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Picked up an Aeropress and a Comandante C40.
Also pictured is my very cheap kitchen scales, has been accurate enough to measure beans and water.
I know Comandante are expensive, my justification was they are a very well regarded brand and I wanted something I could rely on as I played with different brewing techniques.
Been having a great time, producing some lovely cups, and all cheaper per cup then the Nespresso I was drinking before
I felt like my Baratza Encore was expensive at the time, but after using it daily for a few years I feel like it was totally worth it. If you can afford nice things, they perform well and last a long time, then get the nice things.
Exactly. Something you use every day can be $300 and work out to a good deal. Divide by the number of times you use it. Less than $1 per day for anything is great.
I was starting to get into different ways of making coffee with my aeropress, and I had a hand cranked burr grinder. For about 3 days I was hand grinding a lot of coffee finely so I could make espresso-style drinks, and my arm was SORE. It would take me at least 5 full minutes to grind 18g coffee.
Miraculously, I found a working Baratza ~~Virtuoso~~ Preciso at the thrift store for $11. Took it home, brushed out the burrs, and it's amazing. Best purchase I've made. I really feel like that is the best luck I've ever had! Well, besides my straight-white-male middle-class American privilege. That's probably the best luck I've had. Gotta acknowledge the privilege.
But the $11 coffee grinder, definitely the sixth luckiest thing that has happened in my life
Spending the money on the grinder first is such a wise choice - followed obviously by spending the money on the beans themselves - and you can't go wrong with an aeropress. It's also ridiculously portable, especially if you measure out your beans beforehand into little single dose containers...
Welcome to the money pit of speciality coffee! Thats a great setup.
Great way to get started!
How loud is the grinder? Been looking at options for my desk at work.
It’s really not that loud based on my unit.
It's not toooo bad.
How quiet is your office?
My office varies but what I do specifically is normal to get a bit noisy. Been heavily debating just keeping some ground coffee at my desk as even if it did get a bit stale it would be leagues better than the burnt coffee available in the lounge.
Excellent kit, enjoy! Nicer scale does make it easier to get consistent results.
Any recommendations for nicer scales? I'm kind of sick of the cheap kitchen scale I've been using and have been thinking about upgrading.
I quite enjoy my Timemore Black Mirror Nano. It's definitely not cheap (around 100€) but is much better than any cheap, wildly inaccurate kitchen scale or any cheap, painfully slow dealer's scale.
Tiny footprint so it fits under most machines, 0.1g accuracy, super fast (but has a tendency to settle +-0.2g about 1s after stopping pouring whatever), has a few cool modes like an auto timer for espresso and Aeropress or real time flow rate for pourover. I think you can connect it to a phone too but I've never tried it.
Hario scale is nice and has a timer too. Works great for V60 pour over as well.
How I figured out you're in New Zealand:
Kia ora from an expat.
Chur cuz, proud home of the flat white.
Loving Ozone so far, I will have to branch out into other roasters eventually.
Their cafe in Grey Lynn goes off.
Glad to hear an expat is enjoying a taste of home.
That is a very good set up and will make great coffee for years.
Aeropress makes such a good cup of coffee, this is a solid setup!
It's the best £25 quid I've ever spent! Well I've spent more than that as I have a travel one for work as well.
I like your grinder:)
Good choise! I have a similar setup: Comandante C40, AeroPress Go, Timemore Black Mirror.
Do you have a recommendation or a recipe for the Aeropress? I've been making some decent cups with specialty single origin beans. And I'm not impressed. Been doing the Hoffmann thing, and is it just me or is this a lot of water (200gr) for just 11 grams of coffee? Maybe I need to experiment more, get more special specialty beans or the taste and thinner coffee is not yet my thing.
Filter coffee is generally weaker then say, Espresso. (And by weak, I mean, disolved coffee per volume of water) But, for a stronger brew, I suggest more coffee, and a longer brew time
I have been using the Aeromatic app to see what it people are up to with their Aeropress recipes and just kinda adjusting to see if I like it.
My first brews were with a darkish espresso blend, and it came out quite bitter, so I adjusted down the extraction time, this made a more palatable brew for myself and my wife.
I tried with a 30 sec longer brewing time, I think that it's better but without a blind test who knows :D Cool app, I'll try out some of the variations which look simpler. The coffees I can get locally are a bit poorly described. This makes it a bit hard to figure out if it's a lighter or darker roast. What I mean by that is that many smaller specialty shops and roasteries would simply describe "filter" / "espresso" and "less intense" with a point scala. Only once I encountered an agtron value. Uff.
It's a great starter, but you might wanna be careful using aeropress on these kind of cups. I've got similar ones (they do keep temperature long 😁) and had them shatter when pushing on aeropress :(
Yeah, I have been proping up the Aeropress with my free hand when I press.
I also press rather gently, as the prophet Hoffman suggests.
But yes, I need to remember to be careful :D thanks!
I've owned a ton of coffee gear through the years and will always have a comandante around. It's my favorite hand grinder by far. You made a great purchase that will last you a long time.
That right there is a starter set-up done right.