Brewing with the Aeropress
- equipment
We talked about the Aeropress Championship last week which was mostly about the competition and not much about the actual craft–brewing with the Aeropress.
Let’s talk about it in this post.
Aeropress is my second favourite brewer (V60 stands in the first place) and my constant travel companion.
Repurposing a pic I took while travelling in the Himalayas
This is a versatile brewer that costs around 4k INR. Lot of people make a strong cup and use it like an espresso for milk based drinks. Or make it with a pour over consistency and drink it straight.
It is also very forgiving in my opinion. You don't need your grinds to be perfect, or need any extra equipment like gooseneck kettle or a scale. You can start with just the brewer and that makes it a beginner friendly brewer.
It became so popular a couple of years after it was invented. Soon people started having competition all over the world.
Why was it invented?
Alan Adler, an Aerodynamics Engineer, invented Aeropress to have a quick way to get a nice cup of coffee. Time and a single cup were the priorities back then.
Single cup used to be one of the cons back then. But now we have an XL version of the cup. And also a smaller more compact GO version aimed at travel. I use the original version though.
Let’s get to brewing now
There are essentially two ways one can brew with an Aeropress. Normal way where the chamber, with the filter attached or an inverted way where the piston and chamber are in an upside down position.
The two ways: Normal and Inverted
Let me tell you how I like to brew it.
I like to do it in the inverted fashion. I get more control like this. 12g of ground coffee to start with in the chamber, I put some hot water to fully make the coffee wet. I swirl it and wait for the coffee to bloom for about 30 seconds. Pour the rest of the water to almost fill the chamber. Wait for 2 minutes, put the filter cap and flip the whole Aeropress over a cup and plunge.
Parts of an Aeropress
The whole process takes about 3 minutes. I end up with a nice and consistent cup all times.
If you observe, there are no specific calculations involved here. For the coffee as well, you can use one particular spoon all the time and measure it like one spoon or two spoons.
This is what makes it travel friendly as well. I carry the spoon with which I measure the coffee. I get a kettle at almost all the places I stay.
What about the normal method?
The non inverted, or the unverted method like the reddit folks call it also has it’s own advantage.
Immersion and Percolation are two major categories of coffee brewing. What we saw above with the inverted method is immersion, where the coffee is in contact with the water all the time. In percolation, coffee extracted by flowing through water.
In the normal method, we can use a mix of percolation and immersion.
When you put the chamber with the filter on a cup and pour water over the coffee in it, water flows through and falls into the cup. Then you can keep pouring until desired level and then attach the plunger on top. If you don’t press the plunger, the water stays in the chamber without dripping in the cup, which is immersion mode.
Lots to experiment here right?
Some cons
One majorly discussed con is that you can’t brew more than a cup with this Aeropress. Even though there is Aeropress XL, there are a few hacks to brew a bigger cup two cups with a standard Aeropress as well.
The idea is that you brew a much stronger cup with more coffee, and then you add hot water and dilute the brew to a better intensity. This is called bypassing.
One more con is that the Aeropress is made with plastic. They tell you the plastic is BPA-free though. And it is always better to buy an original one than the knock offs available. There is also one Premium version that comes in glass and metal but that is pricey again.
Let me leave you with some links to dive deep, some recipes, some science etc instead of going on and rambling here. Didn’t realised I wrote these many words.
So, what do you think about the Aeropress? Do you use one already or planning to get one? I am curious to know!
That’s all I have. Have a caffeinated weekend.
See you.
Keep on brewing!