Learn How to Make Coffee with a French Press

There is some debate on which equipment steeps the wonderful coffee, and most are rising an eyebrow to the simple Cafetière coffee maker”. But, if you understand how to work with a Press pot, and you understand how to modify the brew and fix it, you will be rewarded with a wonderful cup of coffee.

We’ve put together this comprehensive guide of Cafetière coffee preparation, to guide you through your home barista journey.

Press pot Brewing – Art or Scientific research?

The French press, also known as a French press coffee maker, is a 19th century French creation that makes an incredible “cup of joe. It covers the gap between the convenience of a filter coffee maker and the robust tastes of espresso. Even though the Press pot aromas are bolder than filter coffee, and it “gives adequate body, compared to drip, it is not as strong as espresso. This “brews it extremely appealing for coffee enthusiasts that appreciate a bold coffee, however as strong as the espresso.

Brewing coffee is a procedure that straddles the line between science and art. Manual brewing techniques such as Press pot, more so. Whether you are a coffee connoisseur or a casual consumer, you can discriminate between a poorly crafted coffee cup and an skillfully crafted one. There is no magic involved, you simply need to follow the process, and the tweak it to your taste. Preparing a fantastic coffee boils down to the: having the right tool, using the right method, and knowledge how every coffee making aspect will alter your cup.

Press pot Brewing – Equipment and Ingredients

In a perfect world, where you take coffee preparing extremely seriously, this is the tool and ingredients you will need:

• French press
• Grinding machine
• Thermometer
• Timer
• Scale and measuring cup
• Kettle
• Ideal coffee beans
• Water

If you are concerned about the investment, you could probably do without a few of the items in the list. Cafetière is among the a lot of inexpensive coffee makers. But we’ll get to that in a little bit.

Let’s learn why it is better to have all the equipment on the list first, and how that improves your final cup.

French press

Of course, a French coffee press is the first “device you’ll need to purchase. A Cafetière is a beaker with a plunger, a lid, and filter to press the coffee grounds. If you have the means and you are willing to invest in a more expensive Cafetière you can buy a metallic insulated one, or a ceramic one. The advantage is that they don’t lose the temperature as fast as the glass ones.

Coffee grinder

A coffee grinder is essential tool for anyone who makes coffee at home. Coffee freshness is required for a best cup. Coffee loses its aroma exponentially, after grinding, because there is more surface exposure to the air. So in a wonderful world, you buy coffee beans and grind it minutes before brewing it.

If you can’t invest in a grinder at the moment, just ask your coffee roaster to grind it very coarsely for you. And you need to buy small quantities, because once ground, it will go stale faster.

I suggest a burr grinding machine rather than a blade one. Burr grinders can produce a uniform grind size while a blade coffee mill will give you boulders and dust. All of that dust will pass through the screen filter into your coffee.

Scale and Measuring Cup

Measuring out the correct Press pot coffee ratio is important for a consistent taste from brew to brew. If you approximate, and you put too little, or too much grounds for the amount of water used, you’ll end up with a disappointing cup. I’ll show you later on. in this guide, how coffee flavor is affected by the amount of grounds used.

Ideally, you’ll need a scale to weigh the coffee grounds, and a measuring cup to measure the amount of water. If you don’t have a scale, you could still use a spoon to measure the coffee grounds, but it’s a little trickier, due to the reality that beans have different density, depending of the roast degree, and origin. Darker beans expand more during the roasting process, so you will have less coffee than a light roast, if you measure by volume.

Timer

A timer is good o have but non-essential. You will read online about over-extraction, and how that ruins your coffee. With French press, over-extraction is less of a problem, “because we love the strong aromas of pressed coffee.  There is also a technical reason why Cafetière coffee doesn’t “actually over-extract, if you work with the right temperature. We’ll get to that during the technical details. You can utilize your smart phone’s timer for this, no need for fancy device.

Kettle and Thermometer

So a kettle is a nice kitchen appliance that needs to be in anyone’s kitchen. However, if you are a on a tight budget, any pan on the stove ought to conduct it. But remember, boiling water in a pan on an electric stovetop is not efficient and it will cost you more in the long run.

