French Press Grind Size, Water Temperature, and Steeping Time Parameter Tutorial | Can You Froth Milk with a French Press?

The Origins and Commercialization of French Press

The French press originated in 19th century France. While the exact time of its appearance is unclear, in 1852, Frenchmen Mayer and Delforge established the "Smith" company and applied for a patent on a piston-filter coffee brewing device, naming this product "French Press," which marked the commercialization of the French press.

French Press: Simple yet Convenient Design

Simple means the French press has a simple structure, simple principle, and simple operation. The entire French press consists of a heat-resistant glass container and a metal filter with a plunger. When making coffee, you simply steep coffee grounds and hot water in the glass container, then use the metal filter with the plunger to filter out the coffee grounds, resulting in a relatively clean cup of coffee. The entire manual coffee brewing process involves three steps: adding grounds, adding water, and pressing the plunger.

How to Use a French Press to Brew Coffee

Because the French press mainly extracts coffee through steeping, within a fixed capacity, a certain amount of water uniformly dissolves substances from the coffee grounds. During the extraction process, the main influencing factor is time. The longer the steeping time, the more substances are extracted from the coffee until saturation or a state where extraction becomes difficult is reached. In other words, the longer you steep, the stronger the flavor.

Therefore, first confirm the coffee-to-water ratio. FrontStreet Coffee generally recommends using a coffee-to-water ratio of 1:15 to 1:16. These ratio ranges have higher fault tolerance, and most coffees perform excellently in terms of taste and flavor within this ratio range.

Next is determining the coffee grind size. For French press, FrontStreet Coffee recommends choosing a coarser grind size because the French press uses a metal filter with visible gaps. Choosing a coarser grind helps with better filtration. Different roast levels also require different grind sizes. Using the pass-through rate of a #20 sieve as the standard, medium-light roast coffee beans can be ground finer (72-75% pass-through rate), while medium-dark roast coffee beans can be ground coarser (68-71% pass-through rate).

Then comes water temperature. Because the French press uses steeping extraction, where the coffee grounds and water remain relatively stationary during the process, a higher water temperature is chosen. For the same beans, the French press brewing water temperature should be 2-3°C higher than pour-over. When brewing medium-light roast coffee, it's recommended to use 91-94°C, while for medium-dark roast coffee, 88-91°C is recommended.

Finally, the steeping time. As mentioned above, time is very important for French press. Through multiple brewing comparisons, FrontStreet Coffee believes that most coffee beans taste best when steeped for about 4 minutes according to FrontStreet Coffee's recommended parameters. You can also use these parameters as a blueprint to develop your own preferred brewing parameters.

The operation process is actually very convenient. Taking 15g of coffee grounds as an example: pour the ground coffee into the pot, then add 225-240ml of hot water, pull up the plunger, cover with the lid, and wait for 4 minutes. Then slowly press down the plunger until the metal filter reaches about 1/4 of the pot height, avoiding fine grounds at the bottom from rising to the top.

The Simple French Press Offers More Than Just Basic Coffee Brewing

It can also serve as cupping equipment

The process of making coffee with a French press is very similar to cupping, both using static steeping methods. Many people use French presses to test the quality of coffee beans. The French press brewing method recommended by James Hoffmann, author of "The World Atlas of Coffee," is virtually identical to cupping.

It can also be used for brewing tea

The French press is a simple device that integrates steeping and filtration. It can be used for brewing coffee, and of course, it can also be used for brewing black tea, and it's very convenient to use. If you observe carefully, you'll find that tea brewers sold on the market have a very similar structure to French presses.

It can even froth milk

The French press can also be used to froth milk. If you want cold milk foam, you would need a manual milk frother. In fact, the structure of a manual milk frother is very similar to a French press. Pumping the French press plunger can froth milk just like a milk frother.

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