French Press Coffee

Note that it’s helpful to use a food scale to measure the water and beans in grams for this recipe.

• In a kettle, heat the water; the target temperature is just a touch over 200°F.
• Fill a French press coffeepot with hot tap water; otherwise, the pot will rob a significant amount of heat from your water when you begin to brew, resulting in underextracted coffee.
• Measure out the beans. You’ll need to experiment a bit with grinding the beans. The rule of thumb is that you want the grind about the coarseness of sea salt. This is where the quality of your grinder comes into play. A high-quality grinder will yield a more uniform grind. A poor grinder will grind most of the coffee properly but will yield too-fine grinds that will overextract during the brewing process as well as overly coarse grinds that will underextract.
• Pour the tap water out of the French press pot. Put the pot on your food scale, add the coffee grounds, and zero out the scale.
• Add 200 grams of 200°F water to the pot and use a spoon to agitate the water-coffee mixture as little as possible while still ensuring all the grounds are fully saturated. Now start a timer. If you’re using fresh beans you’ll see the mixture “bloom.”
• At 0:45 on the timer, use the spoon to break the crust and to deflate the bloom so that all the grinds settle back into the slurry, still agitating them as little as possible. Add the additional 625 grams of water, stir gently, and place the lid on the press.
• At 3:30, gently stir the mixture once more. You’ll see a light brown foamy layer resting on top of the liquid; these are the fines. Scoop most of the fines out with your spoon and discard; you may have to sacrifice a bit of the liquid, but tallyho. At 4:00, replace the lid, press the plunger, and pour. Don’t empty the last bit into your cups; nobody likes the  dregs.