Clara French Press and Shimmy Coffee Sieve
Clara French Press and Shimmy Coffee Sieve

It’s quiet in the house—too quiet. A sudden thunderclap and the whir of your coffee grinder are the only sounds to break the silence. Something’s afoot, but you can’t quite put your finger on it. Then it hits you: your coffee, it’s a bit...off. Who could be responsible for this? Colonel Mustard in the pantry with the stale beans? Miss Scarlet in the kitchen with the wrong water ratio?

Slow down, detective. The culprit this time: inconsistent grind sizes. Turns out when a coffee grinder produces grinds that are too small, these fines can muddy your French press and leave excess silt in your cup. Luckily, Shimmy Coffee Sieve is on the case. In one easy step, this coffee sieve shaker sifts out all particles under 200 microns for better grind consistency, an even extraction, and a better tasting cup.

Mystery: solved. Recipe: delicious.

The Tools

Shimmy Coffee Sieve
Clara French Press
Corvo EKG
Gram scale

The Ingredients

  • 54 grams of your favorite coffee
  • 850 grams of 205°F water

The Recipe

1. Grind the coffee much, much coarser than you would for a pour-over. The consistency should be like finely minced garlic.

2. Preheat your Clara: add a bit of hot water to Clara, swooshing it around to get the majority of the inner chamber nice and warm—even heat makes for even extraction! Dump out the water.

3. Here’s where Shimmy comes in: after you grind your 54 grams of coffee, you’ll want to add it directly to Shimmy before brewing. Take off Shimmy’s top lid and dump your grounds directly into the 200 micron metal filter, reattaching Shimmy’s lid after. Shake up to 1 minute with moderate intensity, like you would shake a cocktail shaker!

Shimmy Coffee Sieve pouring grinds into Clara French Press

4. Pour the water out of Clara, and pour your grounds in directly from Shimmy via its precise pouring lid. Shake Clara to make sure your bed of grounds is flat and even. Shimmy will have filtered out all of the “fines,” or coffee ground smaller and therefore unevenly compared to the majority of your grounds, leaving you with roughly 52 grams of coffee for 850 grams of water. Or, a ratio of 16:1, to be very nerdy about it!

5. Make your pour! Pour up to the ratio aid line, or to 850 g of water. Wait 1 minute.

6. Using the agitation stick, steadily stir the grounds inside your Clara for 10 seconds, making sure to get all grounds soaking in water. Wait 3 more minutes.

7. Put Clara’s lid on, press down evenly and slowly, pour out, and enjoy!

Note: Shimmy cleans easily by removing its lid and metal mesh filter and shaking it out. For deeper cleaning, remove its bottom cap as well, and wipe out with a towel. This is not necessary every time!

Recipe development by Hailie Stevens