Seeking Success with your French Press - A Simple Brewing Guide

1. Boil your water
2. Place some of your boiled water in your French Press for 30 sec before emptying it out
3. Choose the ratio from the table below that best suits your taste
4. Based on the ratio chosen, place that amount of coffee into your warmed French Press
5. Fill with enough hot water to wet the coffee grounds through, stir gently till the coffee is an even colour and wait 15-30 sec (some bubbling should occur)
6. Fill with the remainder of the hot water based on the ratio chosen
7. Stir gently, place the lid on and plunge down to submerge all of the coffee to just below the surface
8. Wait for 3-6 minutes (time this and make a note)
9. Slowly plunge all the way down and pour into your cup
10. Place the remaining coffee into a thermos or thermal carafe for later
11. Enjoy!

Example: If you have a light roast coffee and you wanted to make 1 cup (250ml), then you would use the ratio 1:12.  Boil 300ml of water, use 50ml to warm the French Press and the remainder for your coffee.  With a ratio of 1:12 you would need 21g of coffee and 250ml of hot water.

The Formula: To calculate this for different amounts of coffee just take the total amount of coffee that you're trying to make and divide by the bigger number in the ratio e.g. if you wanted to make 1 Litre of light roast coffee (1000/12=83.3). You can round up or down, just be consistent.

The Science: Intrigued by the bubbles?  If you would like to learn a bit more about the science behind them and what happens when you brew your coffee, read about it here.

Photo by Eiliv Aceron on Unsplash