Is the new AeroPress Go better than the original AeroPress?
Summary:
- Many parts of both AeroPress versions are interchangeable (including filters).
- We believe the AeroPress Go is an improvement over the original.
- Comes with compact filter carry case.
- Is self contained within a travel cup (compact and convenient).
- The cup can also be used as a server when making coffee for more than one person (using the 'bypass method').
How to get the best out of your AeroPress:
- If using the 'inverted method' then make sure to (carefully) squeeze out the air above the coffee in the chamber right before flipping the AeroPress.
- If using the 'standard method' then while the coffee is steeping place the plunger back inside the chamber (just a little) - to stop coffee leaking through.
- Try swirling the coffee instead of stirring it! (This way you can leave the plunger inside the chamber the whole steep.)
- After stirring/swirling make sure to wait at least 30 sec for the coffee to settle before plunging.
- PLUNGE SLOWLY!
Transcript:
Adam Marley: Hi, everyone. Welcome back to the Tips and Tricks with me, Adam. In this episode, we're going to be talking about how to get the best out of your AeroPress GO coffee maker. These tips will apply for a normal AeroPress as well. I just thought people might want to know what the differences are and a little bit more about the brewery itself.
This is kind of the newer version of the AeroPress. They're saying that it's just a different version. It's not like a new and improved. A lot of the parts are interchangeable, including the filters, if anyone was wondering. So I guess there's a lot of truth to that. But [00:00:30] we're only selling this one on the website because I think this is an improvement for a couple of reasons over the standard AeroPress. One of them is very obvious, because it's all in this neat little package to quote Homer Simpson, which I really love.
So before we get into the tips, if anyone's curious about what an AeroPress GO, kind of how it comes, this is how it comes out of the box. You got this little cap on the top, a little rubberized soft cap inside that. You have this little disc, [00:01:00] which you can put your filters in. So you can't ... Obviously it's thin, you can't put a lot in there, but you can put a few enough for a camping trip. Just throw it in your bag, airplane. Perfect. So that's already one of the reasons that I like. I'd get the AeroPress GO over the normal one for this reason alone.
Then in your little case here, you've got the coffee maker itself, and you have these little bits and pieces. It has a scoop, which you would never use because you're going to weigh your coffee, not scoop it. Thank you very much. [00:01:30] And a little folding stirrer thing. So it's nice and compact. I guess that's kind of cool. And then the carrier itself, the case becomes a cup or serving vessel, and we'll get into that.
So my first tip is if you were going to make your AeroPress in the inverted method, which is ... So if you've got your cap off, you would have it sitting on the table like this inverted, that [00:02:00] being OG, normal, non-inverted. So it's going to be sitting inverted. Then you'd add your coffee and your water and let it brew like that. Let it steep like that. Then you would add your cap on and then flip it onto your vessel. Ideally you put the vessel on top. And then flip them together.
Now, I'm not a huge fan of the inverted method because I think it's a little bit fiddly, potentially a little bit dangerous because all the flipping, [00:02:30] and also reduces your brew capacity in the chamber because the plunge is kind of taking up some room here now. But if you do like the inverted method, then my first tip is after you've let the coffee steep and you've stirred it or swirled it, then when you put the filter cap on, if you have some headspace here, then gently and carefully squish out that headspace until basically that you can see some coffee coming up to the filter here, remove that headspace, then put your vessel on top of your cup and then flip.
[00:03:00] The reason I suggest that is because if you have some headspace in there, if you've got some air, what you might find is when you flip, coffee gets stuck up here and it will kind of get stuck in the chamber on top of the plunger. And it won't actually sink down with the rest of the brew. So some of your coffee is not going to get completely extracted. So you want to avoid that.
I mean, I just don't really like the inverted method anyway, but if you're going to use it, then definitely recommend squishing out the air at the top. It also makes it less likely for the plunger to pop off violently. [00:03:30] Because if that's ever happened to you with the inverted method, is because of the hot air in there expanding. It like shoots the plunger off. Not fun for anyone. So that's tip number one.
Tip number two is if you're doing the non-inverted method where you have your cup, you've got your AeroPress sitting on top, then you add your coffee, add your water and let it brew, most people ... And this, I'm not going to include this as a tip because everyone knows this. Most people will place the plunger on top [00:04:00] just a little bit like that. It creates a vacuum and it stops too much of the coffee from brewing during that steep time from leaving the chamber. The little bit that it does leave, don't worry about it. A lot of people kind of freak out about that. It'll come out in the wash. It's no big deal. Don't worry about it.
So then what people will do after the steep time is take the plunger off and then give it a stir and then put the plunger back on. I recommend instead, it's just a little bit quicker and easier, is give it a swell instead. [00:04:30] I think the last Tips and Tricks was talking about swirling pour overs. We like swirling. So yeah, you can just leave your plunger on. And then after the steep time, give it a bit of a swell, make sure there's no coffee stuck on that top bit. And then, it's a little bit easier than taking the plunger off, stirring, putting it back on. So nice little tip there.
This tip applies, and obviously all of these tips have already applied to both the normal AeroPress and the AeroPress GO. There's no real differences there. I'll get into differences at the end with the final tip, but this tip applies to [00:05:00] both the inverted and non-inverted method.
