- This is the AeroPress, portable coffee maker.
I never go camping without it.
Let's check it out.
♪ Hit it ♪
Hey, folks, Ben from Snowys here
with the AeroPress coffee maker,
something that's revolutionised
how I make coffee when I go camping.
I no longer mess around with those funnel-style filters
that seem to be a bit top heavy
and some of the espresso makers have got a lot of parts
and are a little bit fiddly.
This is really simple, easy to clean,
and durable to transport,
and it makes a nice coffee
in all sorts of different variations.
I want to tell you all about it today
and show you how I make a coffee,
and it will start with what comes in the box.
Now, there's quite a few accessories that you get.
We'll start with this guy here.
It comes with 350 paper filters.
Now you can get extras of these to refill this
but that probably lasts about a year
and that's a little holder.
Now, you don't have to take this holder when you go camping.
You get a little scoop for your coffee.
This is a stirrer that's just the right length
to get almost to the bottom of your coffee maker
without tearing up the paper filter.
But I'll tell you more about that shortly.
This is a funnel to stick in the top of the coffee maker
so you don't spill your coffee everywhere.
And last two things is instruction manual
and these components here
are what form the actual press itself.
Now altogether, all these accessories
weigh a little bit under 400 grammes.
If you're just going to take the press itself,
this is just over 200 grammes.
So when I go camping,
all I really take is the press, some filters
and I use a different spoon,
but it's entirely up to you.
Now when you pack this away,
the whole thing, it kind of all fits together,
and when it's packed like this,
it is about 30 centimetres
or just less than 30 centimetres in length,
and about 10 centimetres in width and height this way.
Just the press itself is about 14 centimetres long,
like this, it does actually extend out
to about 25 centimetres,
but, packed up, it's only about 14.
So like I said, you don't have to take
all of these accessories with you when you go camping,
I just take this one and a spoon
and the filters 'cause I travel light.
But taking all of it certainly enhances
your AeroPress experience.
Now, it's all made with a BPA-free plastic,
so it's safe to use,
and I'm gonna talk about the way
that AeroPress recommend you make coffee in this today.
But there is also another method called the inverted method,
this will make more sense when I show you,
but ideally, you want the filter on the bottom,
this sits on top of the cup,
so all your water is down here,
and it's not top heavy.
There is a way that which you can brew it this way,
fill the top of the coffee maker at the top here,
but it becomes unstable.
So I do do it that way when I'm at home, for example,
and I know I can put it in a corner
and it's safe from the kids,
it's not going to topple over.
But it does make it challenging on a wobbly camping table
to brew it this way.
So what I'm going to show you today
is the AeroPress recommended way,
which is to brew it in the machine
just on top of a cup here like this.
Now, I've actually got my AeroPress here today
that I've had for a while now.
It's exactly the same to this one here,
this being the newer version.
The only difference being
that the text on the front of the AeroPress,
if I can just spin this round in the right spot,
is now a red colour
and this has kind of got a grey exterior on it,
whereas this is more of a browner exterior
with a gold colour.
So this is the old one, this is the new one.
Apart from that, they both do exactly the same thing.
Now, I'm not going to dirty up
this new AeroPress here today,
I'm gonna use mine to show you how it works.
So I'm going to clear this up, make some space,
and we'll get started.
Okay, now, I've got a glass here today.
Normally I would use a proper mug like this.
This is just one I've got off the shelf
to show that's the type of mug
that I would normally have in my camp kit.
I've used a glass so that you can actually see
what the coffee looks like as it's made today.
The first thing we need to do is remove the plunger
out of this main portion of the coffee maker here,
and we grab this bottom section here,
and a paper filter
and we've gonna put a paper filter in place.
Now, some directions say to dampen this down
or wet this down.
It may make a difference if your tastes are really picky,
AeroPress, don't really recommend one way or the other.
This then screws into the bottom
of the coffee maker, like this,
and that sits on top of our mug.
Now, we'll get our coffee ready,
we'll get our little scoop here,
and this is where we can use the funnel.
Now, I don't use this
because I'm happy just to tip the coffee in the top here,
but I do spill it every now and then.
This stops it from spilling,
gives you a nice wide area to tip your coffee into.
Now, AeroPress say for a single cup of coffee,
you wanna use a heaped scoop
or a heaped one of these scoops,
or one and a half a levelled scoop.
So if I just heap this now
and tip that in the top there,
that's roughly enough for one coffee.
Now, that is obviously all very dependent
on your own personal preference.
If I tap that,
recommendations are just to tap it, just to level it out,
you can see the coffee comes
to just above where the corner of the actual press is here.
There's a lot of different ways
you can make coffee in this guy here,
so it all comes down to personal preference.
What AeroPress say is that that one and a half,
or the heaped scoop of coffee,
filled up to number one
makes one shot of espresso-style coffee.
If you wanna make two shots of espresso-style coffee,
put two heaped scoops in
and fill it up to around about the two mark.
The three shots,
up to the three mark with three heaped scoops,
et cetera, et cetera.
That's the recommendation
but you're gonna make it how you like it.
What I like to do is just put a single scoop in
and I fill it up to the three, sometimes the four,
and I brew it for a long time.
