Bodum Chambord (glass press)

The archetypal glass French press - borosilicate beaker, chrome frame, mesh plunger. Beautiful, replaceable, and thermally hopeless without a preheat.

Roast	Grind	Coffee	Water	Time
light	coarse	14 g	200 ml	4:30
medium	coarse	14 g	200 ml	4:10
dark	coarse	13 g	200 ml	3:50

Per 200 ml cup. Makes 2–8 at a time.

What goes wrong

Brewing in a cold glass beaker (temperature drop through the steep, sour), leaving old coffee oils in the mesh assembly (rancid taste in every subsequent brew), plunging at an angle or against a chip in the glass (cracks the beaker)

Care schedule

1 task for this machine.

Deep-clean the press

Monthly

The plunger is three or four separate discs that trap grounds and oil between them. Rinsing the beaker does nothing about that, and the trapped oil is what makes an old press taste rancid.

What you need

Washing-up liquid, or a scoop of oxygenated cleaner for a soak. A bottle brush. A tea towel.

What goes wrong

Rinsing the beaker and never taking the plunger apart. Reassembling wet. Forcing a distorted mesh back into service and blaming the grinder for the sediment. Putting an insulated steel press through a dishwasher.

The procedure

Unscrew the plunger knob and take the assembly apart. The cross plate, the mesh screen and the spiral plate all come off as separate pieces.

5 more steps

The full procedure is in the app, along with a reminder when this is next due. Add the Chambord French Press to your shelf and it keeps track.

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