Episode

Scott Bentley: Welcome to Adventures in Coffee, a podcast by Caffeine Magazine sponsored by Oatly

Jools Walker: And this specific episode is brought to you by AeroPress and is going to be the brewing device we use to help you brew better coffee at home today

Scott Bentley: In this second series, Jools and I explore the world of coffee for people that are curious about what's in their daily cup

Jools Walker: We are all becoming more and more interested in where our food and drink comes from, so we made this podcast to demystify the complicated world of coffee and definitely have some laughs along the way.

Scott Bentley: This is the third in our mini-series of adventures in our kitchen, where we help you brew better coffee at home and try to give you some practical advice.

Jools Walker: Now I'm Jools Walker a very proud East Londoner, a cycling advocate, and you're very everyday coffee lover.

Scott Bentley: I am Scott Bentley. I am the founder of Caffeine Magazine and all round coffee dork. Now in today's episode, we're going to help you brew better filter coffee.

Jools Walker: And that is exactly why I am in my kitchen for this episode. So forgive any weird noises or echoes that you hear, but we're keeping it real in Casa Velo.

Scott Bentley: Is that lawnmower going off in the background as well!?

Piano

Jools Walker: So Scott, I have a bit of a, a coffee conundrum going on in my life that I wanted to talk to you about. Now, you know that I love coffee and you know that I am with a man who loves coffee as well. And, and. It's great. Having someone on hand who can make good coffee, but I don't tend to make the coffee myself when we're at home.

It's more of a sort of ritual where I kind of ask questions, maybe stand and watch and you know, maybe throw bean in the grinder every now and then, but it's not really my domain.

Scott Bentley: So Jools I’m not getting what your problem here at the moment is, I mean, it sounds like you've got a great coffee Butler and, um, just get him to make your coffee whenever you need one

Jools Walker: That is the problem in itself. I need to be able to make my own coffee and I really want to know how to make my own good coffee. When Ian isn't around

Scott Bentley: You telling me something, you here you breaking up?

Jools Walker: I'm I'm, I'm just making sure that I could, uh, have a good backup for when. No, no, we're not breaking up.

Here's the thing. I have plans to go on a cycling trip without Ian, which is controversial, but I want to go on a trip and I actually want to be able to have great coffee when I'm out and about on this bike packing trip as well. So as seen, as I'm not going to have my bean Butler next to me, I need to know how to be able to do this myself.

Piano

Scott Bentley: So Jools, we decided to make this episode, really, because I wanted to show you and our deal listener, of course, the three things that you can tweak to make a cup of coffee perfect for your taste.

Jools Walker: So what are these tweaks?

Scott Bentley: The first is how much water we're going to use in your coffee, then is the heat. So that's how hot is this water going to be that you're brewing with?

And lastly, the time, how long you leave this brewing for. So dear listener, these are just three things that you can tweak to make sure that your cup of coffee, we can turn it for something that's relatively meh to something that's, wow!

Jools Walker: This all sounds great, Scott. But before we delve into the world of plunging and brewing better coffee, let's have a quick word from our sponsor.

Music

Scott Bentley: And here is a sustainability hack brought to you by Oatly.

Jools, I know I keep going on about this. But we need to talk about mama. Velo’s cooking, again.

Jools Walker: This is on your favorite topics, isn't it?

Scott Bentley: Yeah, absolutely. When Mama Velo does one of these cookouts, are there any leftovers?

Jools Walker: Oh God. Yes. There's absolutely loads of food leftover at the end of one of her cookouts.

Scott Bentley: Right, well, our very good friends at Oatly have given us a sustainability hack and that is to make sure you leave your leftovers to cool down before you put I'm in the fridge.

Jools Walker: And that makes perfect sense because your fridge has to work so much harder to cool down hot food if you pop it in there and that then waste energy and carbon emissions. So let it cool down, pop it in.

Scott Bentley: I've got another way to save energy, another fantastic sustainability hack.

Jools Walker: Go on then

Scott Bentley: Why don't you just call me when you've had your dinner, and then I'll cycle over to you. And those leftovers can just go in my belly and you won't have to put them in the fridge. You save even more energy.

Jools Walker: That’s so consider it for you.

I love how forward thinking you are with this. And I love the fact that you are prepared to cycle across London for a plate of my mom's food. So I shall hold you to that.

Scott Bentley: It's all for the environment babes

Jools Walker: Not for the sake of your belly

Scott Bentley: No

Jools Walker: It's for the sake of the planet

Scott Bentley: It’s just for the planet.

Jools Walker: Right. And that is another sustainability hack from our friends are Oatly.

