French Press (Cafetiere)

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[edit] FRENCH PRESS (CAFETIERE)

Preface: Feel free to contribute/change/add or remove things if you feel so. If you have a different opinion, please do add it as I'm sure my method is not the only valid one!

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, coarsly 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 howto:

• Preheat the French Press, including the plunger, with hot water and dry it
• put about 55g per litre (SCAA Gold Cup standard) to 86g per litre (Nordic Gold Cup standard) water coarsly 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 litre - 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 levelled them off with a finger.

Taste the coffee. If the grind is too fine, the coffee will get overextracted 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 - underextracted. 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 plunge down
• enjoy.

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