My First French Press

[OLS]

Two things to remember, though, coffee should NEVER be made with boiling water. If you boil water,
let it sit for 5 or so minutes before using it to make coffee. And secondly, if you use hot water from the tap,
make sure you do not have a conventional water heater. If you have that kind of instant heat deal,
that's OK, but drinking hot water from a conventional tank water heater is not good for you.

[replicant_argent]

Originally Posted by OLS

Two things to remember, though, coffee should NEVER be made with boiling water. If you boil water,
let it sit for 5 or so minutes before using it to make coffee. And secondly, if you use hot water from the tap,
make sure you do not have a conventional water heater. If you have that kind of instant heat deal,
that's OK, but drinking hot water from a conventional tank water heater is not good for you.

Could you elaborate on these? Depending on the ambient temp and the container the water is in, 5 minutes could put it below optimal brew temp.

As far as the other.... No real reason that water would be harmful, in my experience. If you were on a well, with untreated water, and you had some high temp biological contamination, that might be an issue, but in general not an issue for 99,999 people out of a 100,000. What are you referring to? Soft water? Not really an issue, as the sodium levels in softened water are so low that for it to impact your health you would need to drink bathtubs of it to affect you. Daily. The sodium, in a softened water system are used in the ionic exchange process in the softener, and the resin bed is flushed of virtually all free NaCl in the final bed rinse.
Curiosity killed the cat, I suppose.

[BlindedByScience]

Originally Posted by OLS

Two things to remember, though, coffee should NEVER be made with boiling water. If you boil water,
let it sit for 5 or so minutes before using it to make coffee.

When I made coffee this morning, like every morning, I wait for the water to just start to boil. I turn the stove off, count to ten, and pour it into the french press. The Specialty Coffee Association of America recommends a temperature of 195-205F for making coffee. My guess is that if you boiled water (~212F +/-) and let it sit for five minutes, you'd be well below their suggested minimum.

Now I'm curious; I'll stick a thermometer in the water tomorrow and find out where I'm at....