My favorite way of making coffee has long been using a french press. I really enjoy the body of the coffee that comes from the french press as well as the flavors that result from the suspended coffee particles being saturated and mixing with the hot water. Coffee tastes so much better this way to me, rather than using a drip-brew coffee maker, where water simply gets dumped on top of ground coffee and brewed by gravity… not to mention, all of the precious coffee oils containing most of the flavor gets trapped in the paper filter.

When I first heard about the Aerobie AeroPress a few years ago, I was a little skeptical. Not only did it use a paper filter, but it also looked like something out of a hospital! Still, I kept reading the great reviews and decided I had to try it.

By the way, if you think the Aerobie brand rings a bell, you’re right – they’re the same makers of the Aerobie Pro Ring (the frisbee that looked more like a thin, small bike tire we used to throw around in the 80’s… then spend the rest of the afternoon trying to find, it just flew so far!).

I won’t go into all of the specific details on the basic instructions for how to use it (the video I’ve added at the bottom of this post gives a pretty good demonstration, and you can also view the product’s instructions here). Instead, I’ll give a very high-level overview of how to use the AeroPress, the pros and cons as well as some advanced techniques.

The Basics
The AeroPress is basically used like a giant syringe, where coffee, mixed with hot water for a few seconds, gets squeezed out into a mug in the form of an espresso shot. The basic process is to first place a paper filter into the cap which then screws onto the end of the cylinder. Then, the AeroPress should be placed so that it sits on top of a coffee cup or mug so that it’s resting completely on it. Scoop in freshly-ground, fresh roasted coffee (use a fine grind). Immediately pour in hot (but not boiling) water, mix for 10 seconds, place the plunger on top and push down for 20 seconds. That’s it. This makes a serving of espresso but you can always add more hot water for an Americano or build an espresso-based drink.

The Pro’s
*The coffee is remarkably smooth. This could be attributed to the fines (small coffee particles) not getting into your cup due to the filter, so you don’t get the bitter taste.
*Clean-up is a breeze. Simply remove the cap, remove the filter, push the plunger in as far as it will go and a nicely packed coffee puck shoots out. Rinse the end of the plunger under water and you’re done.

The Cons
*You might not want to use your favorite mug… I’ve never broken one, but I’ve heard it can happen to cheaper mugs due to the force of pushing down.
*You don’t get the body of coffee you’d get from a french press or other brewing methods.
*The AeroPress uses a paper filter, so coffee oils get trapped. See advanced techniques, though, as there’s a way around this.

Advanced Techniques
Although the AeroPress makes exceptional coffee, there are some limitations. For instance, using a paper filter traps the coffee oils. One option you have for this is you could buy a Swissgold filter and cut a circle out of the flat area in a way that it would fit right into the AeroPress cap. Some people use a micron polyester felt or other material instead of a Swissgold cut-out. These methods allow for more inflow of small coffee particles which creates a bigger body in the ultimate brew.

Another issue is that using the AeroPress with the directions it comes with doesn’t yield the best possible cup (even though it does give a pretty good one). The problem is, when you use freshly roasted coffee (within 7-10 days of roasting) and grind it right before brewing, it leads to a “bloom” (a layer that forms at the top of a mix of near-boiling water and coffee grounds due to C02 being emmitted from fresh beans). Within this bloom is the greatest concentrate of coffee oils. Using the AeroPress the way the instructions state, you’ll push the water mix and bloom down into the cup and the bloom will be the last part to go. The oils within the bloom get stuck in the puck and the greatest flavor from the mix never makes it into your cup.

Instead, try the “inverted method”. Basically, you set your mug aside and place the bottom of the plunger on a table and place the cylinder on top (you might want some paper towels, ’cause this could get messy). Add in the freshly-ground coffee and hot water, stirring for 10 seconds. Add the filter with the (hopefully not paper) filter and – positioning your mug just right – start pushing down in a way that the first few drops spill right in. You’re trying to capture the mix from the bloom. After a few seconds, you can (quickly) turn the AeroPress over and place it back onto your mug and push down like usual. You should taste a big difference.

There you have it. If you’ve never used an AeroPress before, I highly recommend it. Using the advanced techniques, the AeroPress can make amazing coffee. Below is a video I found on YouTube that has a pretty good demonstration of the AeroPress so you can see visually how to go about making coffee from it (note: the video shows the regular, not inverted method). However, you can see the bloom in the video and how, using the regular method, it is the last part of the mix attempted to be pushed out but gets stuck due to the puck that has formed.

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What does the term ‘Fair Trade’ mean and what products are offered?
Fair Trade is a movement designed to help producers of goods in developing countries get a fair price so they can earn a living that makes what they do sustainable and help increase stability in a volatile market. Fair Trade products include coffee, fruit and spices as well as clothing and jewelry.

