The Aeropress – A new classic way to brew the perfect coffee

Tuesday night. The kids are in bed and they apparently sleep or, at least, they remain silent... My husband plays music with his band. I usually don’t drink coffee when I’m alone. Don’t ask me why, I don’t know.

Yesterday, we received our last coffee order from Pilot Coffee Roaster and it is patiently waiting on the countertop, fixing me. I hear a weak voice, coming straight from the can: “I was not “amazing” for espresso, but I swear I can do better in Aeropress. Pleazzzzzzz”. This Holiday Blend is one of a kind... Maybe I should give it a second chance?

I consider that you know coffee as much (or as little) as I do. Here are some important notes :

What you need to make a good Aeropress coffee:

Aeropress including the Aeropress body, plunger, filter cap, filter (paper or reusable), stir paddle (or any other flat tool), funnel.

You also need a coffee grinder, fresh coffee, a kettle, water, a scale and a thermometer (depending how thorough you want to be).

If you use a paper filter, you need to wet it with warm water before installing it in the filter cap.

The Aeropress is one of the cheapest ways to brew coffee. Before the crash of the Canadian currency, I paid 30 $ for it. It is now 40 $. A friend of mine suggested that I buy one. I did. It took me a while to find my recipe. I think I got it now. Here is how it goes... It is preferable that you read and understand it before trying. You could waste coffee and time. 

1. Boil water in whatever kettle that you have. Mine, a very old and not so good looking Betty Crocker that just does not die, does boil water in an acceptable way.
2. Pour some hot water in a mug to preheat it.
3. Assemble the Aeropress body with the filter in the filter cap. Put in on the top of your mug (it is not essential, but it warms the equipment).
4. Weight approximately 16.7 g of your coffee on any scale that you trust. I have a Hario that I regret a bit that weigh and time.
5. Adjust your grinder to the desired grind size and grind your coffee. I found that 10 is the best setting for Aeropress on my Baratza Encore. The finest setting is zero (for espresso) and the coarsest is 40 (too big for French press). Adjust according to your grinder. By the way, you need a grinder.
   
6. Weight your coffee again to make sure your grinder is not stealing coffee from you. You want 16.5 g. Remove the excess. Or not.
   
7. Reboil your water and get your kettle near your station. You want a water temperature below around 200°F (93°C).
8. Pour away the water in your mug and dry it.
9. Put the mug on the scale.
10. Put the Aeropress on the mug.
    
11. Put in the ground coffee (with or without the funnel) and tare your scale (without the funnel).
12. Gently pour in 40 g of hot water, simultaneously start the timer and mix 5 times. Wait 25 seconds to let the coffee bloom. This is important.
13. Add water until you reach 250 g and mix one more time. You can pitch your mixing tool in the sink.
14. At this point, you can take the mug off the scale and put the plunger on the press without pressing. This helps to keep the heat in.
15. I found that the exact time is not that important. You cannot ruin a cup of coffee within 15 seconds. Anyway, I normally start pressing after 2:30 minutes and press for approximately 45 seconds.

You will find that these parameters may change according to the type of coffee you have. Tonight, with my Holiday Blend, I found that the grind size was too fine. I had a really hard time pressing. Next time, I may try 11 or 12 on the grinder.

Yet, my coffee tasted amazing. I could really appreciate the plum taste. The Aeropress really brings out the fruity and sweet flavors. I hated this method the first time because I had been told to do it “reverse” but since I follow these steps, I can brew a fantastic coffee in a reasonable time. By the way, if you are a coffee lover, a geek, a fool (people sometimes call me that, and not only because of my coffee habits...), you won’t mind taking the time to get your cup.

Almost all Pilot Coffee are good with this method. My ultimate favorite is the Burnout.

I hope you enjoy. Just giving you some useful links if you want to buy amazingly wonderful coffee and gear. I try to buy Canadian as much as I can so I may not have the "best" deals. 

Coffee: Pilot Coffee Roaster

Aeropress: From Pilot

Best deal I found: http://www.aeropress.ca/product/aeropress/

(My Own Personal) Introduction

Hey, people of the whole world (I can dream, right)!

 

Welcome to my brand new blog. I have been active (strong word) for more than 5 years now. Which is different now, is the fact that I just jumped on the other side... I am going the English way. Not that I have been everywhere I needed with my Toutapropos blog, but I now feel that I need to go... further.

 

This blog will be less personal, I guess, I do not intend to give my opinion about every regional news that I hear, as I used to. I am a native French Canadian so it may happen sometimes that my English sounds (or looks) weird. You can comment me with the right way, or just let it be. Recently, I realized that the world has changed (really, that much of a cliché?) and our way of living, consuming and interacting with the world has evolved and the internet has become a good friend when we need some advice.

 

Mother of two (and wife of one), I don’t plan to share a lot about my family per se, but I may share a thing or two about them once in a while. I love them all, but this blog will be about my passions: cats, coffee, cakes and maybe more. We’ll see.

 

Visually, this blog is not “ready” yet, I will have to take the time to polish it. I will do my best, but I want to focus on the content for now. Over the next weeks, I will share my experience with my “barista” equipment, and my feline home, with reviews and pictures of it.

 

I hope you will enjoy my blog and help me keeping it alive!

 

Note: I take English classes so I promise it can just get better!

 

Enjoy!