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French Press

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[edit] French Press

Also called Cafétiere

This is one of the most simple methods to brew a good cup of coffee. All you need is a clean (yes, that plunger is supposed to be cleaned after each and every use!) French Press, coarsely ground coffee and not boiling, but hot water (I tried ranges from 90dgc to 96dgc, but I'm sure you can use colder or hotter water; just the results may vary and not every coffee likes every temperature). Boiling water tends to add an unpleasant bitterness to the taste. For choosing a coffee, see the other sites in the Wiki.

Short how-to:

  • Preheat the French press, including the plunger, with hot water and dry it
  • Put about 55g per liter (SCAA Gold Cup standard) to 86g per liter (Nordic Gold Cup standard) water coarsely ground coffee in. I prefer 55g. You might need to alter the grind according to your dosing style (or vice versa - low dose might need a finer grind, high does a coarser grind)
  • Gently pour the water in
  • Stir for a while so that the coffee is all saturated with water (20-30 seconds)
  • Put the plunger on
  • Let it steep for 3 to 5 minutes
  • Slowly and gently press the plunger down
  • Enjoy. But please do it within a few minutes, because the coffee keeps extracting a bit even when the plunger is down - so the longer you wait, the more bitter your coffee will taste.

Sounds simple enough? Well, there are a few pitfalls. You won't believe when I tell you how long it took me to dial in my first grinder to grind coffee suitable for French Press . That was at the start of my ongoing journey into coffee, and it nearly put me off of it (really. It was that frustrating!). So, in the beginning, I'd really recommend to get a small and accurate scale (they sell around ten euros at eBay) and weigh each dose. 55 to 60g per liter - or about 14/15g per 250ml. The second best option is to use a measuring spoon. Most say they hold 7g of coffee. For the ones I measured this was actually surprisingly accurate: in the range of 6.7 to 7.4g. BUT only if I overfilled them and then leveled them off with a finger.

Taste the coffee. If the grind is too fine, the coffee will get over-extracted and thus taste quite bitter and very overwhelming, your mouth may feel muddy from all the fine particles. If the grind is too coarse, you might feel that the coffee is very weak and at the same time feels harsh and unpleasant on the tongue - under-extracted. Some of the weaker grinders produce both signs, indicating that there grind consists of both too fine and too coarse particles.

Sometimes I use another variant of the French Press brew:

  • Same as above but grind quite a bit finer (about filter-fine)
  • Pour the water in and stir
  • Let it steep only for a minute max.
  • Press the plunger down
  • Enjoy!

This gives quite a different taste-profile in the cup, some beans seem to like it more this way, others not. This is actually the method Illy recommends for French Press! Taking into account where they 'come from' (espresso), this makes a lot of sense.

Another method that I observed at Squaremile Coffee, credited by James Hoffman (WBC 2007) as 'the Wendelboe method':

  • Grind coarser, think "Mortar and Pestle"
  • 60-65g/liter
  • Pour in water, let it steep for four minutes.
  • Gently stir the top ('crust'), so that the grounds begin to sink
  • Spoon off the top 1-2cm of grounds and coffee.
  • Plunge
  • Wait a short while for the fines to settle
  • Enjoy!

This method has the potential to yield the cleanest cup you've ever had from a French press, without sacrifice on body or aroma. Especially lovely for more acidic coffees, but the grind needs to be quite consistently coarse. Filtering the grind through a fine meshed kitchen sieve can really enhance the cup profile.

[edit] Links to useful resources

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