With Fair Trade coffee, farmers are paid a minimum Fair Trade price of $1.35 per pound of conventionally grown coffee ($1.55 for certified organically grown coffee). The hope is that with the increased prices, coffee producers can use the additional income to not only earn a fair living, but to also invest in their future and develop increased quality control procedures, typically (but not always) resulting in higher quality coffee to consumers.

How much have Fair Trade sales increased over the past several years?
The most abundantly available Fair Trade product on the market today is coffee. Demand for Fair Trade coffee in the US has grown at an average of 26% since 2004, growing by 56% in 2007 alone. Coffee roasters who have carried Fair Trade coffee since 2000 have also experienced an average yearly growth of 125%, so it benefits roasters to appeal to the movement and offer Fair Trade coffee to consumers. The amount of Fair Trade coffee purchased in the US has increased from 2 million pounds in 1999 to 70 million in 2008.

Any other insights on Fair Trade coffee in general?
The increased funds provided by Fair Trade allow producers the opportunity to improve their coffee by making the move to cultivating shade-grown coffee plants, which earn higher prices and is a more environmentally-friendly coffee plant variety. Most non-Fair Trade producers cultivate sun-grown coffee plants which are less environmentally-friendly as they can lead to deforestation and typically require more fertilizers and pesticides that contribute to polluting the environment.

It’s important to note that Fair Trade isn’t a type of coffee, but rather a label that can be placed on any coffee that is purchased at the minimum price designated as being “fair”, regardless of quality or method of cultivation. In fact, the very same coffee that goes unsold being labeled as Fair Trade typically ends up being sold some time later for lower prices without the Fair Trade label. This is one of the inherent flaws with Fair Trade.

Still, the Fair Trade label does increase the likelihood that the coffee was grown under environmentally-friendly conditions (approximately 80% of Fair Trade coffee is shade-grown) and is of higher quality, although this is not a guarantee.

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Ken

Have you ever noticed how after you buy a brand new coffee maker (drip brew), you’re able to make great tasting coffee… but after a few months, you start noticing that the coffee doesn’t seem to taste as good as it used to?

Cleaning your coffee maker is important and the best way to do this is to descale it.

What is scale?
Scale is the build up of minerals inside your coffee maker, generally referred to as “lime scale”. The build up is typically due to using hard water when brewing your coffee.

Why is lime scale bad?
Scale causes lots of problems in coffee makers. Not only does it make your coffee taste bad, it also causes other problems, such as building up over the mechanisms inside the coffee maker that make the water heat up, which means your coffee may not be brewed at the optimal temperature, it can clog up your coffee maker in different places inside the machine and scale can even make it malfunction or stop working altogether.

How can I prevent scale from building up in my coffee maker?
Many people use tap water for brewing their daily coffee. The hard water from the tap can quickly cause lime scale to build up over the course of 2-3 months. You can prevent scale from building up by using high quality water (bottled water). You’d probably want to use high quality water so you can make the best tasting coffee, anyway (if you think the water from your tap tastes gross, why would you use it to make your coffee?). High quality/bottled water may not completely eliminate scale, but it will slow the build up of it down some.

*It’s important to note that some coffee makers have special instructions for cleaning and descaling in any other way could void your manufacturer’s warranty; please review the instructions that came with your coffee maker and if there’s a discrepancy on how to descale, use your coffee maker’s instructions instead of the tips offered below.

How to descale your coffee maker
Now that we’ve discussed prevention, we need to get your coffee maker descaled and brewing better tasting coffee now. Here’s the process for descaling:

• Make sure your coffee maker is cold (hasn’t just been used)
• Place a new filter into your drip-brew coffee maker
• Fill the coffee pot half way with equal parts water and distilled white vinegar
• Run the mixture through the coffee maker, dump out the mixture once complete
• Repeat this 1-2 more times
• Let the coffee maker cool
• Remove the old filter and insert a new one
• Clean the coffee pot and add fresh water (no white vinegar this time)
• Run the water through the coffee maker, dump out the water once complete
• Repeat this 2-3 more times
• Not a bad idea to make 1 pot of coffee and dump out to ensure any remaining vinegar is completely removed… just don’t use Weekly Roast coffee, use some of the stale stuff you have in the pantry 

One word of caution, make sure you only use a mixture of half white vinegar and half water when going through this process. If you use only white vinegar, it will be a lot harder to get the vinegar taste and smell cleaned out. You can also use a citrus based decalcifying solution or a professional descaling solution. White vinegar works just as well and is typically cheaper.

Try descaling your coffee maker using the tips above and then enjoy a cup of freshly brewed coffee. Repeat this process every 2-3 months and I bet you’ll taste a big difference.

