Coffee

8357 readers

15 users here now

☕ - The hot beverage that powers the world!

Coffee gadgets - It's always great to learn about new gadgets. Please share your favorite hardware or full setups. It might inspire newcomers to experiment!

Local businesses - Please promote your local businesses. If you are not the owner of the business you are promoting, kindly ask the owner if it's okay. It would be great if the business has a physical store to include an exterior or interior shot.

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

James Hoffman's AeroPress recipe is not that great (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

15 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I've been using James Hoffman's recipe since I bought AeroPress, and I was pretty satisfied. While being simple, it produced rich, balanced cups of coffee for both light and medium roasts. I was happy with it. But then I started noticing that some light-roasted coffee was too bitter. It rarely happened, but when it did, it wasn't possible to get rid of that excessive bitterness. When I tried to increase the grind size, I got watery, but still too bitter coffee. At first, I thought there was something wrong with the coffee beans, but then I thought, maybe immersion brewing was just not suitable for them. So, I decided to find another recipe.

I wanted to try a hybrid recipe containing a percolation phase, as I believed it could produce more balanced cups. So I searched on the Aeromatic app and found a recipe from The Real Sprometheus. It has a long percolation phase and quite a short immersion phase. And this recipe fixed my coffee. I got a balanced cup without excessive bitterness and with more detailed acidity. Now, this is my recipe to go, as I think it's superior to James Hoffman's recipe.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago (6 children)

What's the recipe? Can you share?

Was thinking about picking up an aeropress for camping, and was just going to start with the James Hoffman recipe, but I'm open to trying something different.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago

The Hoffman recipe is 12g of coffee, 250ml of water, 2 minutes steep time, give a small swirl to the recipient, steep another 30 seconds, then press down slowly over at least another 30 seconds. You can find the video on youtube.

There are many other factors involved such as the size of the grind, the uniformity of the grind, the temperature of the water, the steeping time, and the quantities of coffee and water – so really the recipe is just meant as a starting point. You will need to dial it in for each different batch of coffee.

Most of these factors have to do with caffeine extraction aka "yield". More time steeping, hotter water, more water & coffee and finer grind all increase extraction but in different ways, and over-extraction usually ends up tasting bitter. The opposites decrease extraction and under-extraction ends up tasting sour. The Hoffman recipe is a balanced start.

With the Aeropress you have easy access to all these factors and can customize the brew extensively but you have to do some trial and error.

load more comments (5 replies)