Music

Jools Walker: So AeroPress, has very kindly sent me two of their brewers so that I can brew up, hopefully a very good cup of coffee with it, but I have never, and I repeat, never used an AeroPress before in my life. So what's so good about an AeroPress Scott?

Scott Bentley: I used to use them a lot when I was a freelance designer, the amount of comments of our people as I've been grinding coffee beans in a kitchen, you know, these are these various different places, and they're like, why are you grinding pepper? Oh no no, these are coffee beans. Oh, what's that there? It's an AeroPress, oh, what does that do? It starts conversation.

Jools Walker: It's easy to understand why as essentially an AeroPress is like a large plunger with a paper filter at the bottom of it.

Piano

Jools Walker: All right, then Scott I'm in the Velo laboratory, otherwise known as Jools’ kitchen. What am I actually doing? With this.

Scott Bentley: Yeah, we are going to start with the AeroPress recipe that you will kind of like find on  their website. So we're going to brew up their espresso style recipe.

Jools Walker: Okay, cool. Got it.

Scott Bentley: So you're going to need a sturdy mug

Jools Walker: Check

Scott Bentley: Paper filter in the cap.

Jools Walker: Yup.

Scott Bentley: Twist and lock the cap into the bottom of the AeroPress

Jools Walker: Locked and loaded.

Scott Bentley: Whack it on the mug

Jools Walker: Whacked

Scott Bentley: Boil out water

 Jools Walker: Boiled

Scott Bentley: Grind up and pop a rounded scoop of coffee into the AeroPress.

Jools Walker: How fine, Scott?

Scott Bentley: Medium grind setting like you'd use for a pour over

Jools Walker: One rounded scoop, done.

Scott Bentley: Shake that, so it's nice and leveled coffee leveled.

Jools Walker: Coffee leveled

Scott Bentley: Tip up the boiling hot water in the kettle with an extra quarter of cold tap water.

Jools Walker: Scott, water set at 80 degrees.

Scott Bentley: Jools you'll see, there's four numbers on the side of the AeroPress fill it up to number one.

Jools Walker: Number one, filled

Scott Bentley: Grab that stirrer and stir for 10 seconds.

Jools Walker: We are stirred.

Scott Bentley: Now grab the end of the AeroPress and just push it in gently, so it sits on top

Jools Walker: Sitting on the top.

Scott Bentley: Now, press down gently.

Jools Walker: I'm going. I'm going, it's getting lower.

Scott Bentley: Keep going

Jools Walker: It's getting lower

Scott Bentley: All the way.

Jools Walker: Scott, I am plunged.

Scott Bentley: Excellent. Right. Here's the good bit. Take your AeroPress over to your bin.

Jools Walker: Mhmm

Scott Bentley: Unscrew the cap, push the plunger and the puck would just pop out

Jools Walker: Popped out and binned.

Scott Bentley: Give it a quick rinse.

Jools Walker: I've rinsed the tip

Scott Bentley: Right. You should have a great cup of coffee in front of you. They're Jools.

Jools Walker: I do indeed. It smells incredible. I'm really proud of the fact that I've made a cup of coffee. So go Jools!

Scott Bentley: Yes, go Jools. Right? What'd you think of your first cup of coffee Jools?

Jools Walker: I'm surprised at how smooth that's come out.

Scott Bentley: Does it feel quite thick?

 Jools Walker: It feels like it's sort of coating my mouth in a good way. Is it weird to say that it tastes a little bit like some kind of liqueur, but it's fruity at the same time? There's something apricot-y about it as well.

Piano

Scott Bentley: Well, however good. It may be Jools, should we see if we can make it even better?

Jools Walker: I am up for that.

Scott Bentley: Right. I want you to repeat what we've just done and we're going to change one thing on one thing only, and that's just how much water we're using. So we're just going to use more water

Jools Walker: More water.

Scott Bentley: So, whereas before we asked you to fill the water up to number one, this time, I'm going to get you to fill the water up to the top of number three.

Piano

Jools Walker: Cool.

Scott Bentley: Jools that you should have two cups, two AeroPresses, the same amount of coffee in each AeroPress. For the first AeroPress, I want you to fill it up to number one and for the second AeroPress, I want you to fill it to number three.

Jools Walker: Oh Scott. If you could smell this

Scott Bentley: Right, then stir them both for 10 seconds.

Jools Walker: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. Scott, I am plunged, I am double plunged.

Scott Bentley: Awesome.

Jools Walker: Okay. I’ve pop them off in the bin, and I've just got to say the speed and the ease to clean these, is incredible.

