The Best Way to Make Coffee in an RV, Part 2

Since the original coffee post is the one post people have had the strongest opinions on, I thought you all deserved a follow-up now that we're actually on the road.

First off, the AeroPress is still awesome. I do have to admit, though, that pressing it down every single morning does get a little old. But all in all, I still think it's the best option, with the best coffee, for our journey. But we've since gotten some things that make it even better:

1. A reusable metal filter

It looks like this:

Environmentally friendly because you're not wasting paper filters every day. Good for me because easier to travel with (don't have to store the paper ones, or worry about ordering more when I run out). And a lot of people think they make better coffee, because it retains more of the oils that would get filtered out with paper.

The one challenge I had with it is that the water leaks through a bit instead of sitting in the tube waiting to be pushed out. This inspired me to finally try the "inverted method" of brewing, which I was intimidated about. The first attempt ended in weak coffee and a mess all over the counter. The second one was followed by actually looking up how to do it online, and was good from there.  :)

This is the one I have, but there are a lot to choose from on Amazon.

2. A portable milk frother

This one was a gift from Mike for my birthday. They look like this:

You just heat up some milk and stick the frother in, and suddenly, a latte!

There are a bunch of different ones online, many of them are super cheap. This is one of the highest rated ones. Really fun addition to the coffee collection, to mix things up a little bit and get fancy.

3. An ember smart mug

Smart mug? Seriously? Yes, seriously.

This one was a Hanukkah gift -- something I wanted, but wouldn't have justified buying otherwise! But I'm really excited to have it.

It pairs with your phone, via the ember app, where you can choose the exact temperature you want your drink to stay.

Today is my first day using it. There was a little bit of trouble trying to sign in to the app for the first time, but once I got past that, it was all easy. I learned that the coffee that comes out of the Keurig starts at 165 degrees. Ember presets to 130 degrees, but it'll tell you the exact temperature of the liquid in your mug and you can change it to match your preferences. Turns out, for me, 130 is actually on the nose. 

If you're using the mug without the base (which acts as the charger), it'll heat your coffee for about two hours. If you dock it on the base, it'll heat indefinitely. It takes about an hour to charge, and there's an LED on the mug itself that indicates when the battery is low, charged, or charging, and tells you when your coffee has reached your perfect temperature.

The mug itself is cute, and seems hearty enough to survive living in an RV. Handwash only, and you can't put it in the microwave (there's metal in it), but that shouldn't be a problem. They also sell a travel mug, but that one's more expensive and I just couldn't justify it!

All in all, it's definitely a bit of a splurge, and a lot of a luxury. But now that I have it, I'll have a hard time drinking coffee any other way!

*Note, at the time of writing, the Amazon link is showing the price as way higher than elsewhere! Try the ember website or your local Starbucks to see if it's cheaper.

Happy caffeinating!

The Best Way to Make Coffee in an RV

If you know me at all, you won't be surprised to find out that this is one of the first things I Googled after we got the RV. What follows is a thoroughly non-scientific analysis of the pros and cons of each remotely portable method of coffee-making suitable enough for coffee snobs (like me), ranked.

Honorable Mentions:

• Single-cup Keurig (or other single-cup brewer): convenient, fast, easy clean up, but expensive, mediocre coffee, and didn't want to rely on having electricity available in case of dry camping
• Pour-over: cheap, easy, good coffee, doesn't require electricity, but requires filters, longer brew time, and some mess (piles of soggy filters full of wet coffee grounds become more inconvenient when you have a tiny kitchen and irregular access to outside trash bins)
• French press: cheap, good coffee, doesn't require electricity, but moderate brew time and annoying to clean/makes a mess

#3: Stovetop Percolator

A percolator is one of these guys:

By Imm808 (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

The way they work is you put the coffee grounds up top and water below, stick the whole thing on the stove, and then the boiling water evaporates into the top bit, soaks into the coffee grounds, and then filters back down below. I was surprised to find that the vast majority of RVers online said they use a percolator for coffee (or they use instant coffee, but we won't dignify a discussion about instant coffee...). Percolators come in both stovetop and electric.

