by pstam on Sat Aug 13, 2011 1:45 am A couple of years ago, I started a new way to manage it and found that it was really great if one can use it in my way.
The Tam's way of French Press is this,
1. Clean the French Press, and pour some hot water to make it hot and dry it again
2. Put some coffee ground in it, say 10 grams for a cup, and then pour hot water in it; remember to leave the filter out of the cup, not to cover it in the cup
3. Shake the cup so that the coffee ground is mixed with hot water, not to be kept closely and tightly at the top of water, from time to time; remember now that you can see the crema-like at the top of the water
4. When you see that most coffee ground fall into the bottom of the cup, and the crema-like disappeared, it means that the extraction has been finished well and you can put the filter in the cup and press it to the bottom; since the coffee ground has been fall to the bottom of the cup, you do not expect any force as pressing the filter.
Explanation:
Those coffee ground fall down to the bottom of the cup due to the fact that they had been fully dipped in the water and the effective compounds had been well extracted into the water, so they fall down to the bottom and shows that the extraction should be finished.
Its benefits:
Whatever size the coffee ground, at least in a reasonable range, one do not have to worry about the time. Just wait for the coffee ground falling down to the bottom of cup, then press the filter and finish the extraction. The time of extraction can be automatically fit the grinding size of the coffee ground to the best.
For my poor English, a friend has his own description, as below:
1. Preheat the pot.
2. put about XX grams of ground coffee in the pot
3. evenly and steadily pour about XXX ml XX degrees hot water on the coffee
4. put on the lid to keep the heat in the pot
5. now smaller particles start to sink to the bottom as they absorb the water, but still a large part of the particles float on the surface, the bubbles around the them prevent the extraction process
6. now gently and slowly swirl the pot, or use a wooden spoon in case the pot is full and will easily spill
7. Do not time the extraction period! No matter it is 4min, 5min, or 6min, you won't know when the over-extraction starts until you taste your coffee--but it is already too late! And do you know how many cups of over-extraction or under-extraction coffee you have to make until you find the steeping time that suits? It's such a waste of time and coffee beans!
8. The perfect moment for ending the steeping is when most of the particles start to fall from the surface.
9. So, when you swirl your pot, watch sideways and when you find a large part of coffee particles start to fall you can start push the plunge down. A few larger particles will remain on the surface and smaller particles have already been sitting at the bottom for a little longer than we want. But that's what the press pot flavor is from. As long as most of the particles start to fall, the coffee is generally fully not overly extracted.
10. The plunging process is surprisingly effortless, since there won't be much resistence left on the surface!
Some of the steps in this method originate from the Old West cowboy coffee brewing method.
