jamesg

This is the third and final post in a three-part series on my adventures learning how to use the Hario V60.

This afternoon, my first electric coffee grinder arrived. Up until now I've been using the Hario Mini Mill for all my grinding needs. My decision to buy a hand grinder was somewhat of an accident. I purchased an at-home coffee cupping kit and all of the samples came in whole bean form. I was offered a session in the next class and a kit with preground beans but I was excited for the session and so I decided to buy a hand grinder.

A gooseneck kettle is almost essential when it comes to brewing pour-over coffee. I was doing a cupping yesterday and I used my regular electric kettle to pour water into my cupping bowls (read: three mugs I had in the cupboard). While I was able to pour to a surprising degree of accuracy, my water flow was not consistent. The water sometimes dripped, the flow rate was bouncing back and forth, and I had little control over where the water was going in the cup.

The Milkman cafe in Edinburgh, provided by Robert from Edinburgh Coffee Shops.

It's another one of those days where I cannot think of something to write about. I've been drinking speciality coffee for a few months. I've never thought about coffee as something that I could drink of a higher quality. I grew up with the idea that coffee came from a Nescafe jar. My parents would always complain about the rising price of coffee. They tried to, and still do, buy jars of coffee on offer. Coffee was not meant to taste great. Coffee kept you going.

I have been thinking a lot about pour over drippers over the last few weeks. I used to wonder what innovation was left in pour over drippers but recently my eyes have been opened to the opportunity left in this realm. There isn't a

For the last few months, the Aeropress has been my go-to device for brewing coffee. I like the process of preparing for a cup. Making a cup of coffee has become a ritual. There's so much involved in making one cup and at the end I feel a great sense of accomplishment. The Aeropress is an involved brewing process. I cannot take my eye off the ball.

Starting a career in coffee is often seen as becoming either a cafe owner, a roaster, or a barista. But there are other paths: coffee organisations offer many roles. In this chat with John, the Head of Coffee at Artisan Roast, I talk about careers in coffee, training, building flavour references, and Robusta. John is a certified R grader (Robusta grader) so he was able to give some great insights on Robusta coffee and what needs to happen for Robusta to be more appreciated in the speciality market.

I am a firm believer in the inverted Aeropress method. But, I did not always feel this way. An IndieWeb community member encouraged me to try out the Aeropress method a few days after I got the device. Up until then, I was a devoted regular method brewer.

The Good Coffee Cartel has been on my radar for months. Based in Glasgow, the Cartel has a reputation for the consideration they give to the environment, and for great coffees. According to their website, the Cartel was the first coffee shop to offer a reusable cup exchange program where customers could receive their coffee in a clean reusable cup in exchange for a deposit.

I started brewing on the Aeropress and I was able to make many delicious cups of coffee. But, at the end of last year I got an urge to start trying out a new method of brewing coffee. I chose the Kalita Wave to brew with, which I learned was supposed to be a forgiving brewer, meaning small mistakes would not derail the quality of the final brew.

The Aeropress is a versatile brewing device. As a result, people use the Aeropress in a lot of different ways. With these new ways of brewing, there are many pieces of jargon and technical terms that you may encounter in a recipe.

Steampunk is one of two coffee roasters that I've come to learn about in more depth than the rest. I've spent some time reading about the Scottish speciality coffee market. There are so many roasters and many of them do not have active online presences. I rely on the online presences of roasters because I buy most of my speciality coffee online. I brew most of my coffee at home.

If you talk to a coffee professional about how they can get the most out of their coffee, a common recommendation you will hear is to have the right grinder. Grinders impact one's ability to extract the flavours out of the coffee they have. When I first started drinking speciality coffee, I had a Hario Mini Mill. I made good coffee but I knew there was better. I could get much better filter coffee in a speciality coffee shop than I could at home. When I made a leap to the Baratza Encore, I realised a better grinder does indeed improve the taste of your coffee (as long as your technique is right).

