This morning I woke up and started my coffee: 1. Heat water in microwave until it boils. 2. Place unspecified quantity of coffee into press. 3. Let stand and go do other things until I remember: ‘hey! I want coffee’. 4. Plunger down! 5. After use, the grounds go in garden. 6. Be sure to rinse and dry the press for the next time. For comparison I have the actual recommended directions for best results below. For coffee, I use whatever I can get, but when I can get to MOM’s (local organic grocery chain) their Dawn Patrol with a coarse grind is hard to beat.
I am certain that following instructions and using a consistent coffee would give me wonderfully the same coffee every morning. With my methods sometimes I go on a morning coffee ‘adventure’ of epic proportions and some mornings I enjoy that perfect, sublime cup of coffee.
Today’s coffee was perfect. I hope your day is starting the same.
The French press, like French toast and French fries may not be ‘French‘. Regardless of national origin, it is a simple method of making coffee, and a typical start to my morning.
Making coffee at home.
I once had coffee made by a coffee ‘cupper’ (who traveled the world buying coffee) at a friend’s house. The cupper measure the coffee to the gram, heated water to an exact preboil temperature, preheated the French press so as not to disrupt the process, timed the process, and didn’t press the grounds but used the screen to filter the grounds as the coffee was gently decanted. My friend was very excited by the prospect of excellent coffee – as I raised the cup to my lips my first thought was: “this is some weak-ass nasty shit”. Perhaps my coffee preferences are why I am a biologist, some people are late-night truckers, and some people are ‘cuppers’.
Instant coffee, 8 May 2021, Cedars of Lebanon State Park, TN – not recommended.
As a biologist, I often have need of coffee in camping situations. I have tried other methods (including just eating espresso beans), and keep coming back to the French press. The GSI French press is wonderfully rugged. As part of field crews in Montana we would abuse a GSI French press by making several batches a morning, not cleaning it, and this crucial piece of equipment just kept going season after season. A GSI French press is my daily home press and gets dragged out on any adventure where I might need coffee. I have found the device to be delightfully rugged. I am certain one day I will deal with a product failure and the crisis that will bring, but for now we are best coffee buddies.
The GSI coffee press and matching 10+ year old mug, Janes Island State Park, MD, 12 September 2021.
The GSI press is made of a miracle plastic that seems impervious to my best efforts to wreck it. The outer coozie keeps your coffee hot, even in snowy weather and cleans up nicely when you cover it with stains from your backcountry cooking exploits. I have found coarse grind coffee to work best, but whatever you can get will work. I also will add powdered baking chocolate or other spices (e.g. nutmeg and cinnamon) into the press to brew with the coffee. A powdered creamer (e.g. Laird Superfood Creamer) can also be thrown into the press with the coffee before you add water. The amount of coffee you put into the press can vary – based on my experience I would say about 100 ml of ground coffee will make a decent press full of coffee – which is enough for two people. The correct temperature for the water is boiling.
coffee = caffeine = productive and happy biologists. The GSI French press is a useful tool to get the caffeine inside you where it can do the most good.
This may seem like an unlikely place for such a thing, but I have had three requests from friends this week for how to make pizza dough. Believe it or not, the way I approach pizza dough fits the blog just fine: basically pizza dough is alive (with fungus!) and your job is to make it happy up until you kill it in the oven.
You will need:
Yeast – I use approximately 5 (or so) mls of breadmachine yeast (I like the convenient jar).
Hot water – approximately 250-300 mls, the temperature should be hot, but not unpleasant – about 45 degrees Celsius (not Kelvin!).
Flour – I like to use a 1:1 mixture of whole wheat and white flour, (300 to 500 mls) sometimes with some corn meal or chia seeds or what ever thrown in (try your favorite herbs).
Olive oil – I do not like to stick!
A mixing bowl – 4 liter size
a clean dish towel can nicely cover your dough while it rises.
Combine hot water and sugar in mixing bowl (use the fork, Luke). Once sugar is dissolved add yeast – walk away for about 10 minutes. When you come back the yeast should have activated and be a brown, frothy scum on the water – it is alive!!
Add enough flour mixture to the water to make a grapefruit size ball of dough (I normally use the fork for this). The trick here is that dough should be somewhat dry, but soft to slightly wet. You can always add water or flour as needed – the dough should feel nice (to the touch). This dough is the new habitat for your yeast and they will like to be someplace warm (on top of the hot water heater, near the fire place) not too hot (we’ll cook them later).
Walk away for 45 minutes or so. When you come back the aerobic metabolism of your yeasts should have 1.5 to doubled the size of your dough by respiring carbon dioxide into your dough.
Pour about 15 mls of olive oil onto pizza pan, coat your hands with this oil. Punch down the dough to original size and transfer from mixing bowl to pizza pan. Knead dough into pizza pan shape.
At this point you can: a) put your favorite toppings and sauce and throw into 425 degree Fahrenheit oven (until cooked 15-20 minutes), b) throw pizza crust into oven for 5-10 minutes to prebake (crispier crust) then top and bake. More dough = thicker crust. When your crust comes out of the oven it will be dead, but delicious.
Variations: changing up flours makes the crust different, milk or beer can be used instead of water, you can use different yeasts. The entire world awaits. This is a fun, non-tedious way to make pizza crust – but Rome wasn’t built in a day: you will have to make a couple bad crusts. Practice, practice, practice – learn to love and respect your yeasts. That said for those of you who can’t afford to lose $1.35 or so you have invested in ingredients here is a boring recipe (but I think they are moving too fast, and the dough won’t be as good – the price you pay for boring).
biologistsoup 