Pros:

• Small and portable
• No filters required
• No electricity required
• Cheap
• Aesthetics (it's pretty adorable, isn't it?)

Cons:

• Makes mediocre coffee
• Even though there are no filters, you still have a bunch of loose, wet coffee grounds to dispose of, which could be difficult in a small kitchen. Can also get clogged, etc. Easy to make a mess.
• Only works with really hot/boiling water, which makes bitter coffee
• Moderately slow brewing time

#2: Cold Brew

Originally posted by Cory Doctorow on Flicr at https://www.flickr.com/photos/doctorow/15522501666

To make cold brew, all you need to do is mix coffee grounds with lukewarm water and let it sit for a while. Proportions and timing vary depending on how strong you like yours to be, but I usually go with a ratio of about one cup coffee to four cups water and let it sit on the counter overnight. You end up with a coffee concentrate that's stronger than a regular cup of drip coffee, and the coffee is less acidic and less bitter than coffee that's brewed hot (so heartburn sufferers, give cold brew a try!). Now that cold brew is becoming popular, you'll see more and more products like this around for brewing, but I usually just use a big lemonade pitcher like this. 

I do love me some cold brew. I brew it fairly regularly at home in SF, and I usually drink it by adding cream and water and popping it in the microwave. Occasionally I'll put ice cubes and water or milk in it instead for some iced coffee. 

Pros:

• Can brew a bunch at once and keep in the fridge, so it's fast and convenient and no daily mess
• Cheap
• Easy to brew
• Yummy

Cons:

• While it's really easy to brew, if I want to make normal-sized batches of it, I'd have to lug around large plastic pitchers, which seems like a waste of space in a tiny RV kitchen, especially if I'm only using them every once in a while
• Clean up is messy; no easy way to dispose of coffee grounds
• I normally use the microwave to heat it up, which requires power. If there's no power, I'd have to reheat water on the stove, which, at that point, kind of defeats the purpose
• And yes, it's becoming popular enough that it's easy to buy in stores now, but I'm putting that as a con because buying cold brew every week or two would add up quickly
• While I love the taste of cold brew, if I drink it exclusively, I do miss the aroma and edge of a cup of hot brew after a while

And the winner is:  AeroPress

Look at this space-age beauty:

This image was originally posted to Flickr by Ldiggity at http://www.flickr.com/photos/97311086@N00/296877647/

Instead of using using time or gravity like the other methods above, the Aeropress uses pressure, which means you end up with something closer to espresso than to American coffee. The gist of how to use it: put coffee grounds and boiling water into the bottom bit, stick the top bit into the bottom bit, and push. The pressure created in the tube forces the water through the coffee and the small filter at the bottom and suddenly, coffee!

Pros:

• Really good coffee
• Doesn't require electricity
• Small, portable
• Really easy to clean
• Easy to use
• Fast brew time
• Cheap
• Durable/don't have to worry about breaking it

Cons:

• The force required to push the plunger thingie down isn't ideal for half-asleep, pre-coffee users
• The amount of YouTube videos of people giving their own "recipes" for how to use the thing is overwhelming. I don't recommend it. (The inverted method? What?)

Why the Aeropress? Well, I immediately crossed off the list all brewing methods that required electricity, just in case. The percolator, while easy and portable, leaves too much mess relative to the mediocre coffee it produces. And cold brew, while I love it, also leaves a mess and would require too much storage space unless I brew small batches at a time (which would be annoying). Plus, if I can't use the microwave to heat it up, I'd just be heating up water anyway, in which case it's not really saving me much time or effort. I'll probably still make it sometimes for variety, or if I want easy access to cold coffee in a hot climate. Which leads me to the Aeropress:

Favorite of obsessive coffeeholics around the internet. Easy, portable, good coffee, no electricity required. And most of all, an excuse to buy myself one after wanting it for years.

I used it for the first time on our first morning of the Epic Eclipse Adventure. Sure enough, it was indeed easy, portable, and good. So I'm officially a happy camper. Er... RVer.

Bonus plug: I really love this travel mug. It's the only one I've ever used that doesn't spill. You can even stick it into your bag when you're on the go.

First time using the AeroPress. Never thought I'd be posting a picture on the internet of me wearing my retainers.