Camp coffee or why I’m not a hipster, honestly
One thing that comes up for a lot of people is about camp coffee and options here. If you would like a good cup of coffee, with some work and a little bit of understanding of what to look for to adjust what you’re doing with coffee then you can have an amazing cup of coffee.
What do I do currently (most of the time)
- Aeropress with reusable fine metal filter
- Hand grind specialty espresso beans to a medium-fine grind
- Milk either from powdered milk or milk from the fridge, straight in
It takes me little time more than pulling out instant coffee, cleanup is fast and I’ve got the recipe down to a really enjoyable cup of coffee. I usually pregrind the ‘next’ coffee worth of beans while I’m drinking my current cup. This pays dividends if you want a nice cup on the go: just pull up at your morning rest stop, whip out a small gas stove and heat some water, then brew a coffee and off you go again both satisfied and recaffeinated.
Introduction
This is mostly written from my experience of things I’ve tried or I’m prepared to try. That means I’m not really covering two things: one – preloaded drip filter coffee (but I’ll touch on that in the drip filter section) and also pod machines.
Pods might require more of an elaboration of why I’m not interested in covering them. I mostly don’t like the waste and they don’t seem to ever work right with reusable pods. There’s also the lack of control actually makes it hard to dial something in to really get the flavour right. You get what you get. If you do want to go down this route then you’ll want a reasonable battery capacity in a 2nd battery purely because they require a reasonable current draw when they’re working. However, I would urge you, even purely from a taste perspective, to consider exploring some of the options I’m presenting here and give them a crack. Many work out cheaper than actually making a portable pod system!
I am aware that there’s some variable costs involved in this. I’ll break down the per-coffee cost assuming high quality beans and good equipment at the end, however, the investment can pay off. I’ve used my Aeropress for over a decade for 1000s of coffees at home and in the field so the unit cost is < 4¢ per coffee for the equipment. My moka pot probably has done hundreds of coffees for a similar unit cost. Whole beans from a specialty roaster are obviously more expensive than instant coffee, and equipment costs vary so the ingredient cost ends up being the only contributing factor.
Sections
- What do I currently do
- Introduction
- Making
- Prelude: milk and frothing
- Instant
- A prelude on grinding and freshness
- Camp portable grinders
- Adjusting the grind: things to look out for
- Measuring: precision and accuracy
- Big aside: the ultimate freshness – camp fire roasted coffee
- Drip coffee
- Plunger/French Press
- Moka pot
- Aeropress
- Actual honest to goodness espresso (and not just a pod machine)
- Comparison table
- Bonus: camp espresso maritnis
- What about tea?
Making
Prelude: milk and milk frothing
This is a super emotive topic and for some people they really want to experience a super frothy, steamed milk drink. If that’s you then I’d look at a setup that gives you access to a steam wand e.g. a Bellman or an Atomic.
First off is your choice of milk. Surprisingly despite how wankery this writeup is going to sound, I actually am very ok with powdered milk. Made up with good quality filtered water it’s surprisingly good. I also am ok with UHT milk which is easier if you’re limited on fridge space. It is different to regular milk fresh from a fridge but it can be surprisingly ok with the right flavours in your coffee too. If the only option for you is fresh milk then you’ll definitely want a fridge setup in your camping equipment. That’s ok, but it comes with other choices so don’t discount either using small UHT milks or even powdered milk.
Another thing is how to heat and froth your milk.
My other confession is despite my love of coffee, I am surprisingly ok with a complicated brew process, making it into a long black of the right strength, and just chucking in a bit of cold milk to taste. Yeah ok it’s not as light and airy, but it also makes the coffee drinkable faster and takes me less effort.
One super interesting way to make a nice frothy milk is actually just shaking a small container with the milk to be served in it. If there’s enough air space you can build up quite a froth quite quickly. While it doesn’t heat the milk, it does get heated up by the act of putting it in the coffee and can be a really expedient way to do this. Using a small Nalgene bottle you have decanted milk into, and then shaking this smaller bottle, is about the easiest way to get frothed milk.
