French Press

 

French Press

The French Press is a classic simple and very tasty way to prepare and experience a coffee. Something about it says Saturday morning breakfast to the crew at Lou’s.

Our standard coffee to water ratio is 15gm of coffee to 250 gm of water.  

With this recipe we’ll make 1L of coffee, this is a pretty common capacity for a French Press brewer.

There are single serve 250 ml units all the way up to 1.75L (we haven’t found and larger ones, but I imagine they’re out there). Adjust coffee and water proportionately according to amount of coffee desired and/or size of the brewer.

What you’ll need.

Coffee - 60 grams of your favorite Lou’s whole bean coffee.  

Scale – a digital scale works best for us, one that you can tare to 0 weight (most of them do this).

Grinder – burr grinders are best for their consistency of grind. The Barzata Encore is a starter really good home unit.  

French Press brewer – we really like our 1L Espro 32 oz (nominal 1L) stainless steel brewer.

Something to stir with – Spoon, knife, fork, spatula - just needs to fit in the press’s carafe.

Kettle – Perfect world is a variable temperature control kettle with a hold-temp function to maintain water temperature off-boil at 90.5 C to 96 C. We enjoy the output of a 96 C pour with our lighter roasts and stick around 90.5 C with our darker roasts.

Water. Clean drinking water. Water tastes different form place to place all over the world and will affect the taste of what you’re brewing. How aware of that you’ll be depends on your individual taste sensitivity. Filtered or non-filtered, guide yourself accordingly.

Time To Brew

  1. Heat the water to off boil, around 90 C and hold.
  2. Grind 60 gm of the Lou’s beans you’re feelin’ today. Consistency should be a coarse grind – think kosher salt coarse grain.
  3. Remove the plunger from the carafe and set aside.
  4. Add the coffee to the French press carafe.
  5. Pour about half the water over the grounds, stop filling and stir gently and thoroughly.
  6. Add the remaining water.
  7. Replace the plunger just sealing the top. Do not press down yet.
  8. Allow coffee to steep for about 4 minutes.
  9. When the four minutes are up, depress the plunger slowly all the way down.
  10. Serve and enjoy that fine cup of French Press café.