AeroPress Recipe Calculator
Straight through the press, or brew a concentrate and top up the mug. Water in the press, water in the cup, and a warning before the chamber overflows.
Shorter steeps want a finer grind; longer steeps want it coarser.
240g
8.1 fl oz
15 g of coffee and 240 g of water in the press. Stir, steep 2:00, then press for about thirty seconds. The cup holds about 210 ml once the grounds keep their share.
How to Use This Calculator
- Choose a method. Straight puts all the water through the press. Concentrate and bypass brews strong, then adds water to the mug.
- Enter your coffee. 15 g is a comfortable straight brew; 18 g suits a bypass mug.
- Set the ratio. For a straight brew, the ratio is the cup. For bypass, set the ratio in the press and the ratio you want in the cup, and the tool splits the water.
- Pick a steep. The grind recommendation follows it: finer for a minute, coarser for three.
Why Two Methods
The AeroPress chamber takes about 250 g of water with room to stir, so a straight brew at 1:16 caps out around 15 g of coffee and a 240 ml cup. That is a fine cup, and for one person it is the simplest way to use the thing. But a 12 oz mug at 1:16 needs 22 g of coffee and 350 g of water, which will not fit, and that is where bypass comes in: brew the 22 g with a third of the water as a concentrate, press it, and add the other two thirds from the kettle. The extraction is a little different, the cup is a little cleaner, and it fits.
The tool warns when the water in the press passes what the chamber comfortably takes, in either method, so you find out here rather than at the plunger.
Steep Time and Grind
An AeroPress is an immersion brewer with a press at the end, and the two variables that move the cup most are how long the coffee sits and how fine it is ground. They trade against each other: a one-minute steep wants a fine grind to get enough out in the time, a three-minute steep wants a medium grind so it does not go bitter. Two minutes at medium-fine is a forgiving middle. Press slowly, about thirty seconds, and stop at the hiss.
Water can run cooler here than for pour-over. Dark roasts are good at 185 °F; light roasts want it near the boil. Our AeroPress techniques article walks through standard and inverted, and if you want it to stand in for espresso, this one covers what it can and cannot do. The grind size chart shows how wide the AeroPress range really is.