Add Coffee & Heat The Water
Add coarse ground coffee beans to the French press. Separately, heat the water you will need to brew your coffee. How much coffee you should use depends on your personal preference. Typically, one tablespoon/5 grams of coffee grinds for 8 ounces of water is the go-to.
Add water to a kettle and heat to around 195F / 95C. Boiling water at 212F / 100 C can scorch the coffee beans. So its best to use water about a minute off a boil to get the true flavor from the coffee beans. Use freshly drawn water and not previously boiled water. Also using pure filtered water is always best. That is because hard water or mineral water can alter the flavor of coffee beans. Coffee brewed with boiling or hard water will be scorched and will lack the true flavors your coffee beans have to offer.
How To Use A French Press To Make Coffee
This recipe is sized to make 2 cups of coffee. You can easily adjust it to make more or less depending on your needs. Ill explain all of the details of the proper ratio of coffee to water further down on the page.
How To Make Coffee Without A Coffee Maker
Electricity off? No machine at the vacation rental? Brew on.
About 45 percent of Americans own a drip coffee maker, and another 42 percent own a single-cup brewer, with some overlap between the two camps. But what about the java fans who don’t own one, don’t have access to power , or prefer to make their mug in a more classic way?
Enter these four ways to make coffee without a coffee maker. You can use a French press or pour-over coffee maker like this Chemex , of course. However, if you don’t have one and prefer not to invest in new equipment, these ways to make coffee should be doable with items you already have around the house.
Before we get brewing, a few general coffee best practices:
- Know your beans’ birth date. By that, we mean roast date. You’ll score the best homemade coffee using beans that have been roasted within two weeks.
- Use the freshest coffee possible. Buy the beans whole and grind them to your preferred coarseness for the finest flavor.
- Be careful with temp. The ideal temperature for water used to brew coffee is right around 200° Fahrenheit.
You May Like: Caffeine In Starbucks Nespresso Pods
Best Type Of Coffee To Use
When it comes to whole bean coffee or pre-ground coffee, I always prefer whole beans as fresh-ground coffee tastes, well, fresher. My favorite coffee right now is Purity, which makes a delicious cup of coffee that has been tested free of contaminants!
Their roasted coffee beans are top quality, have amazing flavor and dont have that oily texture on them that so many do.
While I like the Purity Original Roast best, they also have a Dark Roast if you enjoy a robust cup of coffee. They even have decaf, but Im not sure why youd want coffee without caffeine.
Tools And Ingredients Needed For French Press Coffee
- French Press Obviously youll need a french press to make this coffee! I use a Bodum Original 12 oz press. This brand is very well liked overall and Ive had this one for a long time. If you treat it well, your french press will last years. This recipe will work perfectly with a larger or smaller press too.
- Filtered Water To make really great tasting coffee, you want to use quality water. I use water that was filtered in a Brita Pitcher to make this coffee. Bottled water will work as well.
- Coffee You will want to start with whole roasted coffee beans and grind them yourself, or use coffee beans that have been pre-ground to a coarse consistency.
Read Also: Best Place To Buy Verismo Pods
Making Vanilla French Press Coffee
Once youve figured out the ins and outs of your French press, you can start playing around with your coffee techniques.
Try grinding your own beans, see if you prefer dark or light roasted beans, and, of course, add flavoring.
For Vanilla French Press Coffee: simply add a little vanilla extract in with the coffee grounds, and then proceed as usual.
Do you use a French press? Let me know in the comments!
Before I say goodbye for the day heres a big THANK YOU! to my momma for letting me run off with her favorite pretty French press pot set. Isnt it adorable!?! Thanks, mom!
Tips For Brewing The Best French Press Coffee
- Experiment with ratios. I give you baseline ratios down below, but *the* perfect cup of coffee is different for everyone! Try yours with an extra tablespoon, or with 1 tablespoon less, and then just take not of your perfect ratio.
- French presses arent meant to last forever. When your coffee isnt as filtered as youd like, its time to replace it. If youre making coffee daily, this is probably once a year. A good French press will come with replacement filters and will last longer.
- The grind is really important! French press coffee needs a coarse grind. I am asked often what the measurement is for pre-ground coffee. Use it if you want, but thats not how youre going to get the best cup of coffee.
Recommended Reading: Bones Coffee Nutrition Facts
Brewing The Perfect Cup Of Coffee
Every man should know how to brew a decent cup of coffee. Its an everyday skill that should be passed down from father to son, like shaving or mowing the lawn. Its a manly ritual providing both utility and comfort. Unfortunately, if you asked most men today for a cup of coffee they would either cast a worried Help me! glance to their wife or crank up the jet engine on their latest $300 instant coffee contraption, capable of grinding, purifying, and outputting unnatural amounts of brown acidic liquid, tasting something akin to lava, but definitely not coffee.
