How To Brew Perfect French Press Coffee: Two Surprising Methods!

The French press has a reputation for being a bit of a one-trick pony brewer. Only capable of brewing coffees that are strong heavy-bodied and low in acidity. If you like coffees like that then great.

The French press is an awesome option for you. It’s simple and I’ll be walking through how I personally brew coffees with french-press.

However, if you like cleaner tasting blood your body coffee then sticks around. Because I know that can be achieved with this brewer.

The French press is nice because you do not need a gooseneck kettle. A normal spout kettle will work fine. Because you’re pouring all the coffee at once and don’t need that control. And you also do not need paper filters. Thanks to the French presses mesh filter built-in.

Before we get brewing, let’s talk about coffee and water amounts. For the French press, I’d recommend sticking with a 1 to 15 ratio. Meaning one part coffee to 15 parts of water by weight.

If you are not sure of your maximum capacity of your brewer what I’ll usually do is- take it tear it on the coffee scale and pour water to just below the spout.

Remember that it does still have to hold coffee and you want to give it a little bit of room.

So, I like 900. If I was to brew this to its maximum capacity, I would just divide 900 by 15. And that’s the amount of coffee you should use.

For today’s example, I will just be using 30 grams of coffee, 500 grams of water. I like that amount because it brews about two cups. It is enough for me in the morning.

Like, I mentioned earlier in the title, I’ll be walking through two different methods of brewing with the French press.

The first is- your typical way that is simple, quick and requires little to no effort.

The second takes a little bit more time. Requires a little bit more effort. But makes your coffee taste so much better. And it’s still so easy. I’d recommend sticking around for that.

So let’s get started with method number one or I like to call it the lazy weekday. I just want a hot liquid recipe. As always we’ve heated up our water to 195 to 205 degrees Fahrenheit.

And I would highly recommend preheating the French press before you get started.

we want to lose as little heat as possible while this is brewing. So starting with the hot brewer will help us with that like I said I’ll be using 30 grams of coffee.

We’ll be grinding on a medium course setting. We’re looking for something similar to the texture of breadcrumbs.

Once that’s ground, pour out your preheating water, tear your scale, don’t forget a timer and we can get started.

We’re going to be pouring all 500 grams of water at once. Do your best to saturate all the coffee evenly. But we will be stirring this right away so it doesn’t matter a whole lot. Grab a spoon and give it a quick stir.

Now the easy part is set on the top and we wait for four minutes.

During your four minutes, I’d recommend doing something productive; like the dishes or making breakfast.

After four minutes, grab your mug and all we are going to do is- remove your French press from the scale and just plunge.

While you are plunging you can get a sense of how your grind setting was. If it’s way too difficult to press it down. It means you want to find so just make it to your next grind a little bit coarser.

If it was super easy and the plunger just flew down. It means you’re grinding too coarse so go a little bit finer next time.

And that’s it! just pour and enjoy!

Making quality coffee at home could not be easier. It only takes four minutes and requires little effort on your ends.

However, there are a couple of issues that this method leaves. Firs is- quite a heavy body in the coffee which some people like and some may not. Second, it leaves a lot of sludge at the bottom of your cup. What I’m going to say most people do not like.

So, let’s take a look at our second method of what will address both of these issues.

For the second method. First, I’m going to be upgrading the actual French press. This is one made by Espro. And not only does it look nicer but it also has two fine mesh filters on the inside and they do a great job at filtering out all those fine particles that makeup all that sludge and heavy body.

This recipe starts off exactly the same. Preheating our Brewer, Weighing out 30 grams of coffee. However, this time we’re gonna go back to a medium setting and our grinder you do not need to go as coarse for this one.

Dump out your rinse water, and once again we’re going to be pointing all 500 grams of water right away, Give it a stir, and once again let it sit for four minutes with the lid on to help insulate some of that.

While this is sitting, I will say that I did not invent this recipe. The first I’ve heard of it was from James Hoffman. Who was a great coffee professional.

After four minutes, give the coffee a quick stir. For this method, we’re actually going to use two spoons and just use them to skim off the foam that is sitting on the top of your brewer.

Now, the hardest part of this recipe- sill off the French press with the plunger and wait at least another 6 minutes for a total of a 10 minute brew time.

Let’s talk about why this recipe works. You see those two issues from our previous brew.

The heavy body and the sludge. Those come from something called fines. We’ll try these little coffee particles that float around in the French-press and end up in your cup.

Typically those are filtered out with paper filters and other brew methods which is why you don’t have those issues with, say a hario v60.

So, how do we decrease the number of fines that end up in our cup?

First off, we skim the top of this brew. and that’s just going to remove all those fines they’re sitting at the top along with the foam.

Second, comes into play when you actually finish brewing. Once we hit at least 10 minutes, we are not going to plunge. That’s right, you are not going to use a plunger in the French press.

The reason for this is, as this coffee has been sitting for longer and longer, all these fines have gradually been floating down to the bottom of the brewer. And you do not want to disturb the brew or else all those fines will come floating back up.

So, when we go to pour this out in your mug, you’re just going to leave the filter at the top. That’s why you still filter out anything that comes up and you’re just going to pour very slowly so as not disturbed about it.

After hitting the 10 minutes, grab a mug and pour right into it nice and slowly. That is one of the best cups of French-press that you are ever going to have. Happy brewing :)