I’ve been using James Hoffman’s recipe since I bought AeroPress, and I was pretty satisfied. While being simple, it produced rich, balanced cups of coffee for both light and medium roasts. I was happy with it. But then I started noticing that some light-roasted coffee was too bitter. It rarely happened, but when it did, it wasn’t possible to get rid of that excessive bitterness. When I tried to increase the grind size, I got watery, but still too bitter coffee. At first, I thought there was something wrong with the coffee beans, but then I thought, maybe immersion brewing was just not suitable for them. So, I decided to find another recipe.
I wanted to try a hybrid recipe containing a percolation phase, as I believed it could produce more balanced cups. So I searched on the Aeromatic app and found a recipe from The Real Sprometheus. It has a long percolation phase and quite a short immersion phase. And this recipe fixed my coffee. I got a balanced cup without excessive bitterness and with more detailed acidity. Now, this is my recipe to go, as I think it’s superior to James Hoffman’s recipe.
Regardless of whether Hoffman’s stuff is good or not, coffee taste is kind of a unique thing for each person so experimenting and trying things until you find what you want just makes sense.
Well that’s the nice part about the Aeropress, the process is so customizable that you can find a good recipe for just about any coffee.
The Hoffman recipe is not meant to be perfect, just a safe starting point. It can’t possibly fit every single coffee batch out there.
Light and medium roasts are finicky and vary by the bag.
The lighter the roast, the easier it is to brew too long, resulting in astringency.
If a brew is astringent, keep reducing brew time until the astringency goes away.
What’s the recipe? Can you share?
Was thinking about picking up an aeropress for camping, and was just going to start with the James Hoffman recipe, but I’m open to trying something different.
Add 15g of coffee. Then:
00:00 Pour 100g of water 00:10 Let it bloom 01:30 Add 150g of water 01:45 Stir slowly with a spoon front-back, left-right 02:00 Insert plunger and let it steep 02:30 Make a gentle swirl and push gently 03:15 FinishSource: https://youtu.be/VXPKxowfXDQ
I love the entertainment factor of James but he and Lance both are held up as gods by coffee people when i think a lot of what they produce, especially their “scientific” experiments, are questionable at best.
In roasting we have a similar problem with Scott Rao who most professional roasters think is a fool.
I think Hoffman is a great starting point for people going from a cup of Dunkin every morning to something more interesting (and drinkable).
Agreed. And he’s legitimately entertaining. Lance on the other hand….is a tool of the highest order and a pseudointellectual.
