How to make 6 ounces of coffee in 20 minutes

 Using the Aeropress GO:

1. Grind the coffee beans

Since I don't have a burr grinder, I use the hack from a James Coffeeperson video:

• Put strainer into a bowl that fits it.
• Put coffee beans in grinder. Press once or twice.
• Pour out coffee into strainer.
• Pour coffee that didn't fall into the bowl back into the coffee grinder.
• Repeat the grind & strain cycle until there is not enough left in the coffee grinder to grind.

2. Heat the water.

Fortunately we have an electric teakettle in which I can select temperature.

James Coffeeperson says to use lower temperature for darker roasts.

For dark roast Peet's coffee, I use the 180 degrees F / white tea setting. 

You may want to turn on the kettle before or during step 1. 

I haven't yet figured out the optimum way to get the kettle and coffee-filled Aeropress to be ready at the same time, though this would be ideal timing.

3. Coffee into Aeropress:

Put filter on Aeropress filter cap and attach it to its cylinder.

Pour the ground coffee into the cylinder on top of the filter.

I pour the remaining big chunks from the grinder into the cylinder because what else am I going to do with them? If I save them for next time then they won't be fresh.

4. Add the hot water to the Aeropress.

This is where it would be good to have the taller Aeropress instead of the "Go".

We want the coffee to stay in the cylinder for it to brew in the hot water.

As soon as you pour in the water, some falls through the filter. To minimize loss, put the plunger into the cylinder as soon as you can, and then lift it slightly. This creates a vacuum so that the water stops falling through the filter.

Start swirling the coffee around. This I also learned from a James Coffeeperson video.

Set a timer for 1 minute. I find that I do not estimate 1 minute very realistically, so it is good to set a timer.

Swirl the coffee as a substitute for stirring it with the included stirrer. That works fine.

Then set it down until the minute is up. Turn off the timer.

5. Press the plunger through.

Gently. The coffee ground to the width of sieve holes doesn't create any problem with this step.

Early on, I was following the Aeropress instructions to grind for at least one minute if you're using a blade grinder. That led to near expresso powder and sour coffee.

Try to press the plunger so it goes down as much as possible.
(This isn't for the sake of the coffee so much as to have a nice puck to dump into the compost bin.)

6. Cleanup

Unscrew the filter cap, rinse it, then push the plunger the rest of the way through to eject the coffee grounds puck into your compost bin.

The guy who invented the Aeropress has a video where he says you don't need to pull out the plunger to rinse it separately from the cylinder. That doesn't feel right to me. I pull out the plunger and rinse both.

7. Dilute

Taste a little bit of the coffee to judge how much hot water to add.

Even though I hate "coffee Americano", i.e. espresso that has been diluted with water, I find that it is fine to add hot water to the Aeropress coffee. You will probably want to add a bit too.

8. Drink

If you had the larger Aeropress, you would probably have more coffee.

Enjoy your coffee. Share with the family. You don't have to worry about an overdose.

Kermit Roosevelt III - The Nation That Never Was

The Nation That Never Was: Reconstructing America's Story by Kermit Roosevelt III
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

First, it's hard to resist a book written by a third-generation Kermit. He narrates the audiobook himself and does it well. He uses historical events ranging from ancient Rome to 2022 to lay out his argument.

Kermit introduces a different way for a patriotic American to think about U.S. History: a new Story to replace The Standard Story.

In clear sweet prose, he explains why it could be helpful if we think of the Gettysburg Address and the post-Civil War Constitution as better founding documents than the Declaration of Independence and the original U.S. Constitution. He talks about how the U.S. Founders sacrificed justice for the sake of Unity. He admits that the political situation may not have given these original founders much choice, but their failure to plan an end to slavery resulted in, well, a lot more slavery, capped off by our Nation's bloodiest war.

The Reconstruction Congress nobly sacrificed Unity in favor of Justice, but this didn't last. Federal troops were withdrawn from the former Confederacy, leaving the country to suffer decades of injustice, oppression, lynching, and systemic racism.

Kermit ends with a rallying cry for well-meaning Americans to strive for justice.

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