Does anyone else 'choke' their Aeropress

[Fatboy_007]

Just wondering here whether anyone else manages to 'choke' their Aeropress. When the Brio was up and running, grinding too fine would often result in the 'choking' phenomenon. Question is, has anyone else had this happen in the Aeropress. I normally grind to about an espresso gring in my Rocky, usually with about 1.5 scoops of beans, and then nearly fill the Aeropress.

Love the intense flavours and the real punch of the coffee (quite often with miilk) but can sometimes end up with a big explosion, and ground coffee and hot water spraying out the sides, happened this morning on a nice new clean white shirt . So has anyone else had this problem, and have you just got around it by grinding coarser.

I have to really force the plunger down, and as I say I love the coffee, just not so keen on the mess sometimes.

Anyway, great device, and I have some more beans from Steve in the post, including the El Salvador Finca Las Victorias COE so I'll probably be posting another of my rambling reviews on Steve's site

[zix]

I haven't managed to make an explosion with the aeropress yet. If I grind fine, I push slowly. But espresso grind is too fine for me, it chokes the press, as you say. I grind a bit coarser than that.
Turning the aeropress upside down might also help. It can easily become rather messy too, though... I´ve only done it once.

[Paul L]

A colleague has, I have not, I think this is for two reasons:
- Firstly, I don't force the plunger down in a single movement. When I get solid resistance I hold it there and wait for a second or three for a natural easing of pressure and then plunge for however many millimetres it will allow me to until I hit that pressure point again. So, I keep pressure in this way and don't let it relax but I give it time to work. As I approach the last couple of centimetres I get the hissing sound
- Secondly, using the above to gauge how long it takes to consistently push or how long overall I have to give the plunger to push the water through the finer grinds and paper filter, I then adjust the grind for next time.
I think the Aeropress is better for not grinding too fine and not applying too much pressure.

[espressomattic]

Oh I had a real bad moment (surprisingly) Followed the instruction...'Use a glass cup' so I use a Pavina and all of a sudden...shatter!!! No more fancy glass cup

I use a coarse grind from my salter grinder and it works a treat. I use the espresso grinder for just that and have fine tned the Iron jobby for the Aerobie and french press.

Have to agree with Paul on all points.

[dliefbroer]

And a Pavina shatters. Friend of mine broke one while dishwashing. It's very thin glass.

[Paul L]

I should have added my third golden rule - a suggestion on how to hold the Aeropress.

We have to use a fair amount of force and know that some friends and family would struggle in the same way some would struggle with, say, a Pavoni (particularly female and not meant in a sexist way - my Mother is an example who had little strength in her hands).

So:
- When I first used the Aeropress I would hold the base and therefore my hand was at the top of the cup whilst the other hand was plunging down. I did not break any cups but felt this was asking for trouble and either I was going to break something or the whole thing would shoot out of my hands and throw scalding coffee over my clothes or someone else
- I therefore quickly learned to place my hand on the kitchen surface and wrap it around the cup so it can't slip and I reach up with forefinger and thumb to just hold the edges of the Aeropress base and keep it there.

This works fine for me, yes I've got large hands but even if I did not I would choose smaller mugs to be able to do this. It:
- keeps things steady
- takes away the fear of accidents
- means that when the close-to-boiling steam escapes through the vents during the plunging you don't get burned by it.

[AlanP]

I usually go 3 or 4 steps coarser than for espresso.
Make sure you have the correct number of filter papers fitted,
less than one is not enough more than one is too many.
Alan

[Gouezeri]

Phil's been known to choke me at times dunno why
Other than that, this has happened to me in the past, from memory with very fresh yirg ground a little too fine. All I do, is kinda the same as Paul, except if the grind is way to fine, lift the plunge up a little then plunge again, always worked well for me.
D

[Davec]

PaulL served me my first Aeropress coffee last night....it was extremely good. He did offer to let me use the contraption, but being inexperienced and it all looked a bit complicated, I declined....next time I will have a go.

My one criticism of the Aeropress is it's price...i just think at 24.49 (and nearly a penny per filter) it's a bit expensive for what you get and should be a bit cheaper. Yes it does do a good job though, no denying that.

So I learnt 2 things, the coffee from it is good, but i'm not cash rich enough to want to afford one until they are about £14.99. (well i'm so mean that I would actually want the inventor to send me one for free )

[Keeka]

So I learnt 2 things, the coffee from it is good, but i'm not cash rich enough to want to afford one until they are about £14.99

Well thats about the price they are in Canada/US so if you're up for it Dave, then...

Agreed, about £10 less would be about just right - I've got mine at work now and I'm loathe to pay for another one for home use.

[Steve]

Blame a government that throws import tax at everything, then wants vat adding onto it even though its no right to as it was made somewhere else. Then the shipping companies want to charge you a handling fee (even though they charged you the earth to bring the thing across) for giving the ill-gotten gains to the government. Ohh and when it arrives at port you have to get it shipped from there as the shipment was only to port.


And all that time its been floating on the water if your lucky your moneys been tied up in some stock you don’t yet have (and you had to order too much because that’s the only way the shipping was affordable) because you can have the next part then happen.


There is someone else in the middle taking some more as the importer. Ohh yes don’t forget the dollar is strong at the moment so the afore said importer worked out his sums on a much lower rate and couldn’t be bothered to lower his rates so he’s coining some more in.


Can you tell its a bug bare of mine

[Davec]

Well then it's time to buy a very big syringe, a really big one, cut the bottom off to leave an opening, then find some way of fitting a permanent filter

A bugbear of mine is that I personally believe everything is too expensive in the UK, because the great UK consumer is too willing to just put their hand in their pocket and pay. Cars, Houses, Electronics everything is over priced in the UK. Other countries know that, so we often get charged a very high price for goods by them.

We have also been hoodwinked into a throw away society, imagine it, I'm speaking to someone who is getting a new kettle, because their old one looked a "bit tatty", in the same breath they are also trying to convince how green they are and how they care for the environment.

I always admire people who either restore, repair or make things, the orange and chrome mazzer, those tampers, the small wooden hopper for the mazzer grinders and countless other things inventive TMCers have used or made. A bit more of that attitude in the UK and we would soon see prices plummet.

Rant mode off:

[GeorgeW]

PaulL served me my first Aeropress coffee last night....it was extremely good. He did offer to let me use the contraption, but being inexperienced and it all looked a bit complicated, I declined....next time I will have a go.

My one criticism of the Aeropress is it's price...i just think at 24.49 (and nearly a penny per filter) it's a bit expensive for what you get and should be a bit cheaper. Yes it does do a good job though, no denying that.

So I learnt 2 things, the coffee from it is good, but i'm not cash rich enough to want to afford one until they are about £14.99. (well i'm so mean that I would actually want the inventor to send me one for free )

My God Dave..you really are a man after my own heart.

[Steve]

So I learnt 2 things, the coffee from it is good, but i'm not cash rich enough to want to afford one until they are about £14.99. (well i'm so mean that I would actually want the inventor to send me one for free )

I know what you mean Dave I'm waiting for Clover to get there act together and send me a free machine DO THEY KNOW WHO I AM

[Gouezeri]

I know what you mean Dave I'm waiting for Clover to get there act together and send me a free machine DO THEY KNOW WHO I AM

Probably.
And there's your problem