō ⇔ Gram Converter
＋More features: work backwards from how much you want to eat
Work backwards from the amount of cooked rice
When the cooked amount is fixed — for example “I need 600 g of rice for curry” — this works out the gō and water you need.
From the number of people: “how many gō should I cook?”
Taking 1 bowl ≈ 150 g of cooked rice, this gets the gō you need from the number of people and bowls per person.
Just pick a number of gō (合) — the traditional Japanese rice unit printed on rice-cooker cups — and see the rice weight, water amount and cooked yield at once. You can also work backwards from “I want 500 g of cooked rice” or “I’m cooking for 4 people”. Handy whenever you are unsure how much water to add.
How to use
- Choose how many gō you want to cook (in steps of 0.5 gō). The rice weight, water amount and cooked yield appear the moment you choose.
- If you weighed the rice left in the bag in grams, use “From grams back to gō” to convert the other way.
How it is calculated
- 1 gō = 180 ml (one Japanese rice-measuring cup; 1/10 of the traditional shō, about 1.8 L) ≒ about 150 g of white rice
- Water guide = about 200 ml per gō (1.1–1.2 times the rice volume). In a rice cooker, the markings on the inner pot take priority.
- Cooked rice weighs about 2.2 times the raw rice (1 gō → about 330 g of cooked rice). At 150 g per bowl, that is about 2.2 bowls.
Sources (primary information)
- 1 gō = 180 ml is the volume derived from the traditional Japanese unit (shō) under Japan’s Measurement Act. The weight, water amount and cooked yield are common Japanese guidelines (they vary with the rice variety, whether the rice is newly harvested, and how it is rinsed).
Assumptions and notes
- No-wash rice (musenmai) packs slightly more rice into the same volume, so add a little more water (about +10–20 ml per gō) as a guide.
- Newly harvested rice contains more moisture, so use slightly less water; older rice needs slightly more to match your taste.
- When cooking in a rice cooker, following the water-level lines on the inner pot is the most reliable method.
Frequently asked questions
How many people does 1 gō serve?
It makes about 2.2 bowls, so as a guide it is one meal for 2 adults. Many households cook about 1 gō per person when packing lunch boxes or feeding big eaters.
How do I measure 1 gō without a measuring cup?
Weighing 150 g on a kitchen scale is the accurate way. With a 200 ml paper cup, filling it to just under nine-tenths gives roughly 180 ml.
How many gō is a 5 kg bag of rice, and how long does it last?
5,000 g ÷ 150 g = about 33 gō. A household cooking 2 gō a day gets about 16 days out of it. You can check this with the reverse mode of this tool.