Can You Make Iced Coffee with a French Press? What Coffee Beans Are Best for Iced Coffee? French Press Grind Size

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Some friends asked: "I don't have pour-over equipment at home, only a French press. Can I make iced coffee?" FrontStreet Coffee was initially surprised, but since someone asked, this issue of Barista Development will share our tried-and-tested French press iced coffee recipe after numerous experiments.

Concept

The French press uses an immersion extraction principle. When making hot coffee normally, with the same beans, French press coffee tends to be more balanced and have a richer body compared to pour-over methods. Therefore, we referred to the Japanese iced pour-over method to make French press iced coffee. This involves using a small amount of hot water to steep the coffee, extracting a concentrated hot coffee liquid, then pouring it over ice to dilute and cool it down, creating iced coffee.

Considering the need to add ice to dilute the coffee concentration, it's not suitable to use light-roast coffee with high acidity for making iced coffee. One reason is that dilution will make the taste thin, and another reason is that steeping light-roast coffee with acidity can easily develop undesirable flavors like almonds and peanut skin.

Finally, we decided to use FrontStreet Coffee's Strawberry Sugar coffee beans. Its characteristics include rich floral and fruity notes, with moderate caramel and candied fruit flavors. The aroma is exceptionally fresh, making it very suitable for immersion extraction.

Extraction Method

① Preparation stage: Prepare a French press, electronic scale, glass, hot water, and ice cubes. Use 15g of coffee grounds. To get a more concentrated hot coffee liquid, the ratio of coffee grounds to hot water is 1:8, with water temperature at 94°C. For grind size, since the French press uses a metal filter, we don't recommend adjusting the grind size finer to increase extraction rate. Use a medium-coarse grind (70% pass-through rate on a #20 standard sieve).

② Grind the coffee powder, pour it into the French press, pour in 120g of hot water (and start timing), pouring directly into the center.

③ After 30 seconds, use a stir stick to stir the coffee powder layer to increase extraction rate, forming three layers: coffee liquid, coffee grounds, and coffee foam.

④ Put the French press lid on and wait until 3 minutes. During this time, you can add 105g of ice cubes into the glass.

⑤ After 3 minutes, slowly press down the plunger. Let it rest for 1 minute to allow the coffee grounds to settle.

⑥ At the fourth minute, pick up the French press and pour the coffee liquid into the glass with ice cubes.

This completes a cup of French press iced coffee. Since it's filtered through a metal screen, the surface still maintains good coffee oils. The vanilla notes of the Sherry coffee beans are well-expressed, refreshing yet without losing richness.

Important Notice :

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