Everyone agrees, the Aeropress Coffee Maker is a fantastic brewing device. It's portable, virtually un-breakable, easy to use and, most importantly, it makes great coffee. Even better, the internet is littered with lots of different recipes to try, from pros and amateurs alike.

As a home barista brewing for yourself, you're spoiled for choice on how to use your Aeropress, but interestingly, there are very few recipes out there that explain how to brew two cups at the same time. Recognising that many lovers of coffee come in pairs, we thought we'd try to help remedy that situation.

It is worth mentioning that this is less of a problem when you're brewing short espresso-style shots. The instructions that come with your Aeropress and the markers on the side will help you with that. One easy solution is just to brew two of those and then dilute. However, a lot of the excitement around the Aeropress is about longer filter-style brews, most often using the inverted method.

This blog post is about how to make two delicious filter-style coffees with your Aeropress at the same time. Purists will tell you that you'll get better results brewing two cups separately and there may well be a small benefit in doing that. But if you want to be able to wake up in the morning and quickly brew some coffee for yourself and a loved one, this recipe should prove a lot more convenient without much compromise on the flavour!

The Approach

If you want to get straight to the recipe, feel free to skip ahead, but for those who are interested, here's a word on this recipe's approach. The main constraint the Aeropress has is its capacity (~250ml). To make enough coffee for two cups, you need more than that.

To achieve this, while producing something very similar to "typical" Aeropress coffee, we're going to brew concentrate and then dilute it. We're going to aim for the same ratio of coffee to water in terms of yield but we're going to make the steep time a bit longer, to offset the potentially slower rate of extraction caused by the higher concentration of coffee in the water.

What You'll Need

We've divided up the list of what you'll need into two sections, the essentials and those accessories which can help you fine tune your brew. You can definitely brew delicious coffee with just the basic equipment. In fact, that initial list is ideal for travelling if you want to brew coffee for two on the road.

The essentials

An Aeropress (obviously)

All your Aeropress's accessories (scoop, funnel, paddle, filter cap, filters)

A coffee grinder

A kettle to heat your water

A jug to brew into that can hold ~500ml of liquid

Some way to measure the volume of what you brew - a kitchen scale works well but you can also just brew into a measuring cup

Something to time with - your phone will do!

Nice to haves

A coffee scale

A timer (alternatively the Hario Drip Scale can weigh & time for you all in one)

A thermometer

How to Brew Two Cups of Coffee With an Aeropress

Here are the step by step instructions with photographs. You may want to read through everything once before starting so you can just skim through for reminders the first time you try the recipe. Reading the whole thing and brewing at the same time may be challenging!

Step 1: Put your Kettle on to boil with a bit more than 500ml water (aiming for ~93C)

If you've got a digital thermometer, then you can decide to stop your kettle when it hits ~93C or you can let it boil and then wait 1-2 minutes for it to cool down to around that temperature. Our favourite trick is to pour freshly boiled water into a Hario Buono Kettle which brings it to about the right temperature instantly.

Step 2: Weigh 36g of coffee & grind to a medium setting

We're using 2x the amount of coffee you'd use for a regular inverted brew. If you don't have a scale, it should be about two heaping Aeropress scoops. Any burr grinder, manual or electric will do the trick here. We use setting 5 on the Severin Coffee Grinder.

Step 3: Set up your inverted Aeropress and put the coffee into the chamber

Step 4: Set a timer for 2 minutes, press start, bloom with a small amount of water and stir

The aim here is just to saturate all the coffee grounds. You'll form what almost looks like a thick paste. This is to encourage any trapped CO2 to get out of the way and let the extraction happen properly afterwards.

Step 5: Fill the Aeropress chamber almost to the top, leaving room for more stirring

You should have ~1m30s left on the clock at this point. You want to top up the Aeropress as much you can while allowing for spill-free stirring. Stir for 10-15s, really getting the coffee and water moving for maximum extraction. This is particularly important since you're brewing concentrate.

Step 6: Fill the Aeropress to the very top & leave to steep

Now you just let the extraction magic happen for the remainder of the 2 mins you started with (there should be ~1 min left). This is a bit longer than your typical Aeropress steep time because we're making sure to get a full extraction despite the higher ratio of coffee to water. This is a good time to wet your paper filter.

Step 7: Place the filter cap on the Aeropress, flip onto your brewing jug and plunge (should take 30-45s)

You'll need to put the filter cap on just a little before the time runs out to make sure you're ready. Don't rush the plunging process. It may be a little harder because of the amount of coffee in the chamber. Take your time and keep pushing through the hiss at the end until every drop of concentrate is out.

Step 8: Dilute to ~430ml

Why 430ml? We're aiming to get double the yield of a 250ml/18g Aeropress extraction. If you had a giant Aeropress & brewed 500ml/36g, you'd expect each gram of coffee to absorb ~2ml of water so the yield would be about ~430ml (428ml if this were exact).

A measuring cup is an easy way to go here but you can also do this using a scale. The trick is to tare the scale with the empty jug before you press into it, then put it back on the scale with the concentrate. You'll be somewhere around 200g and then you can just fill up to ~430g.

Note: Don't plunge on top of your scale - that's a surefire way to break it

Happy Brewing!

As with all coffee recipes, you should absolutely tweak this recipe to suit your taste, but hopefully you have a good foundation here - this should help you score some points with a loved one and get your own coffee fix, quickly & easily!