Learn How to Make Coffee with a French Press

It’s no secret that I am partial when it comes to compare coffee making methods. Cafetière is the fantastic way to prepare your morning coffee, and there is nothing like it, if you ask me. Instead of taking a detour to your local coffee shop, in your way to work, grab a bag of wonderful Arabica whole bean coffee and brew a delicious cup of pressed coffee at home. You can even brew it at work, for a mid-day caffeine dosage.

There is some dispute on which equipment makes the wonderful coffee, and most are rising an eyebrow to the simple French press coffee maker coffee maker”. But, if you know how to utilize a Cafetière, and you know how to adjust the brew and tweak it, you will be rewarded with a great coffee cup.

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

Placing the lid on a Press pot before the steeping

French press Brewing – Art or Scientific research?

The Press pot, also spoken about as a cafetière, is a 19th century French innovation that steeps an incredible “cup of joe. It covers the gap between the convenience of a filter coffee maker and the robust tastes of espresso coffee. Although the Press pot aromas are bolder than drip coffee, and it “gives adequate body, compared to drip, it is not as strong as espresso. This “brews it really appealing for coffee aficionados that value a concentrated coffee, but as bold as the espresso coffee.

Brewing coffee is a recipe that straddles the line between research and art. Manual brewing techniques such as French press coffee maker, more so. Whether you are a coffee enthusiast or a casual consumer, you can tell the difference between a poor cup and an skillfully brewed one. There is no magic involved, you just need to follow the recipe, and the modify it to your taste. Preparing a best coffee boils down to the: having the right tool, using the right process, and understanding how every coffee preparation factor will change your cup.

Cafetière Brewing – Tool and Ingredients

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

  • Press pot
  • Grinding machine
  • Thermometer
  • Timer
  • Scale and measuring cup
  • Kettle
  • Excellent coffee beans
  • Water

If you are concerned about the investment, you could probably do without a few of the items in the list. Press pot is one of the many affordable coffee makers. Nevertheless we’ll get to that in a bit bit.

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

Cafetière

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 implies 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 mill

A grinding machine is necessary equipment for anyone who brews coffee at home. Coffee freshness is required for a fantastic cup. Coffee loses its aroma exponentially, after grinding, due to the truth that there is more surface exposure to the air. So in a excellent world, you buy coffee beans and grind it minutes before brewing it.

If you can’t invest in a grinding machine at the moment, just ask your coffee roaster to grind it extremely coarsely for you. And you need to buy small quantities, due to the reality that once ground, it will go stale faster.

I suggest a burr grinder quite than a blade one. Burr grinders can produce a uniform grind size while a blade grinder 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 bit trickier, due to the truth that beans have different density, depending of the roast extent, and origin. Darker beans expand more during the roasting technique, 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 Cafetière, over-extraction is less of a problem, “because we enjoy the concentrated aromas of pressed coffee.  There is likewise a technical reason why French press coffee maker coffee doesn’t “actually over-extract, if you utilize 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 tool.

Kettle and Thermometer

So a kettle is a nice kitchen appliance that ought to be in anyone’s kitchen. But, 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 stove 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 best. It allows you to control the brewing temperature, so you don’t over-extract your coffee. I find out I said Cafetière coffee doesn’t over-extract, however it does, if you insist. It likewise depends on your taste; some people enjoy 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 work with 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 coffee cup, so it’s important to pay attention to both. Use quality water. I am lucky enough to live in a place with fantastic tap water. However I have lived in places where tap water was in fact” bad. If that’s your case, utilize bottled water or utilize a filter to “troubleshoot your tap water.

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

Boil the Water

Bring enough water to fill the Cafetière to a boil. For a 17-oz press, you’ll need about 12 ounces of water, (1 and a half cups).

For the perfect taste, utilize fresh water that “gives not been boiled before. Water has dissolved gases that make the water taste better. Boiling eliminates the gases and the water will taste “flat“.

Dosage your Coffee Beans

I advise starting with a 1:15 coffee-to-water ratio, and tweak it up or down to your preference. This comes to 35 grams of coffee grounds for 500 ml of water. Coffee people utilize 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.

