Best Ways To Make Coffee While Camping

Best Ways To Make Coffee While Camping

Different Ways to Make a Great Cup of Coffee While Camping

Coffee is one of the most popular commodities in the world. It continues to grow in popularity and is becoming more specialized. For many, coffee is the first thing they think of when they get up in the morning and the last thing they want to go without. It’s part of many people’s routines. With coffee’s popularity growing, there are more and more techniques to brew coffee, along with different devices. These various devices have made it easier for people to travel with their coffee kits. This article will review different ways to brew your coffee on your next camping trip.

Cowboy Coffee

The Cowboy method is a classic and the most basic. It’s nothing more than a pot, coffee beans, and water. There is no filter involved in this process. You can use a camping stove or heat the water over a fire. Once the coffee is near a boil, throw in the ground coffee beans and let the coffee brew for a few minutes. The tricky part about this coffee is pouring it into your cup or drinking it without getting any coffee grounds in your mouth. However, if you are without any other device to make coffee, then this will suffice.
The Italian Press or Moka Pot
The Moka Pot or Italian Press is one of the easiest ways to brew coffee at home or camping. The press is a stovetop coffee maker that brews coffee by passing boiling water pressurized by steam through the coffee. All you need to do is fill the base (water tank) with water, just make sure not to pour the water passed the safety valve. Next, load the filter basket with the coffee grounds. Insert the filter basket on top of the base, and screw the upper chamber to the base. After that, put the coffee maker over your camping stove, sit back and relax, and in minutes you will have delicious coffee waiting for you.

Mini Espresso Set

The mini espresso set, like the GSI Outdoors Mini Espresso Set design, is very similar to the Moka Pot. One significant difference is the mini espresso set has a platform for your coffee cup. And the coffee brews directly into your cup. Like the Moka Pot, this is a great way to brew coffee for 1-2 persons. One thing that is great about the mini espresso sets is that you don’t have to worry about measuring how much coffee you need. Just fill the basket to the top and don’t fill the water passed the safety valve. The less water you use, the stronger the coffee will taste.

Camping Coffee Percolators

If you are camping with a large group of people, you will need a device that can brew at a higher volume than the mini espresso set or the Italian press. Coffee percolators like the GSI Outdoors Enamelware is a great way to satisfy the crowd. These camping coffee percolators are designed for camping. The percolators work like the Moka press. You fill the base with water, fill the basket with coffee, and let the pot sit on a heat source. Most of these percolators are designed so you can put the pot right on top of the campfire if you so desire.

French Press

A French Press is another traditional way to brew coffee. It’s different from a percolator because it does not use steam to push the water through the coffee beans. Another big difference is that you have to heat the water separately. The French Press is similar to the cowboy coffee method. Load the press with coffee beans. Heat your water over a camping stove or campfire. Once the water is near boiling, pour just enough hot water to soak all the beans. Let the beans soak for 30 seconds before pouring the rest of the water into the press. Wait for about 4 minutes for the coffee to brew. Then take the plunger to push the coffee grounds to the bottom. This will help keep most of the grounds from escaping into your coffee mug. Serve the coffee and pour any extra coffee in a thermal cup if you have one. Not will this only help keep your coffee nice and hot, but it will stop the coffee from brew more. The longer the coffee sits in the French Press, the longer it will brew, thus changing the flavors. Sometimes these flavors from brewing too long are undesirable.

Pour Over Coffee

One of the most popular ways to brew coffee with the 3rd wave coffee movement are pour overs. They are like drip coffee machines, but instead of a machine dripping water over the coffee beans, you instead pour the hot water over the coffee beans. This allows for better control and ensures that all the coffee is equally extracted. Pour overs methods are also popular because there is more agitation with the hot water being poured over the coffee, thus increasing the extraction of the most desired coffee flavors. For the best results, use a 17:1 ratio. That means for every 1 gram of coffee that you use, pour over 17 grams of water. For example, if you use 37 grams of coffee, you will pour over 629 grams of water. Like the French press, you will have to heat your water separately. Once the water is ready, pour about 80 grams of water over the coffee. Make sure to soak all the coffee and let it sit for 30 seconds. This is preparing the coffee for the best possible extraction. After 30 seconds, pour the rest of the water.

Milk and Whipped Cream

Some people want to have milk and or whipped cream in their coffee. This can be difficult when camping. Though you can bring powdered milk is can taste different from fresh milk. Small long life milk containers are also an option but if you like a lot of milk you may end up with a lot of rubbish to take back with you. Whipped cream is an even more difficult at home where you can buy a whipped cream dispenser and cream chargers to easily whip cream. However, when you are camping you probably don’t want to carry the weight of a dispenser and also the cream needs to be kept cool. There are powdered whipped cream products but again they can taste different from the fresh cream.

No matter which technique that you use it is always a good idea to use the best coffee beans available as a lot of the taste comes from the beans.

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