Our Bodum Chambord came in the mail. I must admit, I was not nearly as excited about this as was Cicero, he has a very discriminating palate and much prefers the press pot to any other means of brewing. I too love press pot coffee, but I am very fond of the clean cup a pour over device provides – while the jury is still out with Cicero.
The box alone makes the Chambord look completely awesome. Like the excitable little kids we are we had to just stare at it for a few minutes, soak in the truly serious nature of all this. October 7, 2011 would be a very big day for us. Not only was it the day our Hario v60 came in the mail along with its perfectly fitting filters, but it was the day we got our very first Bodum Chambord – they came in the same box!
Note: we say very first because we know that the Bodum Chambord is a very fragile toy, and while we don’t claim to be the absolute clumsiest guys (and cats) in the world, we do make mistakes from time to time. And if such a mistake happens and we lose our Bodum to gravity we are okay with this, we have already accepted its possibility.
A large part of enjoying a life of home coffee barista madness is accepting that messes will be made, and things will break. Just like Milton Friedman said, “don’t cry over spilled milk.” See, even economists know a thing or two about coffee.
So, in case you break, Mr. Chambord, we understand and have already made our peace with it.
If you haven’t got one already, click here to get the best price: Bodum 8-c. Chambord Coffee Press
Bodum French Press Instructions
On the side of our new French press we found the most rudimentary instructions ever invented. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing; it doesn’t take a complicated French press recipe to be brewing something fabulous. Don’t worry, we’ll show you how.
As is often the case with brewing coffee, the most important factor is the grind. Find a good, freshly roasted whole bean and grind it very coarsely. Once upon a time I knew a girl who always wanted to make us Bodum press coffee, she always used a grind that was way too fine and by the time we had our cups in our hands (or paws) it looked more like some sort of rancid cereal.
That’s no way to make coffee.
- So grind your coffee very coarsely, when Cicero and I use our handy Skerton hand mill we typically keep the grind rotated about two and a half rotations from closed – we’ll probably play with this some, as is our nature, and get back to you with our thoughts on exact grind adjustments for using the French press, but that shall have to wait for another day.
- Boil water. If you followed us on our exploration of the Hario v60 you know we don’t actually want the water to be boiling, we want it between 195 and 205 degrees Fahrenheit. But here at Project Vvlgar we aim for as close to 200 degrees Fahrenheit as we can.
- Put the grounds into the Bodum and pour the hot water on top of it. But Peter, you haven’t even told us the coffee to water ratio? Good point, faithful reader. The coffee to water ratio for our coffee press instructions is one tablespoon of ground coffee for every four ounces of water. As is tradition here at Project Vvlgar we look forward to playing with that and seeing if we like it with more (probably) or less (pretty unlikely) but for now we are brewing our coffee by the standard ratio: one tablespoon coffee to four ounces of water.
- How long do you brew coffee in a French press? Another good question.
- You can adjust the length of time steeping the coffee grounds depending on the fineness of the coffee, essentially the courser the grind is the more time it needs to steep. Here at Project Vvlgar we believe in a very course grind, so we let that guy steep for a total of FIVE minutes. Yes that is longer than the norm. If you grind more to a medium coarseness you can do three minutes, but the courser the grind the less risk of you finding a bunch of coffee grounds in your coffee.
And here at Project Vvlgar, we hate coffee grounds in our cup.
- Now after the grounds have been steeping for a minute, lift the lid off and stir it up, you will see that the body of liquid as billowed up, with the grounds on top. We stir it because we want our grounds inside the water where they can extract, not at the top having a little party, “look at us, we’re coffee grounds, just sitting on top of everything do what we want.” Yeah, that’s no good; we want the coffee grounds to do what WE want. So stir it up.
That’s pretty much the most detailed French press coffee recipe you will ever need. Yeah, that’s how to make French press coffee in a nutshell.
Closing Thoughts
That being said, you should try a cup of it. We sure did. French press coffee is really different from other methods, especially drip coffee or a pour over bar. Because it is a full immersion method it pulls more nuances from the bean than most other methods, which can be kind of surprising to the untrained palate.
Of course Cicero, resident cat here at Project Vvlgar swears by French press coffee. He’s rare to drink coffee any other way.
We like the way it tastes, and we especially love our Bodum Chambord French Press. It’s beautiful.
Then comes the less fun part, which you’ll probably have to join us for, whether you want to or now.
Join us next time for Peter and Cicero Clean the French Press!
Click here to get the best price: Bodum 8-c. Chambord Coffee Press
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