![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Strange brew
Nov. 4th, 2019 10:17 amI've settled into a routine with my Aeorpress of late. I've found a grind size, grind amount and brew time that consistently produce a good result with the coffee I usually buy. I was watching one of James Hoffman's videos this morning where he was reviewing a new travel Aeropress, and one of the things he mentioned in his video reminded me again of why the Aeropress is such a popular device.
It's ridiculously flexible.
It struck me that it's pointless to have bought a coffee maker that was designed for experimentation, and then settling into a routine.
Every time I buy coffee from the roaster, I always buy a large bag of their house blend (which is a fairly dark roast) and a smaller bag of something I have not yet tried. I've been keeping notes on our kitchen whiteboard for each new coffee I buy, using little emoticons (😼) to represent my thoughts on each one. As I was thinking on some of those ratings, I considered the possibility that the reason I hadn't liked some of them had less to do with the coffees, and more to do with how I had been brewing them. The brew I've been doing works great for my usual dark roast, but might not work as well with some of the lighter ones.
When I made my second cup of coffee this morning, the grinder was almost empty, so I topped it up with the medium-roast Mexican coffee I bought last week as my test bag. I went out to the kitchen a few minutes ago to make a third cup (three is usually my limit for a day, but I might make another cup after lunch in the name of science), I realized that it would be mostly medium-roast that came through, so I decided to shake things up a bit.
As a baseline, my usual brew is as follows:
For this last cup, I just pulled some values out of thin air to see how it would go:
I set the grind to 15 (about the middle of the espresso range) and ground it for 17 seconds (I upped the grind time to 17 seconds in order to compensate for the finer grind). Since it is a much finer grind, I halved the steep time to 2 minutes. I did everything else the same to act as a control for the experiment.
The result was a very good cup of coffee. I am sure this cup had some of the dark roast mixed in with the Mexican coffee, so I am going to have a rare fourth cup of coffee today in the interests of experimentation. I am going to weigh the coffee and water again under this new grind to validate the ratios, and I might even reduce the brew time to 90 seconds because it is such a fine grind.
Based on the results of the cup I just finished though, I don't think I need to change very much.
It's ridiculously flexible.
It struck me that it's pointless to have bought a coffee maker that was designed for experimentation, and then settling into a routine.
Every time I buy coffee from the roaster, I always buy a large bag of their house blend (which is a fairly dark roast) and a smaller bag of something I have not yet tried. I've been keeping notes on our kitchen whiteboard for each new coffee I buy, using little emoticons (😼) to represent my thoughts on each one. As I was thinking on some of those ratings, I considered the possibility that the reason I hadn't liked some of them had less to do with the coffees, and more to do with how I had been brewing them. The brew I've been doing works great for my usual dark roast, but might not work as well with some of the lighter ones.
When I made my second cup of coffee this morning, the grinder was almost empty, so I topped it up with the medium-roast Mexican coffee I bought last week as my test bag. I went out to the kitchen a few minutes ago to make a third cup (three is usually my limit for a day, but I might make another cup after lunch in the name of science), I realized that it would be mostly medium-roast that came through, so I decided to shake things up a bit.
As a baseline, my usual brew is as follows:
- I set the grind level to 43 on my grinder (toward the coarse end of the percolator range) and grind it for 14.6 seconds. That gives me the right coffee/water ratio for the size of mug I am using.
- I fill a measuring cup with enough water for one mug of coffee and microwave it on high for 2:15.
- I pour enough water into the Aeropress to wet the grounds, stir them to ensure they are all wetted, and allow them to degas for about 24 seconds.
- I top up the Aeropress, affix the plunger to the top (angling it in and then lifting it slightly to create negative pressure) and let it "steep" for 4 minutes
- Finally, I do a 30-second plunge and then top up the mug with the remainder of the hot water.
For this last cup, I just pulled some values out of thin air to see how it would go:
I set the grind to 15 (about the middle of the espresso range) and ground it for 17 seconds (I upped the grind time to 17 seconds in order to compensate for the finer grind). Since it is a much finer grind, I halved the steep time to 2 minutes. I did everything else the same to act as a control for the experiment.
The result was a very good cup of coffee. I am sure this cup had some of the dark roast mixed in with the Mexican coffee, so I am going to have a rare fourth cup of coffee today in the interests of experimentation. I am going to weigh the coffee and water again under this new grind to validate the ratios, and I might even reduce the brew time to 90 seconds because it is such a fine grind.
Based on the results of the cup I just finished though, I don't think I need to change very much.