And this is actually probably the most crucial one I think, is after you've stirred or swelled your brew if it's the non-inverted method and it's sinking down, or if you've got the inverted method after you've flipped, wait a good 30 seconds. Don't just start plunging straight away. You want to wait a good 30 seconds for all of that coffee to slowly make its way down and to hopefully form a nice even layer on the bottom because [00:05:30] that's going to reduce the risk of channeling when you're brewing the coffee and make sure that all the coffee extracts evenly.
If you've still got coffee that's kind of in suspension here as you're plunging, and you've got some coffee down on the bottom, that coffee on the bottom is going to over extract compared to the coffee which is still kind of in the mixture there higher up. So get a good 30 seconds for that coffee to sink. You can see it. You don't have to time it to 30 seconds. Or unless you want to be consistent. Wait for the coffee to sink.
And then a kind of like sub-tip from that is to plunge [00:06:00] very slowly. It's going to be hard for me to do without any coffee in here. But most people will like plunge quite hard. Instead, you want, without exaggerating, this would be your plunging speed, super slow, for the same reason. Letting the coffee sink and then plugging very slowly both reduce your risk of channeling and increase the evenness of your extraction. Both things that we want.
What tip we're up to? Three? Four? Whatever it might be. The next tip is to tighten your cap. So [00:06:30] you'd put your paper filter in here, and then you tighten it on. Tighten it on really tight. An issue with the AeroPress is that if you don't tighten the cap hard enough, you can get a lot of bypass kind of in these sections here where the grooves ... It's really hard for me to show on camera because it's like little lugs. They kind of go into grooves. If they're not in tight enough, you can get a lot of bypass. And you don't want bypass. Bypass is going to lead to less even extraction. So yeah, tighten the cap really tightly.
[00:07:00] And then the final tip is specifically for the AeroPress GO. So one of the concerns a lot of people had with the AeroPress GO is in order to get it to this nice, neat, small, convenient size, where it all fits in this handy little travel container, they had to make it a bit smaller. And one of the initial kind of, one of the things that people already were a little bit funny about with the AeroPress is that the brew chamber isn't very large. You can't make a very large coffee from one person and it's very hard [00:07:30] if you're just brewing it kind of normally to make coffee for more than one person. It's an individual coffee brewer.
So people going, "Well, if the brew chamber is even smaller, there's even less ability to make coffee for more than one person. And the coffee I'm making for myself will be even smaller than it was." But I disagree because what you can actually do is this little container that you carry everything in can also become not only a cup to drink out of, but a serving vessel of sorts. So what you can do [00:08:00] is use the ground, the amount of ground coffee that you intend to for the amount of coffee you want to make.
That sounds weird, but say, I want to make 500 mils of coffee. I want to make half a liter of coffee for two people. Then if I'm using a 70 gram per liter ratio for an immersion brew, which I usually probably would like the AeroPress, then I would use 35 grams of coffee. So you make your AeroPress with 35 grams of coffee, and then, whatever amount of water you can fit in the brewing chamber for that brewing method, [00:08:30] so as in terms of whether it's inverted or traditional, whatever amount of water you can fit in there with the bloom and keep track of that, keep track of that amount of water.
So let's say that I'm aiming for 500 mils of brewing water and I can fit in the non-inverted method 250. In the invented method maybe it would be 200. But say I can fit 250 in here. I haven't used 250 mils of the brewing water than I need to. I've got the full amount of coffee, but only half the water. We're going to do is brew my AeroPress [00:09:00] normally. I will plunge it very slowly into the handy little cup, which is included. And then I will top this up with the remaining water that I didn't brew with.
Now, this is not new for a lot of people. This is called the bypass method. The bypass word I was using earlier for the filter cap, that's a different type of bypass. It's weird, I know. Sorry. We need better terminology. So this is the bypass method when you're doing it deliberately. And a lot of world [00:09:30] AeroPress champions have used this method, even when they're just making one coffee for many reasons, which we won't get into in this video. But what it means is that this cup, I can't remember the capacity of this, but it's more than enough for two people with smaller coffees or a massive coffee from one person.
The limitation of the brewing chamber doesn't seem like a limitation to me because you can just use bypass and then dilute up to the strength that you wanted and up to the quantity of coffee that you wanted in the first place. And unlike the normal AeroPress, [00:10:00] it comes with its own brewing vessel, its own vessel chamber for brewing into and serving out of. And actually you can kind of see it has corners. Those corners pour really neatly. I think it was designed with this in mind. If it wasn't designed with that in mind, then, well, that's just a great bonus.
Anyway. This is why we're only stuck in the AeroPress GO on the website now and not the traditional AeroPress because, yeah, I think it just adds things and doesn't really remove anything [00:10:30] from the old school one. And yeah, I just like it more. But hopefully those tips were useful. If you guys think of any other tips and tricks that you found from making AeroPresses that other people might find useful, please throw them into the comments because, yeah, it's a great little brewing device, particularly when you're traveling and camping. Yeah. And you can pick them up on the website, as well as replacement filters, which you can use on both the old school AeroPress and the new one, the AeroPress GO. Thanks for watching and we'll catch you next time. Bye everyone.