Jan 10, 2022
The French press has been extremely popular for almost a century because it’s easy to use and makes a super rich, full bodied coffee. It’s a very gentle way of extracting flavor from coffee grounds with hot water, so all of our tips revolve around making sure enough coffee solubles get extracted for a sweet and balanced taste.
Here’s our French press brewing guide, along with some tips to make the most of your french press!
We have provided measurements for the most popular French press sizes, the 17 ounce and the 34 ounce.
With our recipe, the 17 ounce French press makes 2 cups of cold brew, and the 34 ounce makes 4 cups of cold brew.
Scale or measuring cup
Spoon
PRE-HEAT THE FRENCH PRESS
Using hot water from your kettle or sink, fill the press to the top to pre-heat, and place plunger inside. This is especially helpful if you have a glass press. Remember to pour water out before continuing!
POUR COFFEE
Pour coffee into press, shake until grounds lay evenly across the bottom.
BLOOM
Set French press on scale and start your timer. Pour 20% of the hot water over the grounds (90 ml or 3 oz for the 17 oz press, 180 ml or 6 oz for the 34 oz press).
During this time, your coffee grounds are going to bubble up and expand - we call this the "bloom time", when some gas (mostly CO2!) starts leaving the coffee grounds. While this gas is leaving, the water can't actually extract much coffee flavor from grounds, so in this order to get a round and well-balanced cup, we wait 45 seconds after that first pour for the gas to leave.
STIR GROUNDS
After 45 seconds, stir the coffee grounds around so that they break up and get saturated.
POUR WATER
Pour the rest of the water in.
PLUNGE
Wait until 5:30, then plunge and drink!
]The coffee will continue to brew if left inside the press, so pour all of it out into mugs or another container if you can.
Did you know that coffee is 98% water? The quality of the water you use to brew your coffee directly affects the taste in your cup! Just running your tap water through a filter like Brita or Pur will affect the taste of your coffee for the better.
Coffee tastes best when ground right before you brew, and burr grinders give you a much more even grind size.
When they’re very different, the water gets less from the big pieces (giving you sour flavors), and too much from the smaller pieces (bitter flavors).
Depending on varietal and where in the world they're grown, beans weigh different amounts, and they're also different sizes. Scooping to measure your coffee recipe becomes less and less reliable. The answer? Weigh your coffee on a gram scale to make sure you have the right recipe.
When hot water hits dry coffee grounds for the first time, those grounds will bubble up and release a bunch of gas (mostly C02). While those gases are leaving, it’s hard for the water to actually pull out coffee flavor. So what to do? We wait! This is called the “bloom time”.