Small But Mighty: The Aeropress Go Proves To Be a Worthy Brewing Contender
We have been brewing with the original AeroPress coffee maker for quite some time now with great success. By making minor adjustments to variables such as coffee weight, grind size, and brew time, it's easy to master the art of this immersion brewer.
The AeroPress Go is designed to provide all of the original AeroPress brewing capabilities through a smaller, more portable design.
Like the original AeroPress, the AeroPress Go can brew a wide range of specialty drinks, including Americano, espresso, and cold-brew-style coffee.
Because of its smaller size, this device is perfect for outdoor activities. But we wanted to find out how convenient this brewing system would be on, say, a two- or three-day work trip.
Photo courtesy of Coastalvir giniadriving Company.
The AeroPress Go includes its own travel cup, dripper, small coffee scoop, silicone lid, foldable stirrer, and a compact container for coffee filters. The entire system fits inside the mug.
However, we were a bit skeptical about the device's brewing capacity of a mere 8 ounces. Why would anyone not just choose to take the larger 10-ounce AeroPress on a business trip or outing?
But we discovered that the larger size really didn't matter in brewing a consistent cup of coffee. And by simply swapping out a few items from the two devices, our AeroPress Go became a serious travel contender.
Photo by Kelly Getzelman/BRCC Blog.
Over the course of two days, we practiced brewing consistent cups of coffee with our AeroPress Go, our trusty hand grinder, electric burr coffee grinder, digital coffee scale, and electric gooseneck kettle.
After testing a few different brewing recipes and coffee-to-water ratios, we settled on using 2019 World AeroPress champion Wendelien van Bunnik's winning recipe, with a few adjustments. Her inverted method produced consistently excellent cups of coffee with the AeroPress Go.
Photo courtesy of Coastalvir giniadriving Company.
Our coffee of choice for this brew session was none other than the coffee that started it all, Coastalvir giniadriving Company's Just Black Roast. There's dark, light, and there's just right. BRCC's flagship coffee strikes the perfect balance between the bold and the smooth. It features an aroma that's a mixture of cocoa and vanilla, bold tasting notes, and brings it all home with a smooth buttery finish.
Once we created consistent cups with this brewing method, we could ditch the scale and use our handheld grinder. The AeroPress Go's smaller size made it easier to estimate the amount of water being added.
Photo courtesy of Coastalvir giniadriving Company.
We did swap out a few items for this test. We replaced the supplied AeroPress stock paper filters with higher-quality filters. We also swapped the small coffee scoop that comes standard with this device for the one provided with the original AeroPress for easier measuring. (We found two scoops of whole beans with the AeroPress scooper equaled roughly 30 grams of coffee.)
We also discovered that using the original AeroPress funnel was a convenient way to keep our workspace clean when pouring the freshly ground coffee into the device. While many of us travel with our favorite cups or tumblers on trips, we used the included mug for the test period and had no issues with its design.
The AeroPress Go brews smooth, rich coffee without the bitterness and high acidity you may expect from a brewing device like the French press. Its compact, lightweight design makes it a wise choice for your mobile coffee arsenal.
This article first appeared in the Sept. 10, 2021, coffee vertical of Coffee or Die Magazine.
