How to Brew Coffee in a French Press? Instructions and Proportions

How to prepare aromatic coffee in a French Press?

We often fall under the impression that to enjoy café-level coffee at home, we need to invest in an expensive and complicated espresso machine. However, reality looks different. An excellent, aromatic brew can be successfully prepared in your own kitchen using relatively inexpensive and easy-to-use tools. In this article, you will learn how to brew the perfect coffee in a French Press.

This material was created in collaboration with the coffee roastery Daily Roast

What do you need for brewing in a French Press?

A great advantage of brewing in a French Press is that you don't need an entire laboratory setup to achieve a masterful effect. Your "workstation" will fit on a small piece of your kitchen counter. Here are five key elements that guarantee success:

French Press – the heart of the whole process. It's important to have a tightly sealed filter and a sturdy jug.
Kitchen Scale – precision is the key to consistency. With a scale, you'll stop brewing coffee "by eye" and achieve the same perfect flavor balance every time.
Kettle – unlike other alternative methods, you don't need a specialized "watering can" with a contoured spout here. Your home electric kettle or gas one will work perfectly.
Coffee (beans are essential) – there's no room for compromise here. Choose freshly roasted and properly ground beans. For French Press, the coffee should resemble the thickness of sea salt crystals – grinding too finely will make the drink bitter and cloudy. If you don't have a burr grinder, you can order properly ground coffee from a local roastery. Supermarket ground coffee is usually too fine for a French Press.
Water – an ingredient often forgotten but constitutes 98% of your drink. Use filtered or spring water. Hard tap water can kill the delicate flavor notes of even the best beans.

French Press Ratios: How Much Coffee for Two Cups?

The coffee to water ratio should be 6g of coffee per 100g of water. For making two cups of coffee, this means 30g of coffee and 500g of water. If you are using a different size jug, adjust the values accordingly.

Measuring Coffee: Place an empty container or grinder on a kitchen scale and tare it. Pour in coffee until the scale shows the correct value (in our case 30g of coffee). Add the ground coffee to the French Press.
Prepare Water: Boil water and wait about a minute. The water should be around 95°C - water that is too hot kills the natural sweetness in coffee.
Pouring Over Scale: Place the French Press with the added coffee on the scale and reset it again. This is your best volume counter – remember that 1 g of water is exactly 1 ml. Begin pouring hot water, watching the scale display until reaching the target value (500 g).
Stirring: Stir the contents so that all coffee particles contact the water. This is crucial for even brewing.
Time for Patience: Place the lid on (but do not press the plunger yet!), to maintain the temperature. Set the timer for 4 minutes.
Pressing the Plunger: When the time is up, slowly and steadily press the plunger. Do not use too much force.
Serving: Pour the coffee into cups immediately after brewing. If you leave the coffee in the jug with the grounds, it will continue to brew and become more bitter with each passing minute.

Your coffee is now ready. Remember, you have control over its taste – if you prefer less bitterness, you can slightly reduce the brewing time. If you prefer a stronger flavor, you can extend it a bit.