Scott Bentley: And if you think about how much hassle and effort of that, you have to do with a French Press, this just is like, oh, it's just so easy.

Okay. Jools, you've got two cups of coffee there tasted them side by side.

Jools Walker: Okay. The first one I'm going to try is the one that was filled up to level one on the AeroPress.

Oh Scott. Oh, Scott. That's very nice going to hop onto the second one now. So I'm going to taste the difference. So this is the one that was filled up to number three in the AeroPress.

Oh, oh, okay. I'm already tasting a difference between the two. And the first thing is the texture.

Scott Bentley: Absolutely.

Jools Walker: That's immediately. The second one that we've done, where I filled up to number three, it's the same coffee, but it's completely different.

Scott Bentley: What are you tasting that's different?

Jools Walker: So there's still the hint of the apricot that I got the first time round with number one. But now I'm tasting, I'm tasting nuts with this one.

Scott Bentley: Wow, sounds great.

Jools Walker: So almost like hazelnuts like a sort of Christmassy hazelnut taste is what I'm getting from this one.

Scott Bentley: It sounds like you can pick out more things in number two, like the first one may be a bit too dense that you couldn't kind of like look into it all.

Whereas the second one feels like it’s pulled apart a bit more…

Jools Walker: Yeah

Scott Bentley: and you can, you can taste more of what's in there.

Jools Walker: adding more water, opens it up.

Scott Bentley: So Jools both sounds pretty amazing coffees. Which one are you kind of more drawn to at the moment?

Jools Walker: This is, this is a tough one. But I'm going to say the second one, the one that we've done up to three they're both delicious two banging cups of coffee. I think it's just the need for having maybe a longer and lighter coffee would be quite nice.

Piano

Scott Bentley: Okay Jools, I'm glad you liked that second cup of coffee we're going to use as our template moving forward. So we're going to do that again. We're going to do two cups of coffee, two AeroPresses here, both up to the number three line. But this time one of those waters is going to be boiled to a hundred degrees, and the second one is going to be up to 80 degrees. So the only difference here is going to be the temperature of the water.

Jools Walker: Okay, so let’s go.

Piano

Scott Bentley: Right, Jools you’ve got two delicious coffees there. I just want to just mention one thing. This is one of the reasons why I love this brewing device. You can do things like this.

You can change the temperature of the water. You can't do this with automatic drip machine.

Jools Walker: Yeah

Scott Bentley: You can't do that. So while we wait for your coffees to kind of cool down to a drinkable. I'm sure our listeners are dying to know what is this coffee that we've been brewing up the tastes of like, you know, Apricots and hazelnuts?

Jools Walker: Oh, definitely. Um, this is quite cool because we are using coffee that has kindly been provided to us by Girls Who Grind Coffee. They've actually bought this coffee from a female owned processing facility in Myanmar, and this is what the founders said about the lady.

The vision behind the lady is to promote women in coffee, which is the reality here in my Myanmar.

It's mostly women working on the farms, not men. So we want it to celebrate the fact that women can do whatever men can do by only buying from female farmers. And that's why we named the company, The Lady.

Piano

Scott Bentley: Right now. Do you want to try your coffee that we brewed at 80 degrees. Cause this is the same as the one we brewed in the previous recipe.

Jools Walker: So I'm trying the cooler one first, right?

Scott Bentley: Yeah.

Jools Walker: Okay. Here we go.

Scott Bentley: So familiar.

Jools Walker: Yeah, still very, very nice. It's still very open as well. So yeah

Scott Bentley: Let's try the other one. Let's try the one that we use boiling water with.

Jools Walker: Hm. Okay. That's. Um, that's really different. It's made me sort of scrunch my nose up a little bit as I've tasted it.

Scott Bentley: Wow. Okay.

Jools Walker: Um, the boiling water one tastes really harsh in comparison.

Scott Bentley: Alright, okay

Jools Walker: It's got a really tight taste to it. And I thought that the boiling water was going to make it explode open or something, but it just doesn't taste like its had much of a chance to do anything.

Scott Bentley: Look, this isn't a super scientific explanation of what you're experiencing, but you know, go with me a little bit on this

Jools Walker: Professor Bentley, there at work when it comes to the coffee, I see

Scott Bentley: The two coffees you just currently drunk one that was brewed at 80 degrees, and one that was brewed at a 100 degrees.

I think one of the reasons you're tasting the coffee the way you are, I feeling a bit harsh, maybe feeling a little bit more punchy is because when we put in that really hot water in there, there's a lot more energy in that water. And that water is really, so bashing around the coffee, it's pulling out loads of flavor, it's extracting all of these great flavors, but maybe some of the not so great flavors. So would you say that the second coffee, the one that we use boiling water, is there more intensity there?

