An Everyday French Press Recipe
When I decided to “master” the French Press I realised I needed a recipe. I had repeated failures from using the recipe on the bags. I watched many YouTube tutorials and coffee videos in general and learnt that consistency was important. I needed a recipe that I could become proficient with, and apply consistently.
I found a recipe that seemed uncomplicated and practical. I got to grips with ratios, weighing water and grounds, timing and temperature while understanding coffee grind size, roast level and how to optimally extract coffee. All of these things related to consistency.
I’ll cover the recipe here, but also check out my article on Guide to Troubleshooting French Press Coffee for tweaks on all aspects and concepts.
French Press Recipe and Steps:
I used the recipe from Blue Bottle Coffee’s website.
Here are my specific steps based on this recipe:
Boil enough water to warm the French press carafe/beaker and mug, and make the coffee.
Half way through boiling I pour some water into carafe and mug to warm them. Then I put the kettle back to boil up to the maximum temperature while I continue with the next steps.
Calculate the coffee and water in grams for the ratio you want.
a) Before actually brewing this coffee, I would have determined the size of my mug in terms of how much water it can reasonably hold, and that became my set water amount for calculating the coffee dose using the ratio. You should do this with your mug as well.
b) I typically use a ratio of 1:16 then adjust from there as needed.
Grind your coffee if you are using beans, aim for a coarse grind.
Dump out the carafe water and place the French press onto a scale, without the plunger and lid (volume measures are covered later).
Tare (zero) the scale and add the ground coffee.
Set up a timer to 4 minutes and 30 seconds.
Re-boil the kettle if needed i.e. if it has cooled down too much.
Tare the scale again.
Start the timer and pour 50g to 100g of water and stir until the timer runs down from 4 minutes and 30 second to 4 minutes. Simply put, pour 50g to 100g of water and stir, all in the first 30 seconds of the brew.
Stop stirring at the 30 second mark and pour in the remainder of the water (you don’t have to rush but don’t waste time either). Then put the plunger and lid on but do not plunge. Settle the plunger just about the top of the brew.
Additional – If you’re having it with milk, warm the milk in the spare time during the brew if needed else the final coffee will be on the colder side.
At the end of the remaining time, press down on the plunger.
Drop out the water from the mug if it’s still in there.
Pour out the coffee into the warm mug.
This is my optimised approach. I made many mistakes when learning the process for example, forgetting tare the scale, or measuring incorrectly, or pouring too much water in excess of my requirements. It will happen but remember that mistakes are a part of the learning process.
Volume notes:
If you don’t have a scale, volume is a reasonable alternative. You will however still require some volume measuring implements to be consistent. Here’s how you would measure using volume measuring tools:
1 tablespoon of ground coffee is estimated at 5 grams.
1 milliliter of water is 1 gram of water.
You’ll need a tablespoon measure and a measuring jug.
Measure the maximum amount of brewed coffee you want in a cup (adjust to a lower volume of water for milk to be added if needed). Fill the cup up with water to where you want it then pour that water into your measuring jug and mark/remember that volume (in ml).
Figure out the ratio you are aiming for e.g. 1:16
Using the volume of water you’ve measured from your cup and your selected ratio, calculate the weight of coffee (in grams) needed.
Example: for a water measure of 250ml, the coffee required is 250/16 = 15,6 grams of coffee.
Measure 3 x tablespoons (5 grams per tablespoon) of ground coffee. That will be a rough approximation of 15 grams of coffee.
And there you have it, close enough.
This volume method will inherently have inconsistencies, but try your best to standardise your approach. You can still get good coffee out of this by understanding your brewing process and your calculations and repeating it consistently.
Pro tip: keep a notebook handy and take note of the ratios, measures, mistakes and tastes, and also note what you specifically want to change for the next brew. Here is an article that may help you get started with this: Dialling in my French Press Coffee
Becoming proficient with your French Press process is your first step to mastering this type of immersion brewing. Next, you will need to taste your coffee and troubleshoot various aspects based on your preferred taste.