Although there are many variables involved in making a great cup of coffee, the two most important in my opinion are 1. using fresh roasted coffee beans and 2. grinding your coffee correctly. This post aims at explaining the grinding process, which grind is best for various brews and how you can adjust your grind to make your coffee taste better.

Grind Size
The basic purpose of grinding coffee is to allow more surface area on the bean to be exposed so that the essential oils from the coffee beans can be extracted fully when exposed to water. This is why as a rule I think it’s best to grind coffee as fine as possible, as the finer the grind, the more surface area available for extraction. However, grinding coffee too fine can pose a few problems: 1. sediment can find its way into your cup or 2. your coffee filter or the french press mesh can start to become clogged and not allow liquid to flow through. Thus, although I think finer is better (to a certain degree at least), not all brewing methods can make good coffee using a fine grind, so it’s important to adjust the grind as is necessary based on how you will be brewing your coffee. Coffee grinders should come with an adjustable setting allowing you to grind your coffee 1. fine, 2. medium or 3. coarse.

Fine grind – You should grind your coffee fine if you’re making coffee via the drip brew method and your filter is cone-shaped. You can also use a fine grind if you’re making coffee in a moka pot. Grind it extra fine if you’re grinding your coffee for espresso. If the water is having a hard time flowing through, try grinding a little bigger.

Medium grind – Grind your coffee medium if you have a regular drip brew coffeemaker (regular filter, not cone-shaped). This allows the water to flow through the grounds easily. Using too fine a grind could clog up your filter but a coarse grind will not extract the coffee completely and will leave you with a bitter tasting brew.

Coarse grind – Use a coarse grind if you’re making coffee in a french press (press pot). This will keep the sediment from finding its way through the plunger and will help you extract the essential coffee oils. Since you should be allowing your coffee to steep for at least 4 minutes before plunging, a coarse grind works very well for a french press.

Additional tips
Whatever you do, make sure you grind just seconds before brewing. CO2 is the main transport for getting essential coffee oils into your cup – and 80% of CO2 is released into the air within 60 seconds of grinding your beans! That great aroma you smell when grinding should be in your cup and can be if you start brewing as soon as you’re done grinding.

Also, use a burr grinder instead of a blade (whirley bird) grinder if you can. The blade grinder is inconsistent and smashes the beans to bits (during the grind, the blades create large pieces, medium pieces and powder). This inconsistency negatively affects the ultimate taste of the brew as some of the coffee will be overextracted and some underextracted. We’ll review and compare blade and burr grinders in a future blog post, but just know that the burr grinders create a consistent, even grind which can help you create really great tasting coffee. A blade grinder not only grinds inconsistently, but the heat from the blades can make the coffee end up tasting burnt. Save the blade grinder for grinding spices, not your coffee.

Try experimenting, using the same coffee with two different grinds. Although there may be some general grinding guidelines, there aren’t strict rules when it comes to taste – if it tastes good to you, that’s what you should do! Let me know how it turns out.

I recently read an article where scientists at the University of Nevada, Reno, were able to extract the leftover oils from spent coffee grounds from local coffee shops and convert that oil into biodiesel to fuel cars. I thought that was a really great idea, using something that would otherwise have been trashed, and (literally) squeezing one more use out of it.

As I pondered if spent coffee grounds could realistically become another option for fueling our vehicles and help our environment, I started wondering how many people knew that they could reuse spent coffee grounds and recycle them *today* in a number of ways.

So, before you throw out those spent coffee grounds, check out the following things that you can do with the grounds left over from your morning cup of joe.

Fertilizer
Spent coffee grounds make a great organic fertilizer for your lawn or garden. Don’t apply too much on any particular spot, though – the nitrogen will release rather quickly so make sure to just use about 5-6 table spoons per plant. After applying the coffee grounds, make sure to apply a little water to speed up the absorption. Coffee grounds do not have phosphorus (commonly used in fertilizers) so I don’t recommend using on plants that flower, but the grounds work very well on shrubs, plants and grass.

Insect Repellent
For whatever reason, insects really don’t like coffee – it’s a natural repellent. You probably don’t want to line the inside of your house with coffee grounds, but you may want to try sprinkling some spent grounds on ant hills and around the house to create somewhat of a barrier to keep the bugs away.

Fridge Deodorizer
Remember my post on how to store coffee, where I suggested that you don’t try keeping your coffee fresh by storing it in the refrigerator unless you wanted your coffee tasting like frozen pizza and asparagus (because coffee is porous and tends to absorb the tastes and smells of the substances around it)? Well, that’s exactly the same reason why you should place spent coffee grounds in the fridge, to absorb the different odors inside. Try refilling the Arm and Hammer box with the spent grounds the next time it needs changing.

There you have it, a few things you can do now to recycle your spent grounds!