I like doing it that way for camping purposes,
in that I then just put a little bit of milk
in the coffee afterwards and I still get a nice coffee,
I don't have to worry about transporting
or keeping a lot of milk cold while I'm camping,
and it means I'm only heating up water,
not water and milk,
when I'm making my coffee in the morning.
So it makes cleanup of the whole coffee process easy
and I still get a nice coffee in the end.
But that's just my way to do it,
play around with it.
Different types of grinds,
they do recommend a nice fine
espresso-type grind for this one.
Try a different grind,
so you can make a coffee to your preference.
Now, from this point we need to get some hot water,
which I've got over here,
I've got some hot water in the thermos.
So just off boiling,
they say, I think, about 94, 95 degrees for coffee,
but we can't measure it exactly.
But you've boiled some water and we're gonna tip it in.
I'm just gonna make a single shot here today,
so I'm gonna fill it up to around about the one.
Now we grab our little stirrer thing here.
Now, this is designed such that it
doesn't go far enough to tear up the paper filter
that the coffee is sitting on there.
So if I put this in here, just stir the grinds around
so that the water steeps through all the grinds,
I'm not tearing up that coffee filter on the bottom there.
So you can see with this method here,
the coffee immediately starts
to drip through the filter there.
If we were to use the inverted method,
which isn't the one they recommend,
the coffee just sits in the chamber for a long time,
so you can let it brew for a while.
So I would use the inverted method
and leave it sitting for probably a few minutes
before I plunge it down.
But from this point here,
we'll grab our plunger, we put it in the top,
and this is where it's important to use a sturdy cup.
This is probably not ideal, it's a bit thin on the base,
but you want a nice thick-based cup.
And we start to plunge the coffee down.
Now, we don't wanna press too hard, we just ease it down.
The harder we press,
the more the beans compress, in the bottom.
Just keep easing it down.
AeroPress actually say 20 to 40 seconds of time
to push this down,
so we don't push too hard,
and that's hit the bottom now,
has compressed the coffee, and we're done,
and we've now got a nice shot of espresso-style coffee.
So from here we can make this into a latte
or a flat white-style coffee
by adding a fair bit of milk in there.
It's kind of a cross between a filter coffee
and an espresso coffee.
It hasn't quite got the bite of an espresso,
it's a bit of a smoother sort of a coffee.
Which, like I say, I put more water in the chamber
and fill this up further,
I could add more coffee to make a stronger,
long black or American-style coffee,
or I could just put hot water in here
to make a long black, if I like.
But as I said, for camping purposes,
I prefer to use less milk
so I'm not worried about keeping the milk cold,
so I just put more water in the chamber
and make a nice, long, strong coffee.
Now, I wanna talk about the cleanup of the AeroPress,
'cause this is where I think
it really comes into play well with camping.
Now, I can just give this stirrer a rinse in some water,
that's just got coffee grinds
and some water on it.
And the press itself is really easy to clean up.
We take the base off here
and underneath there, that just needs a rinse in some water.
Underneath here we've got the puck of coffee.
Now, I'll just put this aside
because I wanna show you
that you can just eject the puck like this.
If we take the filter off first, actually,
we can actually re-use these filters.
So throw it out, if you like.
they're just a paper filter,
so they're going to compost down.
We'll give it a rinse,
and you can actually re-use these over and over again.
We then just push the top here to eject the puck of coffee.
There's a puck of coffee there that can go in the compost
or the bin or whatever.
And all we need to do to clean this now
is give this a rinse here to remove the coffee grinds
off the base of the plunger there.
As this plunger has gone through the chamber here,
it's kind of cleaned this chamber out,
so all we need to do is rinse that off.
It would be better to use some water to clean that up
but we could use a paper towel,
give it a bit of a dry.
Once this cap has been cleaned as well, and rinsed,
we can put that on the end,
back in our storage bag,
and we're good to go.
Always important to store this compressed all the way
so that this rubber seal sticks just out of the bottom here,
and the plunger sits loosely that way.
This plunger isn't stored compressed,
so next time you use it,
it's gonna have a nice seal around the edge here
as you're pressing your coffee down.
That is the AeroPress recommended method for making coffee.
As I said, when I'm at home or if I know I'm in a spot
where I can leave the AeroPress sitting nice and steadily,
I like to use what's called the inverted method.
So I'll stand it upside down this way,
I'll put my coffee in the bottom,
and I'll fill this almost to the top here with coffee.
My paper filter then goes in here as normal,
and when I'm ready to brew,
I put this in here,
I put this on top,
that will sit like that for as long as I wanna brew it.
I then grab a cup, I can't do that now,
I put the cup on the top,
and I tip it over like this quickly
and then plunge it down.
As I said, that's not the recommended way
to do it from AeroPress,
purely from safety reasons,
in that when this is full in the top here, it's top heavy,
so you need to make sure you've got it
in a place where it's not going to topple over.
But I guess it just goes to prove
that there are so many different ways
that you can make coffee in the AeroPress.
It is my favourite coffee maker
outside of my espresso maker at home,
which I can't take camping, it's too big.
This is portable, durable, easy to clean,
and makes great coffee,
and you can grab 'em online @snowys.com.au
at our lowest prices every day.
I've you've got any questions, (upbeat music)
let us know down in the comments below,
subscribe to our channel,
we'll send you all the latest and greatest information,
or check out some other videos like this one down here.