The AeroPress is an amazing invention to brew coffee.
It is simple to operate, easy to clean and produces an amazingly clean and sweet cup of coffee.
The brewing process shouldn't take more than 2 minutes to complete. Add another 2 or so minutes to grind the coffee beans and to heat the water you end up with a great cup of coffee in 4 minutes or thereabouts.
Due to it's simplicity and practicality, the AeroPress makes it the perfect companion to the coffee lover at the Office, on a camp trip or if you are travelling.
Without any further delays let's start with what you'll need:
Brewer - AeroPress and filter
Water - 200ml of water at temperature between 90 and 96 degrees Celsius (about 200F) - if you don't have a kettle with a thermometer, you can boil the water and let it sit for about 1 or 2 minutes to cool down a bit.
Coffee - 15 grams of coffee. In this example I'm using our Organic Peruvian Single Origin coffee . You can use the scoop that comes with the AeroPress, which will get you about 16g of coffee in the scoop.
Coffee Grinder - Porlex Mini hand coffee grinder. The grind setting I use on the Porlex Mini is 3. If you use setting 2, you'll end up with a stronger coffee. It all comes down to personal preferences.
The process is pretty straight forward: -
1 - Start by heating up the water.
2 - In the meantime, grind 15g of coffee.
3 - Place the paper filter into the basket and attach the basket to the Brewing Chamber. pour a little bit of water into the chamber to wet the paper filter. This will help with removing the taste of paper when brewing.
4 - Pour the coffee grinds into the brewing chamber. Give it a light tap to the side to make sure the coffee grinds are evenly spread. This is to avoid the water to find a way around the grinds, which would result in a weak coffee.
5 - Once the water is at the right temperature, place the AeroPress sitting on a sturdy cup, such as glass, ceramic, hard plastic or in this case a tin one. You will have to push the plunger against the cup so if you have a paper cup or similar you'll end up with a mess to clean and possibly burns from the hot water.
6 - Pour the 200ml of water, which should fill up the brewing chamber close to level 4 and use the stirrer provided to stir the coffee a couple of turns so that all coffee gets in contact with the water (no clumps). You'll notice that the coffee will start passing through the filter - don't worry, it will stop dripping once you put the plunger in.
7 - Put the plunger in position, but don't push as yet. Wait about 40 seconds to a minute for the coffee to infuse.
8 - Now time to press. Press the plunger drown slowly until all water has gone through. You will hear the sound of the air going through the filter. Stop pressing and carefully remove the AeroPress and place it upside down on the table so it doesn't drip.
Voila. You have now a nice cup of coffee to enjoy.
To clean, remove the basket, and use the plunger to expel the filter and the coffee into the rubbish bin. Rinse in water and let everything dry.
