What's the Ideal Coffee-to-Water Ratio for French Press? How to Make Iced Coffee with French Press? What Grind Size Should You Use?

To be honest, among all coffee brewing equipment, FrontStreet Coffee's favorite is the French press. Why? Because it's incredibly simple to operate - you can easily brew a delicious cup of coffee without any precise pouring techniques or complex variable controls. It couldn't be more convenient (and it's very affordable, too).

However, FrontStreet Coffee has noticed that most French press tutorials focus on hot coffee brewing, with very few sharing how to make iced coffee. In this hot weather, compared to rich and flavorful hot coffee, FrontStreet Coffee believes everyone would prefer a refreshing, cool glass of iced coffee to beat the heat. So today, FrontStreet Coffee will share how to use a French press to make a rich and delicious iced coffee!

French Press Extraction Method

The French press uses an immersion extraction method! This method has two advantages. First, it has a high tolerance for error. During immersion, when the concentration of coffee and liquid tends to equalize, the release rate of substances from the coffee grounds slows down. So even with extreme parameters, we don't need to worry too much about over-extraction.

Second, it doesn't require any precise pouring techniques. Brewing good coffee is as simple as making tea. We just need to set the parameters, pour water and coffee grounds into the press, let them steep, and when time's up, we can filter out a delicious cup of coffee.

Why We Need High Concentration

If we want to make rich iced coffee with a French press, we first need to brew a pot of high-concentration hot coffee! This is because, like pour-over coffee, French press iced coffee needs to be rapidly cooled with ice cubes. As the ice cubes cool the coffee, they continuously melt, which dilutes the coffee's concentration. If the coffee we brew isn't concentrated enough, after being diluted by the melted ice, it will become bland and thin, tasting like coffee-flavored water. Therefore, we need to brew high-concentration coffee to counteract the dilution effect of the ice cubes.

Adjusting Parameters for High Concentration

Similar to pour-over coffee, if we want to brew high-concentration coffee, we need to adjust our parameters. The coffee-to-water ratio is our main adjustment target. By using less water for extraction, we can increase the coffee's concentration. However, to prevent under-extraction, we also need to increase water temperature, use finer grinds, extend extraction time, or add stirring to improve extraction efficiency.

Practical Brewing Guide

Next, FrontStreet Coffee will share through practical demonstration how to use a French press to make a rich and delicious iced coffee!

Brewing Recipe

If you want to enjoy a sweet and sour iced coffee in the hot summer, FrontStreet Coffee recommends using some medium-light roast coffee beans with deep fermentation processing, such as natural, honey, or anaerobic processed beans. For this sharing, FrontStreet Coffee is using the "Frontsteet Boundary Estate · Sidra" from our bean list. The iced coffee made with it has an explosive juicy flavor, with prominent notes of grape, passion fruit, and apricot!

Extraction Parameters

• Coffee Dose: 15g (adjust according to your French press size)
• Coffee-to-Water Ratio: 1:10
• Grind Size: EK43 setting 9, with 85% retention on a #20 sieve - fine sugar texture
• Water Temperature: 100°C
• Steeping Time: 9 minutes

Steps

① First, pour all the coffee grounds and appropriate amount of hot water into the French press, and stir with any tool for about 10 rotations. Then start timing and wait for four minutes.

② After four minutes, use any tool to press the coffee grounds floating on the surface into the water, then wait again! This waiting time is five minutes.

③ After five minutes, we can place the lid on the French press and push the filter down to the coffee surface.

④ After completing the above steps, take out a glass filled with ice cubes (here FrontStreet Coffee used 120g of ice), then slowly pour the coffee over the ice. The purpose of this is to reduce the amount of fine particles poured out, making the texture less rough.

When most of the coffee has been poured, finally take any tool to stir the coffee, and then you can start enjoying the rich, delicious, refreshing, and heat-relieving iced coffee!

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Important Notice :

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FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473