This is the same method that most of the world-champion AeroPressers use. (Via Nick Schaden.)
Month: June 2011
AeroPress
As I write this sentence there is a hot cup of coffee sitting next to me, brewed using an AeroPress.
I own a drip coffee maker, a Turkish coffee maker, two french presses, a stove-top espresso maker, a siphon, and now an AeroPress. The stove-top makers never get used; the drip maker is only for when lots of company comes over; the siphon gets used about once a week at most; and the french press gets used every single day. Until today.
Savvy readers of the site will know that pretty much every day of the week I brew half a pot of french press coffee. The siphon also makes great coffee and is a lot of fun to use. But it takes lot of work and is very impractical for daily coffee making.
This is where the AeroPress comes in. It makes a cup of coffee on par with the french press and the siphon and is the easiest of them all to clean up.
You can’t ask if the AeroPress makes a better or worse cup of coffee than a french press or siphon — AeroPress brews coffee differently and brings out different flavors and tones. It is not better or worse, it is different, and yes, it is good. If you like french press and/or siphon then I bet you will also like AeroPress.
There are many ways to brew a cup of coffee with AeroPress. The common way is to brew it more similarly to how an espresso machine would: by pushing a little amount of water through a lot of fine grounds in a short amount of time. Once you’ve brewed and pressed your AeroPress your cup only has about 3 – 4 ounces of coffee in it. Very strong coffee. Then you can add hot water or hot milk.
There are some huge advantages to this type of brewing that you will never get with a french press:
- You brew the AeroPress with 175-degree water. Using a bit cooler of water means you are far less likely to burn your grounds and so more likely to end up with a cup of coffee that is not very bitter or acidic.
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You brew a lot of grounds with very little water and you do it quickly. This means you don’t over extract the coffee and your chances of ending up with that smokey-burnt flavor is also far less.
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After brewing you can then add piping hot water to your 4 ounces of AeroPressed coffee and bring the temperature back up to piping. I, for one, like my coffee to be as hot as possible.
All of the above advantages to the AeroPress can be overcome by someone who is good at making french press. There is no reason you can’t brew a great cup of french press (I do it every day), but the margin for error is smaller with the AeroPress. However, there is one advantage that the AeroPress has which the french press or siphon will never have: clean up.
The AeroPress basically cleans itself as you use it. Once you’re done pressing your coffee, you simply untwist the plastic filter cap, pop the coffee puck into the trash, rinse off the bottom of the rubber plunger, and you’re done. Clean up takes about 10 seconds. By far, my biggest annoyance of making french press coffee every day is the cleanup.
If you’re persnickety about your coffee and brew some every day then the AeroPress may be your cup of tea.
Everything is a Remix Part 3 →
In part 3 of this fantastic series of videos, Kirby Ferguson explores the elements of creativity and how innovations truly happen. I watched part 3 yesterday evening and was thinking about what it is that makes these videos so cool. Not only do I love the storyline and the narrative of the videos (Kirby is a great writer), but also Kirby is just a truly likable guy. There’s a great personality to these videos that makes them informative and entertaining.
Best Buy’s Impenetrable Mess →
Jared Newan on Best Buy’s new cloud music service:
To listen on smartphones, you’ve got to register each handset by handing over its make, model and phone number. Then Best Buy e-mails you a link to the application by text message, and you have to activate the phone by downloading the app and plugging in a confirmation code. Oh, and an app for Apple devices isn’t available yet, even though Best Buy’s PC software relies on iTunes to sync your library.
(Via reader, Deron Bos.)
Ben Brooks Reviews Agenda →
Nice overview of what makes Agenda so great.
Best Buy Introduces Their Own Cloud Music Service →
Alas, CDs which you have bought at Best Buy over the past 20 years are not automatically available for you in the cloud. Seriously though, at first glance this does seem to be a pretty decent service.
What’s odd is that the free (Lite) version only lets you listen to the first 30 seconds(!) of your songs. This sounds like the worst decision in the world as far as constraints on a Lite version are concerned. However, I think the reasoning here is that Best Buy’s Music Cloud serves two purposes: (a) storage and backup; and (b) mobile access. And from what I understand based on this post by Brian Joseph is that the Lite version offers unlimited storage with automatic backup of your iTunes library for free. If you additionally want to have mobile access to that library then you pay 4 bucks a month for the premium service. When put in that perspective it doesn’t sound too bad at all.
Agenda 1.0 →
Agenda is a calendar app for your iPhone, and it just launched this morning. I’ve been beta testing it for a while and I like it. The layout is clean and minimal, the app is fast, and I especially like how you can swipe side-to-side to get to the different views of your calendar as if there’s a bit of Windows Phone 7 DNA in in the UX.
How to Keep Things Secure in Your Dropbox or Other Cloud Storage →
A clever tip from Scott Jordan. If there are files you want to keep in your Dropbox but you don’t want to fall into the wrong hands, create an encrypted Disk Image to store those top-secret files in. Then, simply put the .sparsebundle file in your Dropbox and anytime you want to mount the image to access the file you’ll need to authenticate.
