Today on Day 4 of my week long series of how to win at camp life from my trip to The Grampians by The Unimpossibles we look at COFFEE!
There seems to be a lot of misconceptions about camping. Camping has hit a kind of recession where people tend to think it is going to be much harder and awful than it really is. In this day and age there is so much cool stuff out there that makes camping really comfortable, and in some cases better than real life. In my opinion, I thinking camping is about to make a huge comeback as people start to crave getting away from it all and doing some good honest old fashion getting back to nature.
Often it is the smaller things in life that makes the biggest difference to comfort and can take a person from not coping one bit to absolutely having a ball. There are a lot of things people can let go of, but little rituals like coffee is the perfect pleasure to indulge in while in the bush that needn’t be forgotten. Forget crappy instant coffee that has gotten slightly damp from wet spoons and started clumping together – with all of the artisan coffee houses coming up with things like the Aeropress, speciality filters and other high end caffeine preparation devices, camp brew can contend or even beat a lot of in house coffee experiences.
Plus, you get to look like some kind of boss scientist, “I’m just letting my perfectly weight 14g of freshly ground filter beans bloom for a minute in 96° water”. OMG like actually… this shit is serious business.
One of the best ways to make coffee on the go in with this Filter Brewing Starter Kit that we got from Industry Beans in Melbourne’s coffee capital, Fitzroy. The gold mesh filter itself is super easy to clean (we washed it in the river!) and it is really hard to muck up the beans. As you may have read in my Latte Art post on The Unimpossibles, freshly ground beans is probably 90% of a good cup of coffee – so having a hand grinder on location is a great great great way to ensure your beans remain magical. Now the process is a little slow, however, being slow is nice in this situation, you’re on camp, you have time to fill!
Brewing coffee this way is magic – the result is a super smooth non bitter cup of Joe that will set you up for a great day of relaxing, swimming, bush walking, biking or whatever silly thangs you crazy kids can think of.
You will need:
Frieling Gold” Mesh Coffee Filter
Porlex Hand Grinder
Fresh filter coffee beans – all of the above available in this pack from Industry Beans
Scale (optional but fun)
Pot or cast iron kettle for boiling water
Fresh water
To serve:
Amazing by itself or milk powder/nut milk/sugar – however you like it!
Directions:
- Heat water in pot or kettle over camp fire or gas burner.
The ideal temperature is 96°, so once boiling, turn off and leave while you get your grind on. - If you have a scale, put the cup and bottom half on the gold mesh filter onto of the scale and reset the scale to 0.
- Fill up the hand grinder and grind grind grind until you have about 14g of ground coffee – roughly about 2 tablespoons.
- Spoon into the cup on the scale to get an accurate dosage – note that once you have done this a few times you will be able to eyeball dosage.
- Add the top of the filter onto the gold mesh bottom and pour approx 20ml of water into the filter. This process is called blooming – no idea what it really means but the guy said it was important and the coffee turned out amazing so I suggest you do it.
- Once you have bloomed, pour the remaining water to fill the cup
- Let the coffee run through the filter. It is perfection black, otherwise feel free to add your almond milk / milk powder and maple syrup / sugar!
Best enjoyed with a beautiful view of nature xx
You can see all post by The Unimpossibles of The Grampians here!
Awesome leather camp stool and enamel cups are from the amazing Homecamp.
The magical Filter Brewing Starter Kit that makes super smooth coffee can be purchased from Industry Beans.