Too Much Coffee

I am just about to order an Aeropress from Steve for the families annual sojourn to Bordeaux. So I wanted to pick a few brains round here as to what coffees work well in this. My faves in the Espresso land have been the COE blend, as well as the Aussie Skyberry as a SO, and the El Salvador San Roberto Cup of Excellence. So the question is, what works well in the Aeropress, realising that it and a 'proper' coffee are two different things.

Cheers

Peter

I hope I would be echoing Steve and others here if I say that in a toned down but very clean way, the Aerobie is simply GIGO. Therefore it's a matter of picking what you like as you will taste what you put together. I find whether I like a bean because I' detecting caramel, sweetness, liquorice etc. it comes across in the Aerobie.

My moods change and sometimes I blend, grind and take to work a quantity of 3 or 4 beans together. At other times just one SO etc. I'm getting to know the coffees as much doing this as I do through the home machine.

I hope that says a bit more than a one liner of "if by proper coffee you mean espresso I don't approach it any differently"

Mine arrived this morning and I spent an interesting few minutes working out how it fitted together.
How I'm going to manage to PID it I just don't know.

Oh c'mon George, that's easy. Put a thermocouple into the water and switch the boiler on and off and on and off and on and off until you're confident that you reach the desired brewing temperature! Not to forget the overshoots and undershoots and of course the temperature loss of the water while pouring into the Aerobie

GeorgeW wrote:Mine arrived this morning and I spent an interesting few minutes working out how it fitted together.

Are you still faint from the expenditure? Have you tried it yet? Please let us know what you decide is the best way for you. So far we have tried one scoop of coffee right to the figure two with water and two scoops with the same water. The former is vac-pot like and the latter nearer espresso. Both are very nice, but the latter is more to my liking.

What is the grind like that you guys are using, more as an espresso grind, or as a FP grind.

Probably on holiday be using an old Salter hand grinder which I was talked into by Monmouth some years ago, bit more portable than the Rocky, but not as consistent. (although to be fair as it is made out of pig-iron, probably almost as heavy)

A level scoop to the same water measure is to my taste. For an equivalent to the jar & spoon I use a dash of milk and also a couple of oz of additional hot water afterwards. I find another scoop takes away from that clean-gritless selling point and less is too weak. But then, I turn espresso into Capp so it depends on what else you drink.

Our grind is near to espresso Fatboy, it is one noth from finest on a non-modded Solis, so it's probably 3 or 4 notches equivalent out from espresso on say an MC2. Most coffee is lovely through the Aerobie we have found. As Paul says, it is cleaner. It has a touch of the vac-pot about it. Steve recommends Yirg in the Aerobie and I must say, we enjoyed it. Nice and light, with a hit of grapefruit. A good summer coffee and very clean. Have a great holiday

GeorgeW wrote:Mine arrived this morning and I spent an interesting few minutes working out how it fitted together.
How I'm going to manage to PID it I just don't know. :roll:

PID the kettle? I think I'm joking but I'm sure someone has done it somewhere...

Cheers,

Hugh

Oh, it's easy enough to do. You need a plug socket connected to the SSR output so you can plug the kettle into it, then have a thermocouple on a flying lead to dunk into the water. In this way, there's no chance of electrocuting yourself . And you can use the PID for other appliances that plug into a wall socket. Encapsulate it all in a plastic project box and you've a general purpose PID widget. A "pidget", if you will.

Oh, sorry, back on thread.... I am using any old coffee in mine, it seems to bring out the best in it. I'd endorse these other suggestions. Steve's CoE tastes pretty good in the Aeropress. I think the main thing is... use fresh stuff.

I tend to grind around what I call a filter grind. But playing with the grind and extraction times is half the fun.

And the San Roberto will work very well in there (as will most coffees), and the yirg as the cake man suggests is very good.

Right then....I'll get on with it.
Up to now I've dropped it twice, made one coffee but with too coarse a grind...and used it to remove a particularly nasty boil (reverse action of course).
We really should have a competition to see how many uses we can come up with.

GeorgeW wrote:Right then....I'll get on with it.
Up to now I've dropped it twice, made one coffee but with too coarse a grind...and used it to remove a particularly nasty boil (reverse action of course).
We really should have a competition to see how many uses we can come up with.

My work colleuges wanted to know if I had tried it as an appendige expander...thankfully not...but if I did do you think I would tell them?????

GeorgeW wrote:We really should have a competition to see how many uses we can come up with.

They are selling haggis in our local Tesco, so this week I shall be mainly using it as a haggis mortar

CakeBoy wrote:

GeorgeW wrote:We really should have a competition to see how many uses we can come up with.

They are selling haggis in our local Tesco, so this week I shall be mainly using it as a haggis mortar

Nothing is sacred to you is it?