It might have been a gift from over the holidays that you forgot to touch until now, or maybe you bought it because it was on sale. But then you realized you didn’t know how to use a French Press.
Perhaps a relative got a new one and gave you their old one and you were too polite to say, ‘Clyde, I don’t know how to use this!’, or maybe you’re house sitting and don’t want to break your brother’s strange coffee maker. Or you’re out camping and one of your few options is to be making French Press coffee.
Or maybe you’re a coffee geek like me and wanted to add another tool to your coffee arsenal.
So, how do you use a French Press? The quick and basic answer is just to dump the coffee into the bottom of the press, wait about four minutes and then slowly press the plunger down onto it to filter out the grounds. But curb your enthusiasm–like most other deceptively simple looking sets of instructions, there’s more to it than that!
I know–it’s a far cry from the ‘dump coffee in the top, press a button and you’re done’ drip coffee makers most of us know. The good news is, this one is just as easy as soon as you learn how it works.
The bad news is, if you do it wrong there’s not a lot of margin for error in that French Press coffee maker and you might end up spewing coffee all over the place through the spout and the little gap around the plunger.
So let’s unpack it together.
We’ll take it step by step. From the set up, to the temperature of the water and the amount of steep time you’ll need, to actually operating the press–we’re going to cover it all. By the time we’re finished here, you should at least have an idea of what to do.
Buckle up! Let’s make some coffee.
Why a French Press?
You may be asking yourself, why should I be using this strange contraption? It doesn’t even plug in! Assuming you’re one of those who doesn’t have a French Press through circumstance, let’s go over some of the reasons.
To start, it tastes different. The paper filters in a drip coffee maker strip a lot of the natural oils from your coffee and leave you with a more bland experience. A French Press also preserves the heat of your cup in a way a drip coffee maker couldn’t; even if your coffee pot sits on a burner, it’s making too much coffee for it not to cool while it’s sitting there.
Like we’ve already established, the French Press doesn’t require electricity. I don’t know about you, but I’m always very put out when the power goes out and I can’t have my coffee. As long as you can still boil water, you can still have a nice cup of your caffeinated beverage of choice, and it will be just as good as it would have been if the lights were on.
With a French Press, you are making one or two cups at a time and you have full control over what you want those cups to look like.
If you want a stronger brew, you can have that and not worry about ruining it for everyone else. If you want lighter coffee, there are ways to achieve that, too! Not to mention, you aren’t making a full pot of coffee for just yourself and wasting most of it or ending up with old brewing coffee halfway through the day.
Setting up a French Press
Most French Press coffee makers have six basic components. The pitcher part that the coffee actually goes into is ‘the beaker’, so already you can have fun pretending to be doing mad science while you make breakfast.
The base holds the beaker, and the handle is what you grip it all by so you don’t burn your fingers. Those pieces should grip to one another.
Now, the complicated parts; the filter will usually have several layers to it but don’t freak out if you can’t see them with your eyes.
It’s made to be thin on purpose because the thinner the filter is, the more room in the beaker you have for delicious coffee. The layers are there so you don’t end up with coffee grounds in your cup. The filter should grip to the bottom of the plunger–that’s the stick you see jammed down the middle of the beaker with the dongle on top.
Finally, the lid speaks for itself. It caps the beaker and stops things from getting in. It also stops the coffee from sloshing out while you’re pressing the filter down into it. Well, if you’re doing it right, anyway.
Once you have the lid affixed to the top and the filter sitting inside the beaker, there should be room around the beaker’s spout for coffee to come out. The filter should also be a snug fit inside the beaker; you don’t want coffee bubbling up around it! Instead, it should be passing through it so that the coffee grounds get filtered out.
If one of those things isn’t true, check around for other french press parts because you probably have the wrong pieces. Or check the filter and see if it’s attached to the plunger correctly.
Don’t forget to clean everything! There’s nothing worse than to have old coffee grounds still stuck in the filter the next time you go brew french press coffee again.
Remember, this is something that’s preparing a beverage for you, which means all of these parts might as well be going in your mouth. So especially if this is a new coffeemaker, you’re going to want to get it all out and give it a good scrub down with soap to make sure your coffee is clean, too.
Everything’s in place? Good! Take off that lid and filter, make sure your beaker is nice and empty, and let’s get brewing!
Fill the Beaker, Igor!
You’ll want to spoon an ounce of ground coffee directly into the bottom of your beaker. That’s about two tablespoons.
That should be plenty for most French Press coffee makers, but if you’re using a bigger one my best advice is to check the instructions. An ounce of coffee will make for about 16 fluid ounces of hot water.
Keep in mind that if you want stronger coffee, you can use more grounds.
This isn’t tea; you don’t let it steep longer or it will get gross. There are people that insist four minutes is the correct amount of time, but you have about a minute of wiggle room either way depending on how you personally like your coffee.
I would suggest doing the four minutes for your first time, though, to get an idea of which way you’d want to go if you decided to change your method later. If you really want to geek out, you can keep a journal of how long you let the coffee steep, grind size, type of coffee beans, etc.
You’ll want that water to be between 190 degrees to 212 degrees, depending on the size of your beaker and how much water you’re using. Get that water hot enough that the flavor takes, and pour it directly onto the coffee grounds in the beaker.
If you’re so inclined, you can bloom your coffee by pouring enough water to wet the ground coffee and wait about 30 seconds to 1 minute 30 seconds for the gasses to be released. After that point, you can pour the rest of the water into the french press. Stir it gently until you’re sure the grounds have mixed in with the water.
Next comes the wait. Don’t put the filter back in just yet! Though, if you’re concerned about flies or you just want to, you can put the lid back on without the filter while you wait for your coffee to steep. You want to let it sit for a little bit to make sure those grounds take to the water. Like we talked about earlier, somewhere between 3 to 5 minutes should do.
Finally Time to Press
I’m proud of you for waiting so patiently. Now that you’ve stalled and perhaps your alarm has gone off, you may find there’s a crusty film over the top of your coffee. Gross! Don’t worry about that, though.
If you want stronger, more robust coffee, stir the crust back into it. If not, you can just scoop it out and go about your business. Regardless, the filter is going to take care of anything left in the liquid.
Now, for the moment you’ve been waiting for. Be honest, part of the reason you’re using the French Press is because you want to press that plunger down, right? Yeah, me too! But resist the urge to just slam it down. This, too, has an art to it.
After all, you want to filter out the grounds from the water. Most beakers are clear, so you should be able to see what you are doing, but even if you can’t, don’t panic. Imagine the water coming through the filter; if you press too hard, the coffee grounds might squeeze up around the edges and you won’t have a smooth drink.
Between 15-20 pounds of pressure is ideal. Let the filter push the water up nice and slowly until the coffee is on top of the filter. If you did everything right, this should make two cups. Perfect to share with a friend!
Now go ahead and fix them up with whatever cream and sugar you like (or go black), and enjoy the fruits–beans?–of your labor!
Contemplating over Coffee
This has been a process, hasn’t it? We’ve gotten familiar with the parts of a French Press.
We’ve cleaned it all off, mixed the coffee together and let it steep. We even got to press the button on the top. Ideally, now you’re drinking your nice smooth French Press coffee with a friend–or possibly drinking both cups yourself, you caffeine junkie. Don’t worry, I am too and I’m not judging you.
Now you have the skills necessary to know how to use a French Press, and that’s pretty cool! Not to mention something most coffee drinkers can’t boast about.
Now go forth and make a nice breakfast to go with your perfect French Press coffee.