OT: Portable Espresso Machine Recommendations?

[MikeD]

Cowboy coffee, brewed over an open fire, grounds strained through the teeth. Mmm good!

[froze]

Since this is a cycling forum I'm assuming by traveling you mean traveling on a bike like touring or bike camping? I have an Aeropress, and I like it, but when I travel I want something that takes up a lot less space and the Aeropress is bulky but not heavy. So I went with a GSI Outdoors Ultralight Java Drip Coffee maker, it's very lightweight and it backs down very flat.

Now if you mean car, air, boat, or train travel then the Aeropress is just fine, however it's not true espresso, it's more like a French Press just filtered, and that's all it is. Espresso requires about 18 bar of pressure and the Aeropress falls below that at less than 1 bar! And no, the Aeropress nor espresso taste similar to each other. If you want a true espresso machine that is portable then I would look at the Wacaco Nanopress, it's only $80, gets very high ratings on Amazon, comes in different colors but black saves you $4, it's completely manual in it's operation so no batteries to fool with. You can even get an adapter so you can use NS capsules if you prefer that sort of thing.

[jkbrwn]

Originally Posted by froze

Espresso requires about 18 bar of pressure and the Aeropress falls below that at less than 1 bar!

To be pendantic, it's more like 9.

[froze]

Originally Posted by jkbrwn

To be pendantic, it's more like 9.

You're right I was going off of memory which was in error, thanks for correcting me. No you were not annoying.

[tctyres]

Originally Posted by froze

... So I went with a GSI Outdoors Ultralight Java Drip Coffee maker, it's very lightweight and it backs down very flat.
.

I have the collapsible Java Drip, and I hate it. It's a different product altogether.

If I were going with drip, however, I'd use a plastic dripper, like the Melitta plastic cone. It weighs almost nothing, but you have to pack it more carefully than one of the GSI products.

[tourmalet]

Received this Wacaco Minipresso as a gift and have been super-impressed by the quality of the brew:

https://www.amazon.com/Minipresso-Po.../dp/B00VTA9F6U

Upside: it's well-thought out to be very very portable, it's easy to clean, relatively cheap. It's night-and-day between this and the Aeropress, Bialetti and other portable coffeemakers--this is really espresso.

Downside: you need a different container to boil water, only brews a single shot (~1 oz) out of the box but can be upgraded to a larger reservoir, takes some elbow grease to build up the pressure.

[froze]

Originally Posted by tctyres

I have the collapsible Java Drip, and I hate it. It's a different product altogether.

If I were going with drip, however, I'd use a plastic dripper, like the Melitta plastic cone. It weighs almost nothing, but you have to pack it more carefully than one of the GSI products.

I've tried a couple of drip jogs including one I use in the house (I have many different wasy to make coffee at the house, I get bored with one method!), the one in the house is a Hario V60 Ceramic job and I can't tell the difference in the taste of the coffee between the Hario and the GSI. When bike camping I don't want to be bothered with packing carefully something because the bike is banging down the road and something could break, also that Melitta takes up more space, you can't collapse that thing like the GSI, so it's taking up unnecessary space.

Other than that not sure why you don't like the GSI, it makes a pretty good cup of coffee, sure it's not espresso, and it's not Turkish, put it's close to French Press but better than a automatic drip maker. If you didn't like the flavor it produced maybe your grind was incorrect? you also have to pour the water over the grounds very slowly after you put a little water over the grounds just enough to get it entirely wet, and waited about 30 to 45 seconds for the coffee to bloom before you do your slow pour over the grounds. I found the GSI to be a lot better than various instant crap I've tried, even espresso instant.

[d_douglas]

The ‘freeZe dried crap’ reminded me that a really good coffee shop in our city of really good coffee shops now sells their own coffee in freeze dried packets. The owners are apparently campers and poured some money into making dead simple camp coffee.

I find this weird, but is there a way to make good freeze dried coffee? This shop wouldn’t put something out with their name on it if it wasn’t tasty…

[William]

I guess that depends on what one's definition of "tasty" is. For me personally, if it isn't a really fresh bean that I just ground myself and levered into a syrupy shot of golden espresso...it's not "tasty", it's only tolerable enough to deliver the caffeine.





W.

[goonster]

Originally Posted by d_douglas

I find this weird, but is there a way to make good freeze dried coffee?

Depends on your expectations, but not really. Freeze-drying is better than spray-drying, but not as good as concentrate, and none are worth the effort imho, mainly because of shelf life limitation. If I can't have espresso, Aeropress or pour-over from freshly ground beans, my expectations shift dramatically.

A months-old freeze-dried strawberry is edible, and better than many alternatives, but it can't really be compared to fresh fruit.

(Speaking as a ChE and coffee nerd, with extensive experience in lyophilization)

[benb]

I have a Flair Neo, it breaks down exactly the same as the more expensive units.

The only difference is it doesn't come with the case, you'd have to buy it separately.

What grinder you have access to on the road would determine whether a Flair Neo would be better or worse than the more expensive units.

Realistically the only difference with the Neo is the pressurized porta filter. I bought the Bottomless porta filter for mine and basically never use the pressurized filter anymore, but could use it on the road if the coffee grinding was an issue. If all you could get was store pre-ground the Neo's filter would be better.

You can use the pressurized porta filter with the more expensive units too.

I was travelling last week and took my Aeropress.. the Flair would not really take any extra room unless you wanted to have some way to foam milk.

The Aeropress makes great coffee but something about it is so inelegant too with all the plastic and the way it doesn't make that much volume of coffee and yet isn't as strong as espresso either.

The flair is more demanding in terms of requirements for boiling water though. The Aeropress doesn't need to be pre-heated, so you can just boil water in the microwave and go. The Flair doesn't produce it's best results unless you can keep the water on the boil while pre-heating and then still get water of the right temp out at brew time.

If you were backpacking or cycling I'd go plastic drip cone instead any day... the Flair and Aeropress both take way more room and are way more fiddly.

[tctyres]

Originally Posted by froze

Other than that not sure why you don't like the GSI, it makes a pretty good cup of coffee, sure it's not espresso, and it's not Turkish, put it's close to French Press but better than a automatic drip maker. If you didn't like the flavor it produced maybe your grind was incorrect? ...

Just to be clear, we have different products.
The one you have is this: https://gsioutdoors.com/ultralight-java-drip.html
I have this: https://gsioutdoors.com/collapsible-javadrip-blue.html

There's something about that collapsible rubber that catches a lot of grounds. I find it frustrating. It's just a little too difficult to clean. The coffee is fine... just a standard drip, I think.

[froze]

Originally Posted by tctyres

Just to be clear, we have different products.
The one you have is this: https://gsioutdoors.com/ultralight-java-drip.html
I have this: https://gsioutdoors.com/collapsible-javadrip-blue.html

There's something about that collapsible rubber that catches a lot of grounds. I find it frustrating. It's just a little too difficult to clean. The coffee is fine... just a standard drip, I think.

Oh, ok, yeah I have the ultralight one and it works good enough for my needs when camping. Mine is easy to clean, I give it a fling so it turns inside out and when that happens the major portion of the grounds is ejected, then I just run it inside out over running water to wash netting clean. It does use plastic legs and clips so I am careful about making sure not to break it when I attach the thing onto my cup.

[Dude]

Surprised this hasn't come up.... https://briping.com/. Freebasing coffee.

[Kirkmichaels]

Always wanted to try the aeropress!