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

So, if you measure beans, approximate to 7 tablespoons for extremely light roasted beans, 10 for really dark roasts. If you measure ground coffee is trickier due to the truth that the differences tend to even out.

Grind Your Coffee

While the kettle is on the stove, grind your coffee. Cafetière coffee calls for a coarse, even grind for a clear cup. My personal option for a stronger and flavorful cup, is medium-coarse. Most times I work with a medium grind, same size as drip.

Let it Bloom

Place the 50 grams of coffee in the beaker, and then carefully pour some of the water over the grounds. Give it a stir to make sure all the grounds are immersed in the water. This ensures the grounds will saturate with water and will enhance the extraction. Allow the coffee to bloom for about 30 seconds. Work with a wooden stick, to avoid touching the glass with a metal spoon.

Wooden stick stirring in coffee during blooming in a French press beaker

Soaking Time

Pour the rest of the water and gently push the plunger in, just so it touches the water. Don’t plunge completely literally yet. Screw the lid on gently. Let the coffee steep for four minutes.

You can get a slightly stronger brew, by soaking longer. At the other end of the range, there are people who work with the no steep time technique. But the trick with the no steep “recipe, is to utilize a medium grind.

Placing the filter at the water extent before steeping

Filtration

Place the coffee press on the counter and carefully and equally press the filter down.

The ideal pressure is about 15-20 pounds. If you don’t find out how pressing 15 pounds feels like? Press your plunger on your bathroom scale. More than 20 pounds is not necessarily bad, however beyond this point you don’t have control over the plunging, and grounds could easily spill up in the collector chamber.

Press The Plunger Down
  • If it’s hard to press, that means the coffee grind was too fine;
  • If the plunger goes down to the bottom of the beaker, it implies 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 really fast in a glass Press pot.

Troubleshooting and Tweaking French press coffee maker Coffee

Let me put it this way: French press coffee maker brewing is really forgiving. Unlike espresso coffee, or pour-over, the expectations are to get a thick, concentrated coffee. If you are creating a “no-steep” Press pot, then that is a little more complex, nevertheless for a full immersion full time infusion process”, all is relatively “humble.

So if you don’t love the coffee you just brewed, you may have still done everything right. You truly need to adjust it to your own taste. As I said, Cafetière is pretty versatile, as such you can get various “effects basically 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 commonly 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 guzzling, then you must utilize 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, however 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 option of buying a single origin.

Grind Size

The Press pot brewing process” uses a coarse grind size, coarser than filter 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 mill. (The blade coffee grinder it’s not good). Ideally, you needs to own a burr coffee mill” so you can grind it yourself just before brewing.

You might have read the majority of” French press coffee maker brewing guides recommending grinding extremely coarse. If you have a decent coffee grinder, there in fact” is no need to grind that coarse. If coffee “flavors too concentrated, basically add less grounds. The main reason for grinding coarsely, is that coffee bits don’t get through. A decent mill provides you an even grind size.

The biggest 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 wonderful 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 utilize a lighter roast aim for a brewing temperature close to 205 F. Dark 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 French press. Over-extraction it’s a thing, I am not denying it. Nevertheless you get over-extraction when you combine two or more brewing factors wrong. If only the temperature is high, in a glass French press coffee maker won’t matter that much due to the truth that glass loses the temperature fast. This means it will only brew at a high temperature for a short time.

Brewing Time

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

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

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

If you want a bomb, steep for 6 minutes.

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

Let’s not forget the no-steeping technique. That produces the closest brew to a drip. The major differences are that Cafetière uses full immersion, whereas drip basically washes the grounds. Even though drip coffee can use a screen filter, many often we associate drip with a paper filter. The paper filter removes all of the oils from the coffee.

Dose

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 dose,

The dose is a question 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 utilizing an insulated coffee press), you will likewise need to lower your dosage.

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

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

As a reminder, I advise 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. Simply to avoid any confusion, I advise 2 degree tablespoons for 4 oz. and Bodum recommends 1 rounded tablespoon for the same 4 oz.

We thought this post was worth mentioning, all the credit goes to French press Coffee, a website that takes Press pot brewing seriously.

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