Coffee (First Pass)

Okay, so maybe it's a bit odd to post a "recipe" for something that's so ubiquitous and readily available (at least here in Canada), but I am not really a coffee drinker. I rarely buy coffee. Once in a while I might order a cup to sip after a nice dinner but, as a general rule, I don't drink it. This means that I have basically no knowledge of how to actually make the stuff. I mean, I worked in a coffee shop for years, but that involved pushing a button on the grinder to grind the right amount of beans for the pot, adding water, and then just letting the coffee maker do its thing.

I recently decided that I would like to be able to enjoy the occasional cup of coffee at home. I figured that a French press made the most sense for me. It is pleasingly simple and compact, inexpensive, and works well for small amounts of coffee. But now I need to actually learn how to make coffee in the darn thing!

I know the general procedure for making coffee: grind up roasted coffee beans, add hot water, filter out the grinds, drink coffee! But, when it came time to actually brew a cup, I realized that I was pretty fuzzy on the details: How fine a grind? How much water? How hot? How long should it steep?

There are definite opinions about such things on the Internet. Being that I'm not a "cupper" or even a coffee drinker really, my preferences may end up deviating somewhat from popular opinion. Honestly, I still haven't even had enough coffee experience to work out what my preferences are. For now I'm just going to make a record of what I did for future reference so that it's easier to compare and refine the brewing process on later attempts.

French Press Coffee
Adapted from Batdorf & Bronson Coffee Roasters
3 Tbsp. coarsely ground coffee beans
10 oz. (1 1/4 c.) water

1. Place ground coffee in French press.
2. Bring water to a boil and allow to cool slightly. (Pouring it from the kettle/pot into a measuring cup probably allows for enough cooling.)
3. Pour hot water over coffee grinds.
4. Stir with a wooden (or plastic) implement.
5. Place lid on French press (but do not depress plunger).
6. Allow to steep for four minutes.
7. Depress plunger and serve.

Batdorf recommends using a bit of hot water to the French press to preheat it before adding the grinds. I didn't do that this time, but I may try it next time. I may also try a slightly finer grind next time. I set the grocery store grinder to its coarsest setting for this batch and that appears to be quite coarse indeed! I may also try measuring ingredients by mass and see how that goes. Playing around with different grinds means different packing fractions which means it's gonna be difficult to be consistent about how much coffee I'm actually using unless I'm doing it by mass.

But, there you go! There is my first pass at actually, properly making coffee (and not just pushing buttons on automated machines).