How To Brew Perfect French Press Coffee - Two Different Methods!

You may think that this is just a basic no frills coffee maker that you find in your grandmother's pantry just waiting to see the light of day .

But today I'm here to show you using not just one but two brew methods that you can make a delicious cup of coffee with the French press .

So let's get brewing .

Good morning coffee .

Friends .

My name is Stephen Holm and I am with home grounds where our mission is to help you brew and enjoy better quality coffee from the comforts of your own home .

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 .

And 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 like this .

However , if you're like me and you like cleaner tasting lighter bodied coffee , then stick around because I know that that can be achieved with this brewer .

If you've seen our other brew tutorial videos , the equipment is fairly the same a brewer scale quality bird grinder kettle and some coffee is all you need .

The French press is nice because you do not need a goose neck kettle .

A normal sprout kettle will work fine because pour in all the coffee at once and don't need that control and you also do not need paper filters .

Thanks to the French press's mesh filter built in .

Before we get brewing .

Let's talk 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 all you usually do is take it , tear it on the scale and pour water to just below the spout .

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

Ok .

So I like 900 .

So 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 g of coffee to 500 g of water .

I like that amount because it brews about two cups enough for me in the morning .

Like I mentioned earlier , 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 .

Well , it requires some effort .

The second takes a little bit more time .

It requires a little bit more effort but makes your coffee taste so much better and it is still so easy .

So 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 hot liquid recipe .

As always , we've heated up our water to 195 to 205 °F .

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 a hot brewer will help us with that .

Like I said , I'll be using 30 g of coffee for this example and we'll be grinding on a medium course setting .

We'll talk about later about how to dial this in .

But you're looking for something similar to the texture of bread crumbs .

Once that's ground , pour out your preheating water , your scale .

Don't forget a timer and we can get started .

We're gonna be pouring all 500 g 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 .

Nobody's perfect .

Grab a spoon and give it a quick stir .

Now , the easy part 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 .

But you can also do what I do and just sit and watch .

So we're coming up on four minutes .

So grab your mug and all we're going to do , 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 went too fine .

So just make it to your next grind a little bit coarser if it was super easy and the plunder just flew down .

It means you're grinding too coarse will go a little bit finer next time .

And that's it just poor and enjoy making quality coffee at home could not be easier .

It only takes four minutes and requires little effort on your end .

However , there are a couple issues that this method leaves first 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 which I'm gonna say most people do not like .

So let's take a look at our second method which will address both of these issues .

So for this second method , first , I'm going to be upgrading the actual French press .

This is one made by bro 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 make up all that sludge and heavy body .

This recipe starts off exactly the same preheating our brewer weighing out 30 g of coffee .

However , this time we're gonna go back to a medium setting on our grinder .

You do not need to go as co for this one , dump out your rinse water and once again , we're going to be pouring all 500 g 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 heat .

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 is a great coffee professional and has his own youtube channel .

So if you'd like to see that recipe , check it out right up here while that's waiting , give your dog a hug .

Hey , after four minutes , give the coffee a quick stir .

And 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 .

And now the hardest part of this recipe , you're going to put this back on here and wait at least another six 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 Rio V 60 .

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

First off , we skimmed the top of this brew and that's just gonna remove all those fines that are 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 the 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 are just going to leave the filter at the top .

So you still filter out anything that comes up and you are just going to pour very slowly , so as not to disturb the bottom .

All right , we've hit 10 minutes .

So I repeat , I am not going to plunge .

I'm gonna grab my mug and I'm just gonna pour right into there .

Nice and slow .

And that is one of the best cups of French breasts that you are ever going to have .

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