Jools Walker: Yes. It felt harder. Something about the taste was harder and more intense

Scott Bentley: Wow, yeah.

Jools Walker: This does not feel like I'm drinking the same coffee.

I mean, the, the other thing that I talked about before, you know, the nuttiness that I said I was getting from it, it's a heavier, hazelnutty taste in the 100 degree coffee. And it's almost a bit too much. I mean, there might be folks out there that may be like that intense hit, but I think just knowing all of the notes and the flavors that I've experienced with this coffee so far, it's not what I'm after. I feel like Goldilocks at this point.

Scott Bentley: This is brilliant though, because the great thing here though, Jools is the word we're kind of plotting a course to your favorite recipe. And we still got one more tweak that we can do.

Piano

Scott Bentley: Third and final experiment. Let's go with this one. Should have two AeroPresses in front of you. So we using one scoop of coffee, 80 degree water, and we're filling these up to the level three. In both of these AeroPresses but there is one difference. So for the first one, we're going to stir for 10 seconds and plunge immediately, like we've done with all of the others before, but the second one again, we're going to stir it for 10 seconds, but then we're going to leave it for one minute before we plunge.

Piano

Jools Walker: Okay. Then professor Scott, I've got the two coffees in front of me in Jools’ Coffee Laboratory.

Scott Bentley: Okay, Jools taste again your favorite coffee so far.

Jools Walker: Yeah, we’re still in a really good space with this one, Scott, this is still joy. So I’m happy

Scott Bentley: let’s see if we can bring a little more coffee joy though. Let's try our second brew. Now. This is the one that we brew for a minute before we plunged it.

Jools Walker: Here we go.

Um, this is a wild ride. This is the same coffee, and this is just, in the nicest way, this is very bizarre how much this is changing.

Scott Bentley: Great.

Jools Walker: Okay. It's a lot stronger. And it's become heavy.

Scott Bentley: Does it feel maybe like you've turned the saturation up to 10 or something?

Jools Walker: Yeah, it's really punchy. I keep on going back to hazelnuts, which is making me some like a squirrel. I understand, but it's that the nuttiness feels like it's gone up a notch as well with this for the longer brew time.

It's not as fruity anymore. So, you know, earlier on I was talking about getting the taste of strawberries, then there was this interesting midpoint where like apricot started to creep through, and then there was a hint of nuttiness. It's just gotten more intense. That's kind of cranked up now. So it's more nutty than anything else.

And it tastes darker. The mouthfeel. This feels like it's now going back a step to how the previous ones that we had done before, it felt like it was coating my mouth more. This now feels like my mouth is being coated by this too.

Piano

Jools Walker: So Scott I’ve got, I've. I've got to know why does brewing it for longer, have such an effect on the flavor?

Scott Bentley: Well, I mean, as we worked out earlier, I'm no professor, so I'm not going to try and kind of baffle you with science, but essentially when you grind the coffee, there is a surface area of what the water comes in contact with. And the longer that that water is in contact with that coffee, the more it will extract.

So essentially leaving in there longer, much in the same way as a teabag. You leave it in there longer is going to, it has more time to extract more flavor.

Piano

Scott Bentley: So Jools are you feeling now that you can brew this coffee how you like here on your own without any other help?

Jools Walker: Hand on heart? Yes. I now have the option of making a cup of coffee, exactly the way that I want to. And I also have the option of having fun, discovering how to make that cup of coffee, how I want it, as well.

Scott Bentley: So if you wake up and you're, after a short, punchy coffee, you can make that

Jools Walker: Immediately

Scott Bentley: And if you're after a long, smooth mellow coffee, you can make that too.

Jools Walker: Absolutely. I've, I'm armed with the tools to do it.

Scott Bentley: And we, hey, we haven't even talked about changing your grindr setting either, but we'll leave that for another episode.

Piano

Jools Walker: Scott you've helped me find my perfect Aeropress coffee, but that begs the question seen as you're so good at this. What's your ultimate or favorite Aeropress recipe. Like what's, what's your thing?

Scott Bentley: Well, I wouldn't say I've got the perfect recipe, but I've got the perfect recipe for me. I generally use about 12.5 grams of coffee, and I’ll weigh 220 grams of water.

Jools Walker: Okay.

Scott Bentley: I will let that then sit for a minute and I will then plunge, you know, and it’ll take me like 30 seconds to plunge that, but I actually use boiling water.