The next step up is either an external milk frother that works by stirring the milk, or an electric milk frother (needs an inverter, mind you). If you do this with warmed milk then you’re getting towards cafe-style frothed milk.
The final approach is something with a steam wand and doing a full-on steaming of your milk. It’s very doable and people do enjoy doing it. It is a bit of an art with systems like an Atomic or a Bellman to get consistent steaming: steam pressure dies off a lot faster than with even a home espresso machine’s steaming function let alone a full on cafe setup.
Instant
People are going to absolutely look down on this, but, there can be some surprisingly effective instant coffees. Some specialty coffee roasters will make freeze dried espresso which essentially is a form of instant coffee. That said, I haven’t found one of those I actually prefer to some of my other ways to make coffee, and the best instant coffee that I’ve liked the taste of both black and milky is the Coles fairtrade gold coffee. This was discovered after some blind back to back tasting of a lot of options of both commercial instants and also freeze dried espresso from roasters.
If you are going to do this, I would recommend the taste test trials first. There’s a lot of options and you might be amazed at just how reasonable it can be. That said, it’s my lowest ranked preference for at the campground coffee and I almost never use this when camping.
To make this coffee you only need a way to boil water. If you want milk then some way to froth milk can really make it less ordinary and elevate the experience.
Cost: $
Time: short, once you invest the time to trial them back to back
Effort: minimal
Flavour: okay-ish
A prelude on grinding and freshness
The rest of what I’ll talk about are all coffees prepared from ground beans. You can absolutely get your beans preground at a coffee roaster or even buy them at the supermarket, however, the freshness and therefore taste of coffee is significantly improved by grinding close in time to when you’ll make the coffee. You also might discover a need to adjust aspects of the extraction of the coffee and preground that is very hard to do.
If you are buying even whole beans at the supermarket it is worth checking for a roasted date; ideally, using them within a month of roasting will help with the best possible flavours.
While it might feel like overkill, I don’t mind the routine of a fresh hand grind for a morning coffee. Hand grinders are neither expensive nor large, especially making coffee for one or two people. Some are even electric, or if you happen to have an electric drill then you can always make one electric.
If you’d prefer not to hand grind, then having a relatively inexpensive but usable home grinder is a good way to go too. Just grind what you need, at the finness needed for the process you’ll undertake and you’ll have a better cup of coffee than most.
Camp portable grinders
Although people associate coffee grinding with giant electric grinders, for many years even at home I just used hand grinders. A good hand grinder with a ceramic burrr and a reasonable adjustment range does not need to be expensive. Much of my advice has been built over having these grinders around for 10-15 years; I am aware there are probably more modern options that are as good or better but I have less experience with them so can’t recommend one way or another.
For many years my favoured grinder was the Hario mini mill. These fit really nicely in the hand to make it easy to hang onto them as you grind away, and they are super easy to adjust. Adjustment steps can be a little coarse but I’ve found they’re good enough to dial in everything I want to make at a camp site. The mini mills do have a slightly annoying 5 sided drive shaft and they do eventually wear down from the pressed metal handle which needs to be removed every time you want to add beans, however, so it can get annoying.
In the last few years (well, 4 years) I’ve switched to using the Hario “Smart G” grinder instead for most portable grinding I do. It’s very similar to the mini mill in its grind adjustment settings, but it now uses a 6 sided 1/4″ shaft for driving it which makes it way easier to drive electrically and even gives you a backup if you lose or break the handle in the middle of nowhere: just grab an appropriate driver from your tools! That said, I’m lazy and I’ve also added the Hario electric driver to the kit. It is rechargeable (albeit via micro-B USB which annoys me no end). You can buy these as a kit together which is a good option if you want this. If you’re on a budget, however, just get the manual mill. It doesn’t take long to grind and it works.
