Our everyday methods for French press and pour over coffee, plus descriptions of the gear we actually use and why.
The French press is how we start most mornings. It’s simple, forgiving, and makes a rich, full-bodied cup that drip coffee just can’t match. I searched longer than I’d like to admit for an all-stainless french press with absolutely no plastic parts. They used to be nearly impossible to find, but now there are plenty of options available online. We use the 50oz version, which makes four cups at once. We drink two immediately and pour the other two straight into a thermos. It’s best not to leave coffee sitting in the press or it’ll keep extracting and turn bitter. If four cups is more than you need, this 34oz version is the same idea.
We grind our own beans every morning with a hand grinder. We’ve been quite happy with this moderately priced TIMEMORE Chestnut C2S hand grinder. It only holds 25g at a time, so I do two passes to hit the 45g our standard recipe calls for. If hand grinding isn’t your thing, this Cuisinart DBM-8 sat on our counter for years before the hand grinder came along. It’s never let us down.
Water temperature matters more than most people think. We use a dedicated electric kettle. I resisted buying one for years because it was $40. Once we finally did, I couldn’t understand how I’d lived without it. It gets used multiple times a day, sometimes ten or more times on a cold winter day. Before the electric kettle, we preferred to boil water on the stove in a classic whistling kettle like this one that we’ve bought a couple of at our local ACE hardware over the years. Both work. One is just a lot more convenient.
We weigh our coffee rather than scoop it. I honestly don’t understand how people can make coffee without a scale. A good scale makes a real difference in consistency and you don’t need to spend $80 to get one that does the job.
(e.g., 45g medium-coarse ground coffee to 900g water)
These are the ratios and times that work for us. Adjust grind size, steep time, or ratio until it tastes right to you. That’s the whole game.
We keep our beans fresh in a large airtight canister. We have two, actually. The smaller one is a branded canister we picked up from Lucky Goat, our local roaster in Tallahassee. If you’re looking for a standard size that fits a normal 10oz to 1lb bag, this Planetary Design is great. These canisters have an inner lid that adjusts so there’s a minimal amount of air in with your beans, helping to keep them nice and fresh.
Our everyday coffee is Trader Joe’s Breakfast Blend. It’s a great value, consistently good, and honestly hard to beat. When we want to splurge, Patriot Coffee Roasters is our go-to. It can be ordered directly from patriotcraftcoffee.com. It used to be on shelves at Publix. Sadly, that’s no longer the case.
Pour over takes a little more attention than French press but rewards you with a cleaner, brighter cup. The method is more hands-on, you’re pouring in stages rather than walking away, but once you get the rhythm it’s almost meditative.
The key piece of equipment is a gooseneck kettle. The narrow spout gives you control over exactly where the water goes and how fast it flows, which matters a lot with pour over. This Bodum model was our first electric kettle — the one that made me realize how invaluable an electric kettle can be — but its 27oz capacity was a bit limiting, so we ended up getting a bigger kettle (I have yet to find a 1.5 liter gooseneck). We keep this one specifically for pour overs.
We use a Hario V60 pour over system with Hario cone filters. The cone filter is not optional here; the shape is what drives the spiral pour pattern and controls extraction. Same grinder, same scale, same beans as French press. A medium-fine grind size is recommended for pour overs (vs. a medium-coarse grind for French press). This is just one more place where you can fine tune the process for your tastes.
(e.g., 20g medium-fine ground coffee to 300g water — or 25g to 375g)
The spiral pour isn’t just technique for technique’s sake — it saturates the grounds evenly and helps with consistent extraction. Slow and steady is the idea. Experiment with your grind size and pour speed to dial in a cup that suits your taste.
I will often make four cups at once with the pour over. You’re only really limited by how much coffee will fit in the cone. The V60 will easily hold 60g of grinds, with which you’d do 900g of water (four pours of 225g). The number of pours and the amount of time you take to pour are two more levers you can pull to adjust your brew.
If you want to go deeper on pour over technique and hear a detailed explanation of each step of the process, I recommend this video from James Hoffman.
I drink my coffee black. My wife takes hers with half and half and a little cinnamon. Sometimes we’ll splurge on a Chobani creamer when the mood strikes. Their Chocolate Covered Strawberry creamer is genuinely wonderful (since I’m vegan, I can only attest to it smelling divine). From time to time I’ll make her something a little fancier, which is where our rechargeable Maestri House frother comes in. It came highly recommended, is the best we’ve ever owned, and is noticeably more powerful than the battery-powered ones we’ve been through several of. One warning: that power means you need a bigger vessel than you think. It will overflow a small cup without hesitation.