Pour over guy here but I enjoy just a touch of oils in my extractions so I’ve settled on coffee sock use. Never liked the French Press side of things, but I’ve just learned about FP with paper filters, the Espro paper filter and more interestingly the Caffi bag filter. I’d like to experiment with this. The Caffi filter especially is appealing as the cleanup looks super easy (big change compared to my coffee sock ritual) and I like the idea of cleaning up the murky FP taste with some decent filtering. I’m considering trying an Espro device so I would have the option to try their paper filter too, but that’s less interesting since you still have to clean grounds out of your FP bucket. The Espro devices are pricey though. I’m curious if anyone thinks the finer mesh buckets on the Espro would contribute any cleanup benefit at all if using a paper filter like the Caffi bag? I would assume the much finer filter mechanism of the paper would just trump any plunger filter mechanism. Ok, my next question is what’s going on with insulated FP brewers? Stanley, Yeti, even Espro (they even make a travel mug FP that you just leave the grounds in!!) and many others make these. I don’t mean to be rude, but are FP drinkers just barbarians that think there is no such thing as over-extraction? How in the world can you just leave coffee grounds sitting in contact with your brew for hours as these insulated FP brewers claim? Don’t you need to decant as soon as the brew is complete?
I use an insulated FP because the glass ones would break after a year or so of just standard use. The insulated metal one I’ve had is going on 13 years now. I have only recently had to replace the plunger, as it wore out and was allowing grinds to pass on the side.
How do you know when to stop plunging with the insulated one? I thought you are supposed to stop just before you hit the grounds. Also, why not do just metal instead of insulated? With most insulated do to double wall they don’t recommend dishwasher. With a metal one that’s not insulated you could throw it in the dishwasher.
Stop plunging? When it bottoms out, everything I’ve read says when it bottoms out. The insulated one was on sale, and I can’t remember ever seeing a regular metal french press. I have thrown mine in the dishwasher. I usually just rinse it, or quick hand wash it, but I’ve tossed it in the dishwasher plenty.