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Do you want to know you how you can get delicious coffee out of your Aeropress? Here is a 9 step guide for beginners that takes you through the process.
- Grind/Weigh 14-18 grams of coffee
- Boil 500 ml of water
- Place the filter in the cap and mount the cap
- pour hot water in the Aeropress to pre-heat
- Put grounds in
- Bloom the coffee
- Pour water
- Steep
- Push
Below we’ll get deeper into the steps, what you need and how much you need.
How To Brew Delicious Coffee In an Aeropress
Here is how you brew good, tasty coffee in an Aeropress in just 9 steps. But before we start, here’s what you need:
- Aeropress + Filters: If you don’t have one yet, get yours here on Amazon
- Coffee (+Grinder if using whole beans): Use good beans to make good coffee.
- Scale: To get the recipe right, an accurate scale is necessary. This Timemore scale (Amazon) is very good and will last a long time. And it doubles as a kitchen scale.
- Kettle: For brewing in an Aeropress, any kettle will do fine.
- Water: Any potable water will do but be aware that the taste of the water has an impact on the taste of the coffee.
Let’s get into how you brew good coffee easily in an Aeropress. This is a basic recipe and process that I use often. It’s easy and doesn’t require any weird techniques yet gives great results.
1. Grind/Weigh out 14-18 grams of coffee
Start by grinding your coffee. Or if you don’t grind your coffee fresh, weigh out the amount you need. For most purposes, 14-18 grams of coffee is good for an Aeropress. 14 grams will be a lighter, weaker brew while 18 grams is on the stronger side.
If you don’t have a scale available, the scoop that came with the Aeropress can be used. It holds 11-14 grams. 11 grams leveled and 14 grams heaping. If you’re using a light roasted coffee, the scoop holds a little more coffee since lighter roasts are denser.
That’s the amount for the intended amount of water in an Aeropress. It’s possible to use more water but that does require you to increase the dose accordingly.
It’s recommended to grind your own coffee but if you want to use pre-ground coffee, read this article.
2. Boil Water
You’ll need hot water for brewing an Aeropress. Bring about half a liter of water to a boil. This is more than you need for an Aeropress but the excess will be used for pre-heating.
Don’t worry about the water being too hot. By the time the water hits the coffee grounds it’ll be below the boiling point.
3. Place a Filter Paper in The Aeropress
While the water is heating up, prepare your Aeropress.
- Take a paper filter (if you ran out, get new ones here on Amazon)
- Place it in the filter cap
- Screw the filter cap onto the body of the Aeropress
Make sure the filter paper sits flush in the filter cap after screwing it on. If it’s not sitting flush, there could be a gap somewhere that lets grounds through which will leave a residue in your cup.
I prefer to place the paper while dry since twisting on the cap always seems to tear or displace the filter paper when it’s wet. When the paper is dry this isn’t an issue.
Also make sure that the filter cap is secured in the body. There is no click or anything to indicate the cap is secured. The resistance will simply become too high to twist the cap any further. If you’re not sure if the cap is secured, check the tabs. When the tabs on the filter cap are covered by the tabs on the Aeropress body it’s secured.
It’s not necessary to wet the filter at this stage since we’ll do that in the next step. I don’t like to rinse the filter before putting on the cap since that results in the filter getting folded/not sitting flush quite often.
By the way it’s possible to reuse Aeropress filter papers in some cases. Read more here.
4. Pre-heat the Aeropress
Pre-heating the Aeropress body is a good idea. Especially for lighter roasts, you want the water to stay as hot as possible. If the plastic of the Aeropress is cold, the water will cool down immediately. You can prevent this by pre-heating.
You can do this by simply pouring in about 200 ml of hot water and letting it sit for 20 seconds or so. This also washes the filter to get rid of that papery taste. After the 20 seconds are up, just throw the water out. Just be careful, it’s now hot.
You might want to put the Aeropress on a cup because the water will leak through the filter. Throw the water out of the cup when done.
5. Pour grounds into the Aeropress
When the Aeropress is hot and you emptied out the water, replace it on top of the cup, and pour in the grounds you weighed out earlier. Just dump it in and then tap the Aeropress a few times to even out the coffee bed at the bottom.
It doesn’t have to be perfectly flat and distributed like for espresso but just have a reasonably level surface.
6. Bloom the grounds
Before you pour in all the water, bloom the grounds first. This means pouring just a little bit of water (about 2x the weight of the grounds) and let it sit for 30-45 seconds.
Just after pouring in the water, swirl the whole Aeropress or use the included stirrer to break up any clumps of grounds and get everything equally wet.
Start a timer when you start pouring and let it run after the bloom is done.
7. Fill the Aeropress with water
After blooming the grounds, pour in the rest of the water. You can go by eye and pour up to the top of the number 4 you can see on the body of the Aeropress. If you want to be exact, use a scale and pour 280 grams of water.
Mind you, that includes the water you used for the bloom (probably about 30 grams). So you add another 250 grams of water.
The pouring technique is not that important in an Aeropress. It’s definitely not as important as with a pour over. That said, it’s a good idea to twist the Aeropress while pouring. This prevent a crust from forming on top and all the ground getting equally wet.
8. Let the coffee steep
Now it’s time to let the coffee steep. For medium roasts, about two minutes is a good spot. However, that’s two minutes from when you started the bloom. That’s why you start the timer at that point.
For really light roasts you can add 30 seconds to a minute to this and for very dark roasts 1.5 minute is often enough. However, you should experiment a little with this to see what you like best and gets you the best results.
For more information read: How long to let your Aeropress steep?
9. Push the plunger
When you hit your intended steep time, push down on the plunger. Don’t push super hard, there’s no need. You should aim for the plunger to hit the bottom in about 30 seconds. Often just resting both hands on top of it without much extra pressure is enough to hit that time.
In some cases it’s a good idea to hold the cup while pushing down. Especially for taller cups that are narrower. Using one hand on top of the plunger and one hand to hold the cup is the safest and prevents hot coffee spills.
Stop pushing when you start hearing a hissing sound. This is air escaping (the air bubble between the top of the water level and the bottom of the rubber seal). Pushing further is not necessary.
Tips For Better Aeropress Coffee
Above you can find the basic Aeropress process. There are different processes like the upside down method but I’ve never found the coffee to taste any different so it’s not worth the extra hassle.
Here are some tips that do improve the coffee from an Aeropress.
- Use good Coffee
- Grind Fresh Beans
- Use a scale and timer
Ok those tips go for any brewing method. They do make a very big difference but what are some Aeropress specific tips?
- Don’t push the plunger too far: Don’t push down on the grounds when the plunger is at the bottom. You want to stop on top of the grinds but don’t squeeze them. Really squeezing the grounds with the plunger will increase the bitterness.
- Place the plunger in the top during steeping: After pouring the water in, place the plunger in the body but don’t push down. This creates a vacuum under the seal which prevents coffee from leaking through the filter before pressing.
- Stir extra for more extraction: If you find your coffee is a bit sour and/or watery, you can try to stir one more time at the end of the steeping process before pushing down. However, more coffee grounds or grinding a bit finer will also help.
- Get a filter cap replacement for espresso: If you want really strong coffee from an Aeropress, get the Fellow Prismo attachment. This increases the pressure with which you have to push and thus the pressure inside the brew chamber which makes stronger coffee. You can even get a little crema with this little thing.