There was a time when I fell into the categories of men listed above, but two things happened that forever changed my relationship with coffee: 1) I joined the military and 2) I moved to the Seattle-Tacoma area.
For those unfamiliar with the military, from the darkest corner of a tent in Afghanistan to the desks of generals sitting at the Pentagon, coffee has always been a staple of military culture. It could be the long hours or un-ending stress, but anywhere you hear a drill instructors piercing scream or an order for an air strike to rain down hell, you can be assured that a decent cup of coffee is nearby. I was inducted into this military/coffee tradition almost as soon as I landed in basic training.
How To Make Lighter Brighter French Press Coffee
Want to get a little fancier with your French press and make what some coffee lovers consider the very best French press coffee? An alternative approach to the brewing method has been popularized by James Hoffmann, former World Barista Champion, cofounder of Square Mile Coffee Roasters in London, and YouTubes top coffee star.
Hoffmanns technique calls for just a few tweaks in order to make a clean, complex, and brighter cup that tastes and feels more like pour-over coffee, with a lighter body and less sediment. Heres how it goes:
Calculate your quantities of water and coffee just as before, but grind the coffee a little finer than for a traditional French press, closer to medium: Youre aiming for something more like cornmeal than kosher salt.
Heat your filtered water to 195° to 205°, then start your timer and pour the entirety of your brewing water into the French press, saturating the grounds completely. Dont cover the pot just let the coffee steep as is for four minutes.
Using a tablespoon or soup spoon, break through the layer of grounds that has formed on the top of the brew, and give the whole slurry a few stirs. Once you do this, youll notice that most of the grounds will sink to the bottom of the carafe, and all that remains on the top of the brew is some foam and maybe a few grounds here and there. Using your spoon, gently scoop out any foam and leftover grounds from the top of the liquid this will ensure that your finished cup isnt gritty at all.
Read Also: Verismo Machine Price
Remove The Lid And Filter
Get started by removing the lid and filter from your French press. If your French press is made of glass, you may want to pre-heat it, to prevent possible cracking or shattering. To do this, pour hot but not boiling water into your French press and let it sit for a few minutes. Pour this water out before adding your coffee grounds.
The Keys To Great French Press Coffee
If you’re new to the French press, you may end up with a slightly bitter or oily batch if you don’t do your homework. Typically, you can find what went wrong by examining to two commonly overlooked factors: water temperature and poorly ground coffee.
Lukewarm water or boiling hot water may fail to extract all the flavor or scorch your grounds. Luckily this fix is a cinch just let your boiling water sit for a minute before brewing.
When it comes to your grounds, it’s critical to grind your own. Typical store-bought coffee grounds are made for a conventional drip coffee machine. French press coffee requires even, coarsely ground beans that are relatively large. Anything too small will slip through the filter and land straight in your cup. Consider a burr grinder to avoid sediment at the bottom of your cup or ask your local coffee shop to grind your beans.
Don’t Miss: Is There Caffeine In Snapple
By Step How To Make French Press Coffee
Step 1: Grind your beans using a Burr grinder set on the coarsest setting. This will allow the beans to steep at a slower rate, and also prevent too much silt in your coffee.
Step 2: Weight out your desired amount of coffee. A good baseline is to start with 50 grams of coffee and 750 grams of water .
Step 3: Add hot, but not boiling, water to your French press on top of the grounds. Some coffee lovers recommend you start with about 1/4 of the amount of water, and give your coffee 1 minute to bloom, before adding in the rest of the water. Whatever you choose, be sure all the coffee grounds are submerged. Give your coffee about 4 minutes to steep.
Step 4: Use the French press filter to slowly press the grounds down to the bottom, leaving the smooth and rich coffee above the filter. Pour into a mug to enjoy, black or with cream and sugar!
Note: Its recommended to pour all coffee out as soon as its ready, rather than leaving coffee in the French press, which will make it continue to steep and result in bitter coffee. If you dont drink a full pot at once, consider brewing half a pot, and then brewing the rest when youre ready for another cup.You can also pour two mugs and reheat the second when ready.
How Does A French Press Coffee Maker Work
A French press makes coffee by immersing ground coffee in hot water and then separating the grounds from the coffee by pressing down the filter. Water should be at about 200ºF to optimize flavor extraction. Any hotter , your coffee will taste burnt. Any cooler, your coffee will be under-extracted, tasting flavorless and watered-down.
Also Check: Mcdonalds Caramel Macchiato Caffeine
How To Clean A French Press
A dirty coffee maker will always produce less then optimal coffee regardless of the type. Most of the French presses in the market are easy to disassemble and clean.
