French Press (large, 1L)

A litre of full-immersion coffee in one go. The most coffee per unit of effort of any method, and the one that suffers most from being left standing.

Roast	Grind	Coffee	Water	Time
light	coarse	14 g	200 ml	5:00
medium	coarse	14 g	200 ml	4:30
dark	coarse	13 g	200 ml	4:00

Per 200 ml cup. Makes 3–8 at a time.

What goes wrong

Leaving the brew in the press after plunging (keeps extracting, harsh and bitter), medium grind at batch size (silt, muddy and over-extracted), plunging fast to the bottom (forces fines through the mesh, gritty)

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 8-cup to your shelf and it keeps track.

Get the app