A Guide: Camp Coffee

There are few things as ritualistic as coffee. People who love coffee have to have it the same way everyday, prepared like a religious ceremony.

The problem is that when you're away from your normal environment the coffee goes to shit or you have to resort to some place like Starbucks.

clockwise from left: Corvus Woodcraft x Steelhead Fine Goods camp stool;
 Snow Peak Titanium Mini Solo pot; Snow Peak LiteMax Titanium stove; 
Porlex JP-30 burr grinder; Aeropress; Snow Peak Ti-Double M300 stacking mug; 
and Corvus Woodcraft cutting board

But with an Aeropress, a little preparation, and care you can have outstanding coffee at camp or even at home. Yep, it's really that good. Here's what you'll need:

Materials:

• Aeropress
• Manual burr grinder, like the Porlex JP-30
• Stove and fuel
• Pot or kettle
• Mug
• Coffee
• Some sort of stirrer

Directions:

1. Boil water and run some water through the paper filter.
2. Grind about 4 tablespoons of beans (you're camping, no need to be that precise) slightly finer than you would drip coffee. Assemble the Aeropress in the inverted manner and fill the chamber with grounds, which should come up to about the "3" mark (see Fig. 1).
3. When the water comes to to a low boil fill the Aeropress chamber to the "1" (see Fig. 2), stir, and let it steep for about 30 seconds.
4. Flip and press into a mug. The whole press time should be about 25 seconds.
5. Add equal parts hot water and adjust from there.

And try it without sugar or cream. Because there is such a short extraction time with the Aeropress, it's a cup with very low acidity, so you won't notice the bite normally associated with drip coffee and you'll end up tasting much more of all those descriptors you hear when people talk about good coffee.

Enjoy.

Fish in a Barrel: Visiting the Kern River Fish Hatchery

NOTE: There is a slideshow at the bottom of the post.

The intent was to do some tenkara fishing on the Kern River. And while I did end up fishing, there were no fish to show for my efforts. I guess invoking Thoreau in the last post was a bad omen; the tenkara gods were not with me. It seemed, though, that other anglers were just as fruitless that weekend. Or maybe that's just wishful thinking.

But if the fish weren't going to come to me, I was going to go to the fish. A couple of friends and I made our way to the Kern River Fish Hatchery, which is located just north of Kernville along Sierra Way. As we walked up to the museum portion of the hatchery, Robert, a volunteer, greeted us in a gregarious manner that goes with the territory of being a good volunteer.