French press is unforgiving with dark roasts. The immersion extraction doesn’t lie — if a blend is ashy underneath, you’re going to taste all of it. I ran all four of these blends through the same protocol: 94°C water, Baratza Encore at 22 clicks coarse, 1:15 ratio, four-minute steep with a hard break, and a slow plunge over 45 seconds. I pulled TDS with an Atago PAL-COFFEE refractometer after every brew. Here’s what actually happened.
#1 — Just Black (Medium Roast): 1.38% TDS, Flat-Out the Most Accurate Cup
I expected this one to be boring. It’s BRCC’s most “normal” offering — medium roast, marketed as approachable — and I’d dismissed it for about two years in favor of darker options because I assumed medium roasts needed paper filter clarity to shine. That assumption was wrong, at least here.
At 94°C and 1:15, Just Black pulled a consistent 1.38% TDS across four consecutive brews on two separate mornings, which is almost annoyingly repeatable. The flavor lands exactly where the bag copy says it should: light citrus on the front, a clean walnut finish, no sediment bitterness even when I pushed the steep to 5:30 to test the outer edge. Compared to every other BRCC blend in the French press, this one has the most headroom before it starts tasting like the extraction got away from you.
The non-consensus take here: medium roasts are actually better suited to immersion brewing than most specialty coffee circles will admit. The argument against them is usually that fines from a coarser grind pull too fast on lighter-roasted beans and create sour top notes. That’s true for single-origin Ethiopian naturals at a light roast. It’s not true for a commercial medium like this, where the roast development is uniform enough that the extraction curve stays coherent even with the higher surface area you get at coarse French press grind. I tested this at 19 clicks (slightly finer) and the TDS jumped to 1.51% — perfectly drinkable, actually a bit more body — but the citrus note muddied. Stayed at 22.
#2 — AK-47 Espresso (Medium Roast): 1.44% TDS, Better Here Than It Has Any Right to Be
This one confused me. It’s named for espresso. The bag leans into espresso identity hard. Every sensible piece of brewing advice would push you toward a pressurized extraction for an espresso blend. I brewed it in French press mostly to have a control variable I expected to underperform, and it ended up being my second-ranked cup.
The key is temperature. I brewed it initially at 94°C the way I do everything else and got a cup that had a roasty edge I didn’t love — not quite ash, more like the back of a charred oak plank. Dropped to 88°C, kept everything else identical, and the cup changed substantially. The bitterness pulled back, a chocolate malt character came forward, and the mouthfeel — which is genuinely the best of the four blends in immersion — became the dominant impression. TDS at 88°C settled at 1.44%, slightly higher than Just Black despite being a lower extraction temperature, which tells you how much soluble material this roast carries.
The pitch for AK-47 in French press: if you’re brewing in winter or at any elevation above 7,500 feet where your water doesn’t get past 92°C anyway, this is actually your best option because the temperature reduction is happening whether you want it or not. I tested this at a high-altitude approximation using a kettle that topped out at 91°C, and the cup was cleaner than any brew I’d pulled at 94°C at sea level.
One real problem: the grind matters more here than with any other blend. At 22 clicks on the Encore, I got acceptable results. At 24 clicks — two clicks coarser, barely perceptible difference in the hopper — the TDS dropped to 1.29% and the body disappeared entirely. AK-47 in French press has a narrow grind window. If your grinder drifts or you’re working from a bag that sat open for a week (degassing changes extraction rate noticeably with espresso blends), this blend will punish the inconsistency faster than the others.
#3 — CAF (Extra-Caffeinated, Medium): 1.31% TDS, Works, But You’re Fighting the Roast Level
CAF is BRCC’s 300mg-per-12oz-cup caffeine answer for people who treat coffee as a delivery mechanism. The blend uses a higher proportion of Robusta, which is where most of the caffeine spike comes from, and that Robusta content is exactly why this is third on this list rather than second.
Robusta beans have higher concentrations of chlorogenic acids that express as a specific rubbery bitterness in immersion brewing. In espresso, the pressure and shorter contact time suppress it. In French press with a four-minute steep, it comes through. It’s not offensive — I’ve recommended CAF in French press to people who drink it black for the caffeine effect and don’t care about nuance — but it’s noticeable if you’re paying attention. At 94°C, 1:15, I pulled 1.31% TDS, which is lower than I expected for a medium roast and suggests the Robusta component is holding back extraction slightly compared to pure Arabica at similar roast levels.
The fix I landed on: 96°C water and a 5-minute steep brought TDS to 1.42% and smoothed out some of the roughness. Hotter and longer is not a recommendation I’d make universally for French press — it usually amplifies bitterness — but CAF is an exception because the Robusta needs the extra energy to open up. Still not going to compete with Just Black for flavor complexity, but it’s functional and the caffeine payoff is real if that’s what you’re optimizing for.
#4 — Murdered Out (Extra Dark): 1.47% TDS, Technically Highest Extraction, Practically the Worst Outcome
TDS doesn’t tell you whether the extraction is good, just whether it happened. Murdered Out hit 1.47% consistently, the highest of the four, and produced the least enjoyable cup. This isn’t a bad roast — it works fine as espresso or in an AeroPress with a short 1:10 brew — but French press immersion is a bad fit.
The issue is that extra-dark roasts have degraded cell wall structure, which means fines migrate into your cup at a higher rate during the steep. Even with a careful plunge and a two-minute rest after the break before pressing, I found more sediment in the bottom third of every Murdered Out cup than in any other blend. That sediment keeps extracting while it sits, and if you’re a slow drinker, the last third of your cup from Murdered Out is borderline unpleasant. I tested this deliberately: brewed a French press, poured the top 200ml immediately, then waited 12 minutes and poured the remaining 150ml. The TDS on the second pour was 1.63%, nearly 10% higher than the initial draw.
I tried pre-wetting the grounds for 45 seconds before the full steep to accelerate off-gassing and reduce the fines issue. Marginal improvement at best. The fundamental problem is structural — this roast level is not matched to immersion brewing’s physics, and no technique adjustment fully compensates for it.
The Actual Ranked Verdict
1. Just Black — Most consistent extraction, widest tolerance for variables, best flavor accuracy at 94°C/1:15.
2. AK-47 Espresso — Best mouthfeel of the group, but requires temperature adjustment (88–90°C) and a narrow grind window. High ceiling if you dial it in, frustrating if you don’t.
3. CAF — Functional, benefits from slightly hotter water and longer steep than standard protocol. The caffeine density is real; the flavor complexity is not the selling point.
4. Murdered Out — Highest TDS, lowest practical quality. The extraction numbers are misleading. Drink it fast or don’t brew it in French press.
One last thing worth flagging: BRCC changed the roast profile on Just Black sometime in early 2024 — the bag I used in the initial testing six months ago pulled slightly faster and had more pronounced acidity than the current version. If you brewed Just Black in French press last year and wrote it off, it’s worth another try. The current version is noticeably more forgiving.
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