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Category: Coffee Trends (Page 6 of 7)

Aeropress for Beginners- A Brewing Tutorial

There are some manual brewing devices that have been around for over a century like Melitta Benz’s revolutionary paper filter and pour-over brewer (circa 1908) and there are some that are classics like the iconic Chemex.

It is a rarity to find a manual brewer that is so original that not only does it warrant it’s own brewing method, it sparks creativity and innovation to sweep through the coffee community. The Aeropress is that brewer.

What is The Aeropress?

The Aeropress is an immersion brewing device that has gained an immense amount of popularity and support across the third wave coffee community. The brewer is a simple but ingenious design. It is made of hard plastic and consists of a cylindrical tube where coffee is brewed, a screened cap for holding the filtering medium and a plunger that pushes the slurry through the filter. It is kind of like a cookie press for coffee.

The Aeropress also features some genius design innovations with include a hexagonal shape at the base to prevent rolling, easy clean-up (it is nearly self-cleaning) and inexpensive filters. The brewer itself is quite affordable and durable.

Typical extras that are included with the Aeropress are a funnel, a plastic stirring paddle, a nylon storage bag, approximately 1,000,000 filters (implied hyperbole here, I think mine came with 700) and a plastic filter storage bin.

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Using a Gooseneck Kettle For Manual Coffee Brewing

The gooseneck kettle is perhaps the most iconic symbol of contemporary manual coffee brewing. Their elegant swan necks, ergonomic handles and tapered spouts make them ideal for precision brewing. Their eye-catching and modern designs make them the perfect representatives for the third wave manual coffee movement. They are stylish and highly functional, a deadly combination in today’s coffee culture.

Anyone who has spent more than a few minutes watching YouTube videos or reading about manual brewing will invariably ask the same question. “Do I need a gooseneck kettle to brew coffee manually?”

A Gooseneck Kettle is a Luxury Item

The short answer is “No.”

Please do not let the fact that your do not have a gooseneck kettle keep you from brewing coffee manually or trying a brewing method that you are curious about. A gooseneck kettle is a specialized tool that helps with consistency and ease in the manual brewing process. It is not essential to manual brewing. It is a luxury item.

You can make a great cup of coffee without a gooseneck kettle.

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An Introduction to Cold Brew Coffee

It’s time to talk about cold brewed coffee. If you didn’t know or haven’t heard, it is pretty wonderful. It is a refreshing drink on a warm day, an easy hack for bypassing your horrid office coffee and actually a great way to get into manual coffee brewing with pretty much no specialized coffee equipment.

While I must admit, I typically prefer a hot brewed cup of coffee. It is a great brewing method and sometimes it just hits the spot. You owe it to yourself to try it if you never have and it never hurts to have a fool-proof cold brew recipe in your back pocket.

What is Cold Brew

Cold brew is an immersion brewing method where cold water is added to ground coffee and steeped for a long period of time, usually between 12 and 24 hours. The result is a cup of coffee that is less acidic, lacking in aromatics and has a slightly different chemical composition than a cup of coffee brewed with hot water.

Cold brew is often incorrectly used interchangeably with the more general term iced coffee. Iced coffee refers to cold brew as well as a few other brewing variants of coffee served over ice*.

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