Start by removing the plunger Now, fill the carafe with warm water halfway and swish the water to loosen the coffee grounds that might be stuck.
Hold the mesh straighter over your kitchen sink. Pour the French press contents into it. Dump the strainer containing the coffee grounds into the garbage or better yet put them in your compost.
Next, add some warm water and some dish soap and put your plunger back on. Pump severally to remove the coffee stains and oil Use your bottle brush with some baking soda to scrub the stubborn residues away. Rinse properly and use a dry soft cloth to dry.
If you do not have the time to do all that, you can use the dishwasher, if the French press is dishwasher safe but what fun is their in that?
Pros And Cons Of Using A French Press
A French press extracts more oils and sediment from the ground coffee than any other brewing method, which contributes to its robust flavor and creamy mouthfeel. Whether or not it becomes your preferred method of getting your coffee fix, consider these factors:
Pros
- Can be used to brew loose-leaf tea or cold brew
Cons
- Requires additional equipment
- Have to monitor water temperature, coffee grind size, and brewing time
- Needs to be served immediately to prevent over-extraction
- Potential health concerns
Note: The oily substances in coffee beans, called diterpenes, contain cafestol and kahweol. Since French press filters allow more oils to pass through, higher amounts of cafestol and kaweol get into your coffee compared to other brewing methods that use paper filtration, which is why some people wonder if French press coffee is bad for your health. According to Stefani Sassos, MS, RDN, CDN, Registered Dietitian at the Good Housekeeping Institute, The good news is that the research suggests that it takes five cups per day to show an increase in serum cholesterol and triglycerides. Sassos advice? Save French press coffee for special occasions and consume in moderation.
Don’t Miss: How To Use Flavia Coffee Machine
How To Use A French Press: The Essentials
There are a couple of French press fundamentals that are helpful to know before you brew. Lets go through them quickly.
French press coffee makers work through a process of immersion brewing, or steeping, which means that all of the brewing water and all of the coffee grounds are in contact with each other for most or all of the brew time. This is a very forgiving way to make coffee because it doesnt require much action on your end, but it helps to understand how and why youre doing what youre doing.
Water loves to dissolve things, and coffee has plenty to dissolve: There are thousands of flavor compounds, organic acids, and other dissolvable solids in coffee that are what make it so flavorful. The coffee brewing container is designed to maximize that process by allowing the water and coffee to simply do what they do best: Mix, mingle, and make delicious things happen before your eyes.
Does it look like kosher salt? Thats what you want.
If youre following the first set of instructions below and you find difficulty with depressing your plunger, your coffee grounds are too fine: Youll want them coarser next time. If you meet resistance from the plunger, just pull it back up about a quarter of an inch and resume pushing.
How To Make The Best French Press Coffee At Home: Tutorial
Trying to make the perfect cup of Joe with your coffee brewing device is often a trial-and-error process that takes a certain period of experimenting.
I decided to share how to make the best French press coffee to spare you some time and, overall, make things easier for you.
After you follow this tutorial there may still be room for a slight improvement in your coffee.
After all, each person has their own unique preferences and palates.
Furthermore, depending on the exact type of coffee beans you use and their roast profile, you may want to tweak the recipe a bit.
Nevertheless in this guide, I will share the most essential tips that will help you prepare the best cup of French press coffee youve ever had.
From grind size to coffee-to-water ratio and step-by-step brewing instructions with photos youll find all.
This comprehensive yet simple recipe will let you take advantage of the French press brewing method to the fullest.
Now lets dive in.
Recommended Reading: Is Snapple Caffeine Free
Mistakes People Make When It Comes To Making French Press Coffee
Lets face it: making a decent cup of coffee isnt without its difficulties. And if youre not a master barista, you can make a fantastic cup of coffee at home. Many homebrewers, on the other hand, discover that there is a learning curve that necessitates trial and error. While the French press approach seems to be easy, there are a few simple ways to mess up the final flavor. Weve discovered that at-home coffee brewers often make the following three errors:
- The coffee grind map is one of the most valuable things to know or have on hand whether youre interested in making your own French press coffee at home or some other coffee. The seven different grind sizes, which range from extra coarse to mild to fine, are appropriate for different coffee varieties. A coarse grind with a consistency comparable to kosher salt is ideal for French press coffee.
- Another common blunder is using the incorrect coffee-to-water ratio because some home brewers dont bother to measure out any ingredient. Theyll simply grind as many beans as they think are necessary and fill the French press with water. Youll need a 1:17 ratio for a regular cup and a 1:11 ratio for a smoother brew in a French Press.