In praise of the Aeropress

[Sakkarin Profile]

Not quite what I meant, Kavey - I'm only going to be using whole beans, so I wanted to know which of Pete's list were tested as beans rather than ready ground - I picked out in green on the list the ones I presumed from his reviews were beans. It would be useful if he could check my list, and let me know if I missed any, or if any of the ones I marked as beans were pre-ground, not beans.

It's not till you make a list that you realise what an undertaking that review section must have been! Or bean.

EDIT: Two new words added to my vocabulary today - germane and melisma.

[kavey Profile Website]

He says grind depends on where he's getting it from. Enlighted producers will sell an aeropress grind. In supermarkets, most ground coffee is usually suitable for a cafetiere, whereas aeropress best suits halfway between cafetiere grind and espresso grind. If you're buying from a place that grinds to order, you can request a grind half way between those. It's better to avoid espresso ground as it's a bit too fine, but it'll work at a push if you end up with some.

[Stokey Sue Profile]

I don't necessarily think it is purist - I never took sugar in drinks (in fact I don't like sweet drinks much generally) and I hate the smell of milk, so I'm not going to add it my beverages

But I think it makes a difference to the perception of the flavour, milk seems to remove or modify certain flavour notes from coffee that I don't like but which are dominant in blends favoured for cappuccinos and lattes - notably a sort of charred note

There's also a flavour note that is often in blends described as fruity but which to me smells like the soaking liquid from dried pulses, rather unpleasant to my taste

When I have proper espresso I don't really like illy, which IMO is over roasted, but prefer Lavazza or Segafreddo - but I believe illy actually is the most popular espresso blend, so my taste must be a little different to a lot of coffee drinkers even without confounding factors like milk and sugar

[Joanbunting Profile]

Son had a Nespresso machine from us all for his birthday - I want one

I prefer Lavasso coffee too Sue

[Pampy Profile]

I prefer Lavazza for espresso. For many years, I've had a fabulous Gaggia espresso maker (a mini version of the ones found in restaurants) but have recently treated myself to a Dolce Gusto pod machine. It's not quite as good as the Gaggia but FAR less faff so I think I'll be looking for a new home for the Gaggia (boo-hoo!).

[kavey Profile Website]

I don't necessarily think it is purist - I never took sugar in drinks (in fact I don't like sweet drinks much generally) and I hate the smell of milk, so I'm not going to add it my beverages

I'm not suggesting the only reason to drink coffee black is that one is a purist. I'm saying that most who review coffee seem to believe that adding milk and/ or sugar is not a correct way to drink or assess. One is a subset of the other, that's not true the other way around.

But I think it makes a difference to the perception of the flavour, milk seems to remove or modify certain flavour notes from coffee that I don't like but which are dominant in blends favoured for cappuccinos and lattes - notably a sort of charred note

Definitely milk will impact the flavour, which is why Pete feels it makes more sense to review the coffee in a consistent way, but as he really drinks it. That's the flavour profile he's interested in - coffee with milk added.

[Stokey Sue Profile]

I got one of the little digital scales

Excellent


Sakkarin, if you use 8g coffee, what volume of water please?

[kavey Profile Website]

Sue, Pete bought one of those, seems they're mostly purchased by, ahem, drug dealers! He bought it for his hops weighing when making beer, as they are soooo light. He searched Amazon for "drug scale" or such!!!

[Sakkarin Profile]

I'm using 12g of coffee BEANS to every mug (250ml). That is very slightly under a full Aeropress scoop, so I use that now that I've done the measurement. Love those little scales! Made a perfect cheese sauce yesterday for cauliflower cheese, using EXACTLY 1 oz of butter and 1 oz of flour, it's great to know they're absolutely spot on.

[Stokey Sue Profile]

Sue, Pete bought one of those, seems they're mostly purchased by, ahem, drug dealers! He bought it for his hops weighing when making beer, as they are soooo light. He searched Amazon for "drug scale" or such!!!

After years in labs kitchen scales are sometimes a bit frustrating to me, today I have weighed out some stock powder, as the instructions said 1 heaped tsp or 8g to 500 ml; it turns out that a level measuring tsp is 4g so now I know, one level tsp to 250 ml or one cup
Also intend to use it for spices etc.

I'm using 12g of coffee BEANS to every mug (250ml). That is very slightly under a full Aeropress scoop, so I use that now that I've done the measurement. Love those little scales! Made a perfect cheese sauce yesterday for cauliflower cheese, using EXACTLY 1 oz of butter and 1 oz of flour, it's great to know they're absolutely spot on.

Thanks
That's about what I'm using too but will play around

[Joanbunting Profile]

I have a set of digital scales which appear very accurate (€9.50 from Lidl). M bought them when he started selling on e-bay again.

