My name is Mike Jones, and I'm a barista at
Third Rail Coffee right by Washington Square
Park in New York City.
I'm going to teach you some basic coffee-making
skills.
I'm going to show you how to make a French
press.
First there's a few things you're going to
need.
You're going to need some fresh coffee, preferably
whole bean in which case you'll also need
a grinder.
You'll need a timer and then you'll also need
the French press.
So the first thing you're going to do is weigh
out the beans.
I like to use 25 grams of coffee for this
size French press.
Now if you don't have a scale, you can also
just do three rounded scoops.
So you can go ahead and grind this coffee.
So this is ground medium coarse.
You can play around with the grind setting
after making it a couple of times.
If it's tasting too bitter and too strong,
you might be using a little bit too fine of
a grind.
And if it's a little bit watery and weak,
then it might be too coarse.
So you take the French press, and you're going
to want to preheat it.
You can either take water off a boil, have
a nice water tower here.
Then you let that sit for a while so it gets
up to heat.
Alright, so after the French press is preheated,
you want to dry it out then add the grounds.
Now again, I definitely recommend getting
a scale, it just makes brewing coffee easier.
But if you don't have one, you just want to
use about 12 and a half ounces of water for
this size.
So I'm going to go ahead and add the water
to the French press.
The first amount I'm going to add is just
enough to soak the grounds at the bottom of
the press.
So adding that in... so just that much water
there.
And then just stir it around to incorporate
all the grounds with the water and start the
timer.
And you actually just let that sit there for
30 seconds.
I would also recommend covering it when you're
not doing anything to keep the heat intact.
Alright, after 30 seconds you're going to
add the rest of the water.
Now this is either 12 and a half ounces or
400 grams of water.
Once you've added all of that, just give it
another gentle stir.
And you put the plunger on and then you're
going to let that sit until 3 and a half minutes.
So after 3 and a half minutes you're going
to press the plunger down.
And this is another way you can tell if you've
ground too coarse or too fine.
If it goes without any resistance, it's going
to be too coarse.
And then if you have a really difficult time
pressing down it's going to be too fine.
Then I recommend decanting the French press
before serving, because if you leave it sitting
there it will actually keep extracting and
end up tasting bitter.
So once you've done that, you can just let
it cool down and it's ready to serve.
