# 30 minute steep!



## tribs (Feb 21, 2012)

I made a French Press brew with Square Mile's Kangocho Peaberry. The beans are a little old, but still good.

Anyway, I poured half the brew at 7 mins and left the rest for a little longer. I completely forgot about it and just realised and poured the rest. I checked my timer that was still running and it had just gone 30 mins!









I've just taken a sip expecting it to be terrible, but no, it's delicious. Concentrated, sweet, no bitterness whatsoever, acidity seems to have increased. it's really enjoyable.

I wonder if there comes a point where extraction stops taking place. Is it when the temp drops below a certain point, or at a certain concentration.


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## garydyke1 (Mar 9, 2011)

This is the brewed version of the 50 second ristretto ; )

I must try it sometime


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## RobD (May 2, 2012)

It may just be that the beans are more suited as i am a tad on the forgetful side and have often ended up letting a FP steep for over 10m mins and quite a few of them have been horid, there is a common wooden/bark like taste that overrides all the others. but i will put my hand up and say that i dont have the most refined pallet so its all subjective.


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## MWJB (Feb 28, 2012)

tribs said:
 

> I wonder if there comes a point where extraction stops taking place. Is it when the temp drops below a certain point, or at a certain concentration.


I have heard that extraction is supposed to tail off significantly after the temp drops below 80C, but I think it just slows, rather than stops (the big push with FP is often in the early part, first 30seconds?). I did some measuring on my CCD last week and even after the temp dropped to 80C, there was still stuff going on...as a few whole minutes later I had gone from severely under to "ball park".

In terms of concentration, as you reduce the amount (& therefore to some degree the heat stored) of water, extraction may again slow up. It seems with most extraction processes that the higher the brew ratio (more g of coffee per litre) the less the likelyhood of over extraction. So, my guess is that time itself (purely steeping, as opposed to time spent agitating/washing out) has much less effect on extraction than commonly thought.

EDIT: Oooh, ooh...also recall the Espro guys stating that with their FP, that once the plunger is down their fine mesh basically kills extraction (there's a video where they hand out 25minute old brew), there may be a similar, but lesser effect going on with a regular FP too?


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## tribs (Feb 21, 2012)

MWJB said:


> EDIT: Oooh, ooh...also recall the Espro guys stating that with their FP, that once the plunger is down their fine mesh basically kills extraction (there's a video where they hand out 25minute old brew), there may be a similar, but lesser effect going on with a regular FP too?


That may have been it. The plunge halted extraction to some extent.

I got my Lido today and I tried something with the FP. Using a press grind (2 turns) I brewed SM Kilimanjaro PN 18g in 300ml.

I kept the plunger just below the surface and poured a mouthful every 30 secs to a minute and tasted, moving the plunger just below the surface each time.

Best was at around 10 mins. Fruity but with choc notes and maybe at its sweetest.

I'll try it again tomorrow though because I forgot to bloom









I'm looking forward to try more things now I can produce a consistent grind.


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