Also 3d modelled and printed a grip for my grinder because it absolutely sucks by itself because it's all smooth.

Just got my hands on this aeropress clear, here in portugal. I have always been an espresso person and have always savoured my coffee with milk. I slowly got into black coffee and eventually, very recently started having espresso like the Portuguese love to!

So thought of trying out the aeropress, as what better than a black coffee made with this beauty of a brewer.

Any recommendations guys?! I have espresso beans (a few medium and medium-dark roast beans) and will be using them for a few days until I get my hands on new beans specially for filtered brews.

Would love some tips specially for someone new to the aero press but quite experienced with espresso, and specifically manual espresso using the Picopresso!

Do it at your own risk since they don’t sell the o-ring separately!

Move the existing silicone ring from one end to the other for some extra stability while setting up for inverted method!

And it fits super nice!

Unscrew the end cap to make it easier to get the o-ring the first time.

Just never put it all the way back down and it is easier to slide back up the next time! You don’t normally go all the way anyways since there should be a puck of coffee that stops you close to here.

It only works to the end of the metal shaft before it gets smaller and then the plunger. So you lose a little space.

I was actually going to buy a separate 6” silicone ring when I realized this works.

If I ever break the o-ring I’ll either: not replace it, or get a generic 6” o-ring.

My next purchase is a grinder but I'm also looking at getting a bean subscription to try new things. I'm looking at something that sends the small sample bags for a month. I know there is quite a few out there and was hoping I can get some personal reviews/suggestions.

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer!

Grabbed some old beans to experiment. 100g coffee: 300g water. Success!

I’ve been eyeing an AP for quite some time. Going camping and I’ll be brewing for a small group, so no better time to jump in. Got the XL and practiced making the biggest concentrate I could.

Side note. I‘ve been struggling to really get a light roast to shine and it came out amazing this morning on the AP. Already a huge fanboy.

I guess my coffee drips too much before it stabilizes for the brew. This mostly happens when I want to put the plunger in to create vacuum, which requires some pressing. I don’t want to invest in a flow control gauge, and I prefer sticking with the regular process rather than inverted. Any recommendations?

Poured my ground coffee onto the wrong piece this morning, but at least it was still salvageable.

So I am in this mushroom coffee phase. I bought this upcup koffee from Costco and learned after the fact that I have to brew it. So I just brewed it like my coffee, and it tastes terrible.I'm not sure if it's terrible by default or if there's anything I can change other than the grind fineness, as it's already pre-ground. Tried 175f hot water for 10 stirs inverted and pressed.

There's been a bunch of discussion in this sub about custom coffee water over the last year or so. I stumbled across such a post and decided to give a hoon myself to see what the fuss was about.

I wrote about it on my blog at The Magic Roast. But before the mods delete this cos I threw in a link to my work, the full review is below. The link is to make sure authorship is clear, not to spam the sub.

TL;DR

• Water makes up ~98% of your coffee
• Minerals like calcium and magnesium affect extraction and taste
• Tap water is usually fine, but varies by region
• Custom water can tweak flavour, but it’s a niche upgrade.
• Most people can level up their coffee game by getting some scales first.

At least 98% of your daily filter coffee or long black is water. We don’t drink coffee, we drink coffee flavoured water. It stands to reason that the quality of the water matters.

The Apax Lab box set has 3 bottles of magic. Each bottle has a different combination of minerals like magnesium chloride, calcium chloride, sodium bicarbonate. Each combination has been designed to bring out a specific flavour note or texture from coffee. For example, the “Jamm” combination should make a cup of coffee richer and sweeter, while the “Lylac” will help to emphasise the floral notes in a coffee.

With the power of magic in your hands, there are two ways to use the concentrates:

1. Make your own brew water from scratch
2. Add drops directly to a brewed cup

Making your own water

Making your own bespoke water is where the most fun is. And it’s super simple.

Take some demineralised water and add the coffee minerals by following a recipe based on the coffee you want to make.

Lovely jubbly.

Demineralised water has 1 part per million (ppm) of minerals in it. Tauranga tap water (where I live) has about 35ppm. The Apax Labs recipe for the ‘washed coffee’ will give you brew water with around 150ppm minerals.

Adding it directly to a brewed coffee

Even easier than making your own water is adding a few drops to a cup you’ve made using regular tap water.

Brew a cup, add a drop, stir and drink.

Can’t get much easier than that.

Does it make a difference?

Yes.

When using custom brew water, the difference is subtle, but noticeable. The coffee is different in all the right ways compared to tap water, but not hugely so. The key difference is around the fringes of taste, things might appear more sweeter, or more balanced.

The results are more noticeable when adding minerals to a brewed cup of joe. It’s sort of like adding salt and pepper to your hot chips.

Does it make it better?

This is a harder question to answer, as ‘better’ is so subjective.

I have been experimenting with two different coffees, using the ‘washed coffee’ water recipe and comparing them to a straight tap water brew.

While they were different, they were both very good. Each version had something in it that I really liked, but I didn’t really prefer one over the other.

I think the minerals really shine is when you add them to brewed coffee. While the changes are more subtle per drop, overall the minerals do allow you to take a bad cup and make it good or, or take a good coffee to great.

Who should use custom water?

I think there are four groups of people who would really benefit from playing with water chemistry:

1. People with tank water or water collected from their roof.
2. People with really awful tap water (looking at you Taranaki).
3. People entering into coffee brewing competitions, like the AeroPress Champs.
4. Coffee geeks.

Who shouldn’t?

You. Tap water is good enough for your daily coffee.

I have a heck of a lot of fun playing with water chemistry, because I fit into the coffee geek camp.

But for 99% of people who brew a coffee every morning, this is superfluous.

What’s the verdict? Is it any good?

• Does water chemistry matter? Yes
• Will most people notice? Probably not.
• Should you try it? If you’re a coffee nerd.
• And if you are a coffee nerd, are the Apax Labs minerals good? Yes.

Are you a coffee geek?

Let me know if you’ve tried custom water. Super keen to hear how other people are using these sorts of nerd tools.

Hey folks! I’m here with mod approval to share something I’ve been working on for a while.

I’ve always loved my XL, but hated the carafe it came with. I hunted for a while for one I liked, but nothing was quite what I wanted.

Being a potter, the obvious course of action was to make one. Several iterations and months of development later, and I have finally arrived at a design I love, both in its looks and its functionality.

It occurred to me that some of you might be on a similar hunt, and so I thought I’d share, in case anyone is interested in one.

Please don’t take this as just self-promotion, though I admit I would be pleased to sell some. My main goal is to share a tool with a community I love that I think would appreciate it. And, of course, fake internet points.

Some details on the carafe:
Holds 24oz, has a 3.5 inch diameter mouth, and measures 4.5 inches tall, making it large enough to accept a full brew of the XL, but still compact enough that pressing doesn’t feel precarious.

I can make them in 5 colors (see last photo, sorry I only have photographs of the mugs in all five colors). $149 plus shipping. Made to order.

Let me know if you’re interested! Thanks for reading :).

Taylor
(on my new business account, please excuse lack of post history)

After years of filter coffee and Moka, I finally pulled the trigger on an AeroPress. Best decision ever. The flavor profile is exactly what I was looking for. Glad to be here!

I just got my AeroPress Go Plus and now I'm looking for a small and portable way to heat water for travel. I was wondering if it's OK to put an immersion heater into the mug that comes with the Plus? It's well insulated but I don't want to risk damaging the mug. Has anyone experience with that combination?

I was thinking of this. Small, compact and 350 Watt.