Jools Walker: Oh

Scott Bentley: I think my recipe is probably closer to the second recipe that we did

Jools Walker: Okay

Scott Bentley: And that's kind of what I like to do, but with a, with a minute stand time. So I like my coffees quite punchy.

Jools Walker: Have I spoken to you about the sweet shop analogy before?

Scott Bentley: Tell me your sweet shop analogy.

Jools Walker: So my sweet shop analogy is this. I go to my sweet shop and Tom, who is my, my local sweet shop keeper has a amazing selection of sweets for me. So I've got my jaw breakers, I've got my Cola bottles. I've got me gummy bears or whatever they're already, and I can choose from that. But Tom's already chosen for me, what he thinks is the amazing selection of sweets that I'm going to go away with. But if I could get to the warehouse, say for instance, where he gets the sweets from, I would have more choice and more to play with.

So if you're able to get your own beans, grind them up in any kitchen, play with something like the AeroPress, you can choose all of the sweets that you want because the option is now yours.

Scott Bentley: Can you give me some jelly snakes while you're there?

Jools Walker: Yeah, I'll try. You want some fizzy Cola bottles too?

Scott Bentley: Oh, absolutely.

Jools it was an adventure as usual. Thanks so much, I hope you found your perfect recipe.

Jools Walker: Oh, I did. Thank you so much for, for the guidance on this. I'm, I'm very excited to know that when it does come to me doing that solo bike packing trip without my, uh, Bean Butler, Ian, love him. I was actually checking the AeroPress Instagram page and came across the AeroPress Go that they do.

And I'm probably going to end up taking that with me when I go on my bike packing trip.

Piano

Scott Bentley: Now, ordinarily, this is where I'd say, roll the credits, but

Jools Walker: We have a big announcement to make.

Scott Bentley: Yes, dear listener, remember those battle brew days before you found us, before we started pouring these lovely episodes into your ears, and the coffee world was really overwhelming, is even a bit solitary. Brewing up coffee in your kitchen with no one to talk flavors to

Jools Walker: It's a sad state of affairs, and that's exactly why we got together and created this podcast. Now we want it to be your companion on this journey. And we wanted to bring the absolute joys and highs of coffee to you.

Scott Bentley: That's right. And it's been almost a year now and we're just about to start doing season three. And you know what? Want to be even more adventurous.

Jools Walker: We want to continue to build upon the fantastic community that we have out there

Scott Bentley: And to help us get there, we set up a Patreon.

Jools Walker: It’s essentially a platform where you can support the creators that you love. It helps keep our lights on and you get to shape the show, even more.

Scott Bentley: You can join for as little, three pounds a month and you can get things like discount codes, you get shout-outs during the credits

Jools Walker: And there's one that I, I don't think Scott wants to talk about

Scott Bentley: Let’s stop there now Jools

Jools Walker: Coffee Aunty Jools is going to talk about this. It's the fact that you dear listener will get the chance to topple Scott. And I'm talking about you being crowned the King of Caffeine or the Empress of Espresso. It's the fact that we're going to get Scott to, to doff his cap to you, in the credits of each episode and bow down to your coffee greatness.

Scott Bentley: This is true. I will get off the throne and bow before you on the show. So if you want that, and there are many other perks as well. Go to patrion.com/adventuresincoffee. That's P A T R E O N.com/adventureincoffee.

Jools Walker: Let's now roll on to the actual credits.

Piano

Scott Bentley: This podcast was produced by James Harper, the creator of the coffee podcast Filter Stories.

Jools Walker: And he also wrote in plays the piano music that you hear in the background.

Scott Bentley: You can also help others find the show by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts. And if you do that, it does tell the algorithm that this is a good show and that more people should listen to it

Jools Walker: And of course there is the joy of being able to follow us all on social media.

So you can follow Caffeine Magazine on Instagram. So that's Scott @caffeinemag myself, Jools @ladyvelo and James Harper @filterstoriespodcast

Scott Bentley: And also, go and check out AeroPress’, Instagram feed, where you'll be able to see our recipes and that’s linked in the show notes.

Jools Walker: Now in our next episode, we are exploring the world of pods.

Scott Bentley: Boo

Jools Walker: Hold your horses young man. Now, should you buy a pod machine for yourself or for your uncle or your auntie at Christmas?

Scott Bentley: You know the answer is no

Jools Walker: Scott. That is not, I repeat, not the answer at all. Cause we're actually going to investigate pod machines in this episode, every which way to help you dear listener, make up your own mind.

Scott Bentley: Jools, you better prepare for the showdown of the century.

Jools Walker: But until then, we will see you soon.

Piano