If you’ve got a more elaborate setup or even setting up a caravan, then the Hario skerton grinder can be a better choice as you get more fine levels of grind adjustment. The original skerton or the revised skerton plus is a little tricky to set the grind on and hard to know where you are. I have a couple I’ve ended up with over the years and they’re ok, but it looks like the latest Hario skerton pro provides an easier time setting the grind.
Despite my love for various Snow Peak things, I haven’t ever bought their field barista hand grinder although it looks like a good piece of kit. The grind adjustment on it looks very similar to the Hario mini mill/smart G, which might give a clue to the OEM of the internals. While stainless steel is good from a longevity perspective, my plastic mini mills have lasted even some very rough terrain.
Adjusting the grind: things to look out for
The big thing is people not liking particular processes for coffee as they don’t like the flavours from them. Some of this comes back to some useful to know techniques with the coffee, but sometimes it’s fundamentally down to the extraction they are getting. If you aren’t pulling enough out of the coffee beans then the coffee will taste sour and a bit hollow; if you’re getting too much out then you get a lot of the bitter flavours. If you aren’t getting enough extraction then going finer helps, reducing the amount of ground coffee, or does brewing longer for some processes. The opposite if you are over extracting: go coarser in the grind, add more coffee to the same amount of water, or brew for a shorter period of time.
It is worth experimenting with whatever process you are doing to try to really get it nailed. I’ve tried to give some pointers in terms of the how much and how fine to go, but experiment at home and try to get a coffee out you love in a slightly easier setting.
Yes, I’m aware typing this out that it sounds like a lot of work and it will sound like that when you read this, too. It is, however, worth it, and it’s less work than you might realise. Having (professionally) gone bush for 20 odd years people are amazed at how good a coffee can taste made simply once you’ve got a process refined & a teeny bit of practise at it.
If you like coffee, it is worth it. If you like impressing people with how good something can be in the middle of the wilderness it can be worth upskilling on, too.
Measuring: precision and accuracy
The other side to consistent and consistently good coffee in the bush is how you measure it. If I’m settled on a process and I understand the beans and the grind then I can pretty accurately gauge it via the volume of grinds in the receptacle of my grinder. If I’m a bit less settled then I’ll try to calibrate an appropriate grind size against a spoon I’ll have with me i.e. some way I think I can accurately measure coffee once it’s ground up at roughly the right grind size.
The ultimate way is to take a pocket set of scales with you and weigh the coffee. Again this seems like overkill but lightweight pocket digital scales are incredibly cheap these days and also incredibly small. They’re quite easy to find room in your cooking utensils box and take the guesswork out of how much coffee you have prepared.
Consistency and practise with whatever method you are going to measure it is key, though. If you can get the coffee dialled into what you’d like and you can keep that reasonably precise then you’ll accurately make a nice coffee each and every time. It’s partly the consistency that really impresses people you’re making coffee for: the secret is doing it in a way that looks effortless enough that you don’t look like a wanker doing it!
Big aside: the ultimate freshness – camp fire roasted coffee
Something I’ve done on occasions that people really enjoy is to roast the coffee in a pan over a camp fire. You need to start with green coffee beans for this, and bear in mind that you don’t need as much heat as you might think so don’t go making a roaring fire. A cast iron pan, preheated, is a really good option to do this with a light bed of coals underneath it to maintain some heat.
The thing to listen out for is the first ‘crack’ of the beans, which is them opening up to release trapped moisture. You want to do the heating up slowly enough that this takes a couple of minutes. The time after this crack is what sets the amount of roasting: a dark roast will be heated past the first crack for longer than a lighter roast. You want to be constantly stirring and moving the beans so they don’t burn and so they roast consistently.
The other and hardest part about this is you aren’t drinking the coffee immediately after roasting. Flavours develop over the first couple of days after roasting, so it’s best done one morning for a coffee the next morning, or at least at lunchtime or dinner time for tomorrow’s morning coffee. Waiting two days is even better, generally.