If you perform decide to invest in a kettle, an electric variable temperature kettle is the perfect. It allows you to control the brewing temperature, so you don’t over-extract your coffee. I know I said Cafetière coffee doesn’t over-extract, but it does, if you insist. It also depends on your taste; some people love a little more bite on their cup.

If you get a variable temperature kettle, you don’t need a thermometer.

Ingredients – Water and Coffee Beans

Always use freshly roasted, quality whole coffee beans. Beans can be stored in the pantry, in an airtight jar for 2-3 weeks. Buy coffee so it lasts you that long.

Water is as important as the coffee beans. There are only two ingredients that go into a caffeinated drink, so it’s important to pay attention to both. Utilize quality water. I am lucky enough to live in a place with best tap water. Nevertheless I have lived in places where tap water was in fact” bad. If that’s your case, work with bottled water or utilize a filter to “troubleshoot your tap water.

How to Use a French Press: Step-by-Step

Dosage your Coffee Beans

I suggest starting with a 1:15 coffee-to-water ratio, and adjust it up or down to your preference. This comes to 35 grams of coffee grounds for 500 ml of water. Coffee people work with metric measurements, so to translate that for you, it will be 35 grams of coffee grounds and 16 oz. of water.

The 35 grams of coffee can be estimated to about 8 leveled tablespoons, if you don’t have a scale.

Light roasted coffee beans are denser, so you will need less tablespoons for the same amount. Darker roasts had more time to expand during roasting. There will be less coffee for the same volume than lighter roasts.

So, if you measure beans, approximate to 7 tablespoons for very lighter roasts, 10 for extremely darker roasts. If you measure ground coffee is trickier because the differences tend to even out.

Grind Your Coffee

While the kettle is on the stove, grind your coffee. French press coffee calls for a coarse, even grind for a clear cup. My personal choice for a stronger and flavorful cup, is medium-coarse. Lots of times I utilize a medium grind, same size as drip.

• If it’s hard to press, that indicates the coffee grind was too fine;
• If the plunger goes down to the bottom of the beaker, it suggests your grind is too coarse.

Keep the plunger perfectly vertical. If you accidentally angle it, coffee grounds will slip through the sides of the screen-filter. Push the plunger down slowly using the weight of your hand and arm for pressure. This way you minimize stirring up the coffee dust.

Now that coffee grounds are separated from your drink, you can pour it in cups and serve it. Ideally, you conduct” not want to let it sit. Coffee gets cold very fast in a glass Press pot.

Troubleshooting and Tweaking French press Coffee

Let me put it this way: Cafetière brewing is really forgiving. Unlike espresso, or pour-over, the expectations are to get a thick, concentrated coffee. If you are making a “no-steep” Cafetière, then that is a little bit more complex, but for a full immersion full time steeping process”, all is relatively “humble.

So if you don’t enjoy the coffee you literally made, you may have still done everything right. You just need to adjust it to your own taste. As I said, Press pot is pretty versatile, as such you can get various “effects just by tweaking the brewing factors.

But, before you start tweaking, it is important to get the basics correct. Follow the steps below in sequence. If the water quality is poor, there is no pint troubleshooting the grind size.

Water Quality

This is covered widely on all coffee brewing guides. Can you ingest the water? If the water aromas” good you can make coffee with it. If you need to buy bottled water for downing, then you ought to use bottled water for generating” coffee.

Coffee Freshness

Coffee is perishable. Coffee doesn’t spoil, and you can still ingest it months from the roasting date, but that is not coffee anymore, it’s just a way to get caffeinated.

As it ages, coffee loses its flavor. Dark roast coffee beans maintain their flavor up to 10 days to 2 weeks. Lighter roasted beans are still good 3 to 4 weeks after roast. Ground coffee loses its flavor way faster than whole coffee beans.

To sum up: the darker the coffee is roasted, the shorter the window of freshness is.

Coffee at the grocery store doesn’t have a roasted date, they have instead an expiration date. Typically, this isn’t a problem, because the big roasting houses have special packaging like nitrogen flushing, or vacuum packing.