Apple’s Mac App Store Lineup
As a consumer, when I’m given the choice between buying an app from the Mac App Store and buying it from a different point of sale, I will chose the Mac App Store every time.
The Mac App Store does present some disadvantages, such as the fact that critical updates won’t be pushed quite as quickly to me. However, it’s more than a worthwhile tradeoff for the exchange of having my licensing, updates, and installations all in one place. And these advantages are especially obvious when setting up a new computer or doing a clean install of your operating system.
When I first downloaded the developer preview of Lion a few months ago I was running it on an external drive. One of the first things I did was authenticate the Mac App Store with my Apple ID, and instantly I was able to download any and all of the apps which I had previously purchased.
It was a one-stop shop for updating my vanilla install of Lion into something a bit more useful.
A common sentiment we saw when the Mac App Store first launched was how nice and easy it would be for the non-nerdy user to buy and install apps. Not everyone is acquainted with how to handle .dmg files and where to move their application files to, and the Mac App Store does away with all friction involved in downloading, installing, and registering an application.
Now that the store has been around for a few months, it seems that even the nerdiest of us are happy to use the it as our preferred point of sale as well.
However, what strikes me today is not the ease of use and the convenience of the Mac App Store. Rather, it’s the pricing point of Apple’s software. With Final Cut Pro X hitting the Mac App Store today I thought it would be interesting to take a look at the store’s price points and offerings.
Apple currently has 13 applications for sale in the Mac App Store (and Lion on the way). With Final cut Pro X now added to the lineup, the apps now form an easily identifiable range of pricing categories as pointed out by Ryan Nielsen:
| Classification | Price Point |
| Consumer | $15 or less |
| Productivity | $20 |
| Utility | $50 |
| Prosumer | $80 |
| Professional | $300 |
The above pricing points are — especially in some cases — significantly more competitive than the traditional price points of Apple’s software and even software in general.
If you buy the iLife apps (iPhoto, iMovie, and Garage Band) from Apple’s website or one of their retail stores, then they sell as a package deal for $50 for a single-user license or $80 for a family license. In the Mac App Store, they are $15 each (thus: $45 for the suite) and you get “family licensing” by default.1 This effectively makes Apple’s Consumer-level apps 44% off if you buy them on the Mac App Store.
Same story with the iWork apps (Pages, Keynote, and Numbers): package deal on their website or retail stores for $80/$100 for single/family licensing respectively. But in the Mac App Store they are $20 each, or 40% discounted.
Aperture 3, which sells for $200 on Apple’s website, is $80 in the Mac App Store.
And today’s big story is Final Cut Pro X. Previous versions sold for $999. Now it sells for $300 and is only available in the Mac App Store.How long until all of Apple’s software is only available in the Mac App Store?
Another example of new software pricing is operating systems. Not only will Lion be the first release of a Macintosh operating system to be available only via download, it will also have a very amiable price: $30. Lion is arguably the most substantial update to OS X to date yet it is priced the same as Snow Leopard, a noteworthy but not quite as major of an OS release.
Through the Mac App Store, Apple is selling industry-standard professional applications for a few hundred dollars and operating systems for the price of a date at the movies.
- Technically, as most of you probably already know, you could buy a single-user copy of iLife, iWork, or even OS X and then install it on multiple computers. Because Apple doesn’t enforce single versus family licensing. However, it would seem that most Mac users were honest and still bought the proper licenses. ↵
The Development of Denver’s Newest Urban Center →
Absolutely gorgeous website detailing the history of and upcoming development information for Denver’s Union Station Neighborhood. (Hat tip to Chris Bowler.)
Consumers Don’t Want Tablets, They Want iPads →
I don’t even think it’s an issue of the average consumer comparing the offerings and then making an educated decision that they want an iPad instead of a Xoom or a PlayBook or a Samsung Galaxy Tab. The average consumer likely doesn’t even know about all the other tablets that are out there. To them there is the iPad and there are some knockoffs they saw zip-tied to a cardboard end cap at Best Buy while they were buying a printer.
Performance is a Feature →
As Amazon and Google have proven, the longer it takes for your website to load (even by 100 milliseconds) the less that people will want to use it. And so, as Jeff points out, it makes sense that the faster your website loads the more people will use it.
Related reading: Brent’s plea for baked weblogs.
[Sponsor] The AppStorm Freelance Mac App Bundle →
Bringing you over $330 of apps and resources, the AppStorm Freelance Mac App Bundle features a fantastic package of software for freelancers. We’re including Billings, WriteRoom, TextExpander, 1Password, LittleSnapper, Arq, Radium, and Alarms — all for just $49!
You’ll also receive a series of helpful resources, including the Rockstar Freelancer eBook, a WordPress theme, business card template, and web-based client management application.
This is a fantastic deal for freelancers and Mac users everywhere, but it’s only available for 10 days. Visit the site to find out more and grab your free copy of Smashing Magazine’s “Successful Freelancing” eBook!
The Nokia N9 →
Remember when Nokia cell phones were the phones to have? The new N9 looks slick: no front-side buttons, a very attractive hardware design, and the “3rd View” of the recent and open applications looks very clever.
(Doesn’t look like it’s coming to the US anytime soon, though.)