You’ll never get a super consistent roast like a commercial roast doing it this way, but it certainly can be interesting flavour wise to try. Doing it this way was how coffee was done by the cowboys in the American West, and it can be a delightful little treat if you drag along some green coffee beans to try it with.
Drip coffee
I don’t do this method often for camping, and so I just use my home based pour-over filter holder if I am going to do it in the bush. The fold-up Snow Peak drip filter holder is a fantastic addition and the more I use it the more I probably will end up using this for drip coffee even at home. I use the same filter for both: V60 1 cup filters which are available many places, including major supermarkets.
Drip coffee gets a bit of a bad name from poor quality bulk coffee in drip machines, however, it can make an amazing coffee. A coarse towards a medium grind (finer for more medium roasts, coarser for darker) is used for a drip coffee and aim for about 16:1 ratio.
The brewing is quite straightforwards. Pre-wet the filter with boiling water with it in the holder, which will help to pre-warm the paper and the holder. For about 15g of coffee (makes a cup most people would be happy with) it’s about 250 mL of water: add the first 50 mL to let the coffee bloom, swirl to let it mix, and after about a 30 seconds then slowly add the rest of the water over the next minute. Then let it drip down (probably another minute to two) and enjoy.
With this you can end up with a super tasty and complex coffee but also one that doesn’t have a lot of nasty feeling bitterness. If it has ended up a bit sour or flows through pretty fast then try going finer, or coarser if it is bitter and takes a long time to drip out.
There are some brands who do preloaded filters with ground coffee which some people like. I’m not really interested in them as a concept as they do end up reasonably more expensive than even buying an actual filter holder, and, a filter paper plus grounds can go into organic waste. A commercial mesh style one use filter can’t go into organic waste, usually due to the plastic content, so it’s more stuff to landfill. Cost wise they range at about $1.5-$2 a serve, and even buying organic single origin beans works out to be a lot cheaper than that (up to maybe $0.90 a serve). It doesn’t take much to pay back a $20 filter holder with those savings.
Cost: $$
Time: pretty quick, even if hand grinding
Effort: not much, but does take a bit of time to slowly add the water; cleanup is easy as you just pick up the filter paper and the coffee grounds and put them in your rubbish storage
Flavour: can be reasonably strong, so I prefer a more medium roast for this process
Plunger/French Press
I use two options when camping: either my Snow Peak titanium press, or an Espro double-walled and double-filter option. The Espro gives a better coffee for most people with slightly less effort due to how it filters the coffee; the Snow Peak press is a lot more camp friendly especially as it can double as a cooking pot or a way to boil water to make the coffee. The Espro is also available in a couple of sizes so it is good for a party of 3 or 4 people; the Snow Peak is definitely a 1 to 2 person brewer.
Plunger is another process that gets a bad name among many people, usually from poorly made coffee. A process to make a good plunger/French press coffee takes a bit more time than some other methods, which is a drawback. It is, however, the best option for making coffee for a lot of people: one decent sized plunger is going to serve 3-4 people, versus essentially individually coffees for other processes I discuss here. One of the biggest parts is to ensure good filtration of the coffee, so I will sometimes use a fold-up coffee filter holder and post filter my plunger coffee through this. Considering my camping plunger is based on a tall titanium cup, I usually use it as my camp kettle anyway if making a drip filter coffee so they almost go hand in hand.
A key element is getting the brewing ratio right: about 14 parts water to 1 part coffee, i.e. a bit higher ratio than the drip coffee mentioned above. The coffee also needs to be a medium to coarse grind, usually a little coarser than I use for drip coffee, but probably finer than many people seem to think.
The other element is time and letting the coffee settle. This takes some waiting, but it is worth it.
Start off by prewarming the plunger with your boiling water.
Add all of the coffee (33 g / 500 mL of water), then add half of the boiling water. Swirl it briefly or stir it, and then pour in the rest of the coffee.