I suggest buying from a reputable local roaster, “because you can have perfectly fresh coffee, and you will have the preference of buying a single origin.

Grind Size

The French press brewing process” uses a coarse grind size, coarser than drip coffee. If the grind is too fine, coffee grounds might slip through the filter into your cup. Your coffee will be too strong, and you might have problems plunging in. If the grind is too coarse the coffee could taste weak and sour.

Grind it when you buy it, utilizing the commercial-grade grinder in the store, or ask your local roaster to grind it for you, if you don’t have a good coffee grinder. (The blade mill it’s not good). Ideally, you should own a burr coffee mill” so you can grind it yourself just before brewing.

You might have read the majority of” Cafetière brewing guides recommending grinding very coarse. If you have a decent mill, there in fact” is no need to grind that coarse. If coffee “flavors too strong, literally add less grounds. The main reason for grinding coarsely, is that coffee bits don’t get through. A decent coffee mill offers you an even grind size.

The most significant problem with bad grinders is that they produce dust and boulders. Historically, in order to avoid this, home baristas adjusted their grind to coarse, in order to avoid the dust. With an even grind, you can go as low as American coffee grind size. The coffee grounds will expand when soaked in water, and they won’t pass through the screen.

Sure, my advice to grind finer than you would goes against the advice of fantastic coffee houses. All I am asking is give it a try. If you “love it, please come back and comment about it. If you hate it, come back and complain about it.

Brewing Temperature

The brewing temperature for Cafetière is just off a boil. If you need to measure that with a thermometer, is 195-205 F, (90-96 C).

If you use a lighter roast aim for a brewing temperature close to 205 F. Darker roasted beans are more soluble than lighter ones, so 195 F is more appropriate.

Here is the thing with the brewing temperature, it’s not that critical with a glass Press pot. Over-extraction it’s a thing, I am not denying it. However you get over-extraction when you combine two or more brewing factors wrong. If only the temperature is high, in a glass Cafetière won’t issue that much because glass loses the temperature fast. This suggests it will only brew at a high temperature for a short time.

Brewing Time

As I said, French press coffee maker is versatile. Brew longer and you get very “concentrated coffee, what is mainly expected from a Cafetière. Brew shorter, and you have a brighter cup, with less body. Closer to a American coffee if you want.

If you want a brighter cup, again, not your “normal Cafetière, steep between 2 and 3 minutes.

If you want the traditional Cafetière coffee, steep around 4 minutes. This is the a lot of popular brew time among French press baristas.

If you want a bomb, steep for 6 minutes.

The problem with long steeping times is that the body overwhelms the flavor. So, delicate origin flavors will be masked by the boldness.

Let’s not forget the no-steeping method. That produces the closest brew to a drip. The major differences are that French press uses full immersion, whereas drip literally washes the grounds. Although American coffee can utilize a screen filter, a lot of often we associate drip with a paper filter. The paper filter eliminates all of the oils from the coffee.

Dosage

Getting the dose correct is the last step. The reason it is the last step is that the other steps tend to have more fixed rules. “though there is a recommended dosage,

The dose is a issue of personal preference and as I said, it is dependent on all other brewing parameters. If your grind is very fine, you want to lower the grounds quantity per cup. If your water is too hot for too long, (you are using an insulated coffee press), you will likewise need to lower your dosage.

One thing to remember is that many recipes on the Internet assume you want a rich coffee. As such, they are created to fulfil that expectation. If you are new to Cafetière, you might find coffee from a basic technique too concentrated. Try to lower the dose and see how you enjoy” it that way.

One think to remember is that even though coffee is so bold coming out from a Cafetière, the caffeine content is not too much higher. We may extract mildly more caffeine with a press pot however not by much.

As a reminder, I recommend my 25 grams of coffee for two cups of water. As a comparison, Bodum, the famous coffee maker manufacturer recommends 1 rounded tablespoon for every 4 oz. This a 1:20 ratio, whereas my procedure is a 1:15 ratio. Just to avoid any confusion, I suggest 2 level tablespoons for 4 oz. and Bodum recommends 1 rounded tablespoon for the same 4 oz.