AeroPress Coffee Is Superb When I’m Traveling, but I Use Mine Even When I Stay Home

one of my My favorite feature of my favorite coffee brewer is how you can put it in a suitcase or backpack and take it on trips. When you get to where you’re going, whether it’s a Chicago hotel room, a mountaintop campsite, or your mother-in-law’s house, as long as you brought beans and have access to hot water, you’ll have what you need for an excellent cup of joe.

Coffee lovers may already recognize it as the AeroPress, a brewer invented by Alan Adler, the same guy who invented, of all things, the Aerobee flying disc. The AeroPress, which debuted in 2005, looks like a giant, needle-less syringe into which you mix grounds and hot water, stir, wait a bit, then press the plunger to squirt the brewed coffee through a 2.5-inch circular paper filter straight into your mug.

There’s a bit of ritual involved, but it’s quick and efficient compared to the relatively fussy demands of pouring coffee. If your beans are good, you can make café-quality coffee at home.

Unexpected for something created by an inventor, the AeroPress is a tinkerer’s delight, and part of its magic is what you can do with it and how you can do it.

In the Amazing Home Brewing Guide, craft coffeeAuthor Jessica Eastow appreciates its incredible versatility: “There are dozens of AeroPress recipes. Unlike some other appliances, it works well with any number of grind sizes, brewing times, and water temperatures.”

The “dozens” of recipes mentioned when Easto published his book in 2017 now number in the hundreds and perhaps thousands. The Internet is rich with Aeropress fan clubs and experts like James Hoffman to help you get started, then scratch that stupid itch when it comes up.

Play around and you can come up with cups that mimic French presses, automatic brewers, cold brew, and pour-over. With an accessory called a flow control cap, you can even make something that looks like espresso.

I certainly take advantage of this flexibility if I need to adjust the roast style or grind size, yet for all that, most people find a favorite brew method and stick to it.

In Elder’s still-classic method, you place the filter and filter cap on the brewing chamber, set it over a mug, add grounds, set a timer, top up with water, stir, and press the plunger when the time is up. You control the grind size, water temperature and amount, and brewing time, which are key takeaways on the way to great coffee. For example, finer grind size requires less time to brew. Darker roasts usually taste better at lower water temperatures. My current jam is a medium-ground dark roast, cooked in 190 degrees Fahrenheit water for two minutes.

I like what’s called the inverted way, where the barrel sits At the top Use the plunger to brew, and when the time is up, you screw on the cap and filter, invert it onto your mug and press. This requires a certain amount of confidence and expertise given the company will – Aeropress spills are rare but devastating and they don’t recommend overturning – but once you get the hang of it, the method is clean and precise.