As I am a bit of a throw it all in sort of cook who is quite good at estimation I don't often bother except when it trully has to be accurate.

[Sakkarin Profile]

The standard digital scales are fine if you have larger quantities to deal with, the beauty of the mini scales is that they are graduated down to a fraction of a gram, for small amounts, where the normal scales are just too crude. However with the mini scales, I have been able to "calibrate" my BIG digital scales, and now know that they always jump straight to the next gram, i.e at 9.1g they jump to 10g... if that makes sense. I've also been able to compare all my teaspoon measures (I've got about 10), there is a surprising amount of difference between them.

In practice, the scales were for measuring coffee beans. Now that I've done the measurement, I don't need scales, as I do it visually using the scoop. I've measured a few times to check, but my eyes seem very accurate!

It doesn't rule out creative flair, it just gives you a more accurate starting point for first-time dishes. For instance I've had no meals this week which have slavishly followed a recipe, but first time round when I'm trying a new recipe I will always do exactly what it says, and at that point to me accuracy of measurement is vital.

[Sakkarin Profile]

Guardian article has the Aeropress as it's top gadget of the year.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2 ... -your-life

However I won't be going for the second one on the list, a £4,200 camera...

[Sakkarin Profile]

Follow up to previous coffee post, it's been a while, but I can only drink so much coffee!

I tried the Waitrose "Sumatra Mandhelding" beans, and they are pretty good, I'll give them a four.

All the ones I had tried so far were freshly ground beans, but I found a small pack of pre-ground coffee I had forgotten about, which was Taylors "Hot Lava Java". It had definitely lost a level of flavour by being pre-ground, I will only give it a 3, but as I said, all the others have been freshly ground. In fact I've thrown the rest out it was so disappointing

As a reminder of the old days, and feeling lazy, I thought I'd have a cup of Nescafe "Black Gold" instant, the stronger version of Gold Blend. It was surprisingly good, but like the Taylors was missing something, although it is for me by far the best instant. I'd give it equal placing with the Taylors, a 3.

Finally, after having come to the conclusion that ALL freshly ground beans are so good they would score up in the 4's, I tried Lavazza "Expresso" beans. I'm afraid they didn't do it for me, I'm only giving them a 3.5, although still better than pre-ground and instant.

It's clear to me that it's all entirely a matter of taste. I find that I prefer the "medium-strong" beans (4-5), the very dark beans (Percol, 6 on the strength scale) are slightly too strong for me (although still great), and at the bottom end of the strength scale(below 3) they are too bland.

I will carry on trying any new beans I see, but at the moment the Tesco Sumatran are my favourite.

[hungryhousewife Profile]

Ive been dying to know about aeropress coffee. I've heard about it from various blogs etc, and I gather it is a great way to make a good cup of coffee. I would love to know why, when people go into a coffee shop, they might choose to have an aeropress, a pour over or a coffee from an espresso machine? I'd love to know the real difference.

I take my coffee black and without sugar. We recently had to lay to rest our old Gaggia espresso machine, and have replaced it with another - very simple and makes excellent coffee. When we have lots of people I tend to use a caffetier or a jug!

My favourite coffee is Lavazza Qualita Rossa - It just does it every time for me!

[Sakkarin Profile]

I am away for a few days, but I will be getting some more of those Tesco Sumatran beans, so when I get back I'll do some direct comparisons, firstly with cafetiere/Aeropress side by side. Oh dear, with the cafetiere there will be coffee grounds to get rid of, it's been so easy with the Aeropress's handy little puck, almost completely trouble and mess-free.

[Sakkarin Profile]

This cheeky sod suggests REUSING Aeropress filters!

[Sakkarin Profile]

Just a note for the sake of completeness that I didn't particularly like the Starbucks Espresso beans, which didn't give themselves a number, but a diagram with "dark" on a sliding scale that looked to be about 5.5. Back where I started now with a bag of the Tesco Sumatran, which I rated the best, let's see if I still do having tried all the others.

Incidentally the Starbucks pack was the only one which had a pack closure which actually worked. The worst offender was the Percol pack which is extremely tall and thin, and falls over, spilling the beans.

[Stokey Sue Profile]

Did you try the espresso method? Did it work?

I notice he didn't give us a shot of the finished coffee ..

[Sakkarin Profile]

I didn't feel it did, I didn't really explore that avenue exhaustively, I'm quite happy for it to make me ordinary coffee. I used some of its "expresso" grade coffee for the tiramisu a few months back. It certainly didn't make the foam he got in the video: but my grinder is a crude blade one, I probably didn't get a fine enough grind. I did however make some fab cups of cappucino/latte, combined with Gill's mini blender milk frothing tip.