Back when I was working on my thermal printer project, I decided to build a random Aeropress recipe generator. The idea was that I would get a new Aeropress recipe in print every morning so that I could push myself when I was brewing. Truthfully, I didn't use the feature much because I was quite stubborn about using recipes I had refined through practice. However, I like the idea. Embracing randomness pushes one out of their comfort zone.

World Aeropress Championships are renowned in the coffee community for being a fun, light-hearted competition, but with a serious side too. Competitors aim to brew the best cup of Aeropress coffee they can. Aeropress championships are open to anyone, from beginners who have never used an Aeropress before (as you will see in the interview!) to seasoned coffee brewers.

This post is not a recipe, rather a record of my first (and somewhat failed) go at making an affogato, with my lessons along the way.

Note: I wrote this article a few days ago, before more extensive experiments with the device.

I recently tried to brew an Aeropress using a recipe based on French press brewing. I decided to let coarse coffee grounds brew for four minutes like I would with a French press. Then, I affixed the filter cap to the Aeropress, flipped the device, and pressed down the plunger. I was curious whether the Aeropress is a good substitute for the French press when brewing for one person.

I ordered a Kalita Wave on Christmas Day, as well as a gooseneck kettle and the accompanying filters for the Wave. I have been brewing with the Aeropress, a hybrid immersion brewer, for months, and I wanted a change. I know there is a wide range of pour-over options and I wanted to start to dip my toe into one. I chose the Kalita Wave for its design. Because the Wave has a flat bed, the device is less susceptible to clogging to due fines migration. This is when fines flow to the bottom of the filter and plug up the holes—only 10-20 microns large in filter paper—thus reducing the flow of water.

I've brewed two cups of coffee with a set of scales. On my first cup, I tried to measure the coffee after I had ground it. This turned out to be a mistake.

Ukiyo Koffie, a business that sells coffee from a bicycle cart, caught my eye on Instagram. Aside from the aesthetic of the page, I was intrigued by the idea of serving coffee from a mobile bike you could take anywhere.

While I have been brewing with pour-over devices for over a month, I have not forgotten about my Aeropress, the first coffee brewing device I purchased. The Aeropress introduced me to the world of brewing coffee at home and as I used the device I found myself interested in learning more about how to improve my cup.

I have written in the past about my experiment using a French press grind on the Aeropress. Recently, I've been experimenting with coarser grinds. Not as coarse as a French press, but a bit coarser than usual. I am now convinced a grind closer to the one I use for my Kalita Wave produces a better brew than the traditional

I'm currently drinking an unknown coffee from my local coffee shop. I did not ask what coffee beans they use when I asked if they could sell me a small supply to tide my over until my next shipment arrived. I decided to use this as an opportunity to refine my tasting skills.

Earlier this week, I received a package containing some coffee. Unlike other coffee deliveries I have received, this one contained two bags of the same coffee. But, the end product was not the same. Both coffees had been roasted to different degrees, allowing me to get an insight into how roast influences the taste of a bean. One bean was roasted lighter—more traditional for speciality coffee—and another was labelled

Over the last few weeks, I have been brewing some cold coffee at home. In my research, I have come across three different types of cold coffee: iced, iced drip, and cold brew. I had a few questions about cold coffee so I decided to reach out to PuckPuck, who make a slow iced drip coffee adapter for the Aeropress. James, who currently runs PuckPuck, got back to me and we had a chat about cold brew coffee, iced drip coffee, the PuckPuck, and more. Our chat is below. I hope you enjoy our discussion.

My cleaning routine for the Aeropress used to look like this:

One of the (many) reasons I love using the Aeropress is that there are so many ways you can brew coffee with the Aeropress. There is not a single

Over the last few days, I have went back to brewing filter coffee using my usual brewing devices. And I also brewed an Aeropress at the local park, which was a fun activity. I decided to go back to filter brewing because after a lot of trial and error I was not able to get to an espresso shot that I was particularly proud of using the Flair Espresso brewing device. I tried different doses and grind sizes, developed a consistent distribution technique, but although my shots got better I got to a point where I had tried to many variables that I could not avoid the elephant in the room: my grinder.