Let the coffee brew for at least 4 minutes, and wait up to 5-6 minutes.
Once this time has elapsed then plunge the coffee slowly, using the crust to stop the smallest particles come through the filter. Don’t plunge it hard into the bottom of the press, you want to stop just as you’ve got most of the water out of the coffee. Doing this should minimise sediment that you pour off, which are the main reasons for gritty and poor flavours in a plunger coffee.
Finally, pour the coffee off into another container. This provides another step to minimise fine coffee particles coming with the brew and helps to even out the strength of each cup. From here you can serve it once it’s reached a drinkable temperature.
The other way to ensure fewer grinds is to pour the water and stir it, then wait 4 minutes and skim the top of the brew, and then wait a further 10 minutes. This method usually means you can avoid decanting into another container before serving the coffee as it will be a more even brew throughout and the sediment will have settled, but it does take longer.
Cost: $$$ for a good press and grinder
Time: slow, but probably fastest for making coffee for 4 people
Effort: actually pretty low, not exactly set and forget but you aren’t constantly babying it either; cleanup can be time consuming though
Flavour: tricky to get a good balance, and I prefer a darker roast doing this process; if you aren’t patient then it’s easy to end up with a gritty and muddy coffee from not fully filtering
Moka pot
This is the classic stovetop espresso maker that many people know from home. With a few little tweaks you can actually get an amazing coffee out of them which will surprise people. Note that methods such as the Bellman coffee machine or the Atomic are a type of moka pot: they just give you a nice way to steam milk afterwards for a proper cafe style milky coffee.
These are another good method for brewing coffee for lots of people and give the most espresso-strength coffee at a campground for the least effort.
The tweaks I do revolve around using preheated water for the coffee and instantly stopping the brew just as it gets to the ‘sputtering’ stage by putting the moka pot base into cold water to stop it brewing.
Start off by boiling at least enough water to fill the moka pot bottom to just the base of the water relief valve
Add coffee to the filter basket, with just a little tamping using the back of a spoon so it is pressed in a little bit and level with the top of the basket
Screw the pot together and start heating it reasonably quickly over a camp oven or in a fire.
Monitor the flow out of the spout
As soon as the pot begins the sputtering stage, immediately place the base into some cold water in a pot or similar. This will stop the unit brewing now the water/steam inside the bottom is cooled down sufficiently.
Pour out the coffee to cups
If you like a less espresso strength and thickness coffee, use some near boiling water to thin it out and add milk if that’s your thing.
As a bonus: moka pot shots are actually fantastic for making up camp espresso martinis which I will include as a recipe at the end of this article.
Cost: $$$
Time: moderate speed but if you’re using a pot smaller than your party size it’ll take a while to reset
Effort: a bit of a faff to elevate it above bitter and burnt
Flavour: amazing when you put in the process tweaks
Aeropress
This is my primary camp coffee setup for 1 or 2 people. I only ever make one person’s coffee a time with this so it doesn’t scale quite so well.
I brew with a ratio of about 15g into the aeropress with about 3 units of water on the side, and I brew with quite a fine brew. I also don’t use the paper filters but instead use a metal filter which I’ve now put at least 10 years of use through.
Start with the aeropress inverted (this way the brew is a bit more consistent), and the plunger nearly at the 4 mark.
Put in the ground coffee and add about half of the water; use water that’s barely started a brisk boil rather than fully boiling water. 90ish degree water is better than 100 degree water for this process.
Stir the coffee and water to wet the grinds.
Add the other half of the water to almost fill the unit up. Let it bloom and brew for about a minute.
Put the filter and the end cap on and press the unit down a tiny bit until you’ve removed almost all of the air at the end.
Now just slightly lift up the unit with the plunger held down to create a small vacuum: this stops the unit dripping when you flip it over.
Flip the aeropress over onto a cup and immediately start pressing down slowly. If you press too hard you’ll bypass the filter making a muddy cup; a super hard to press plunger also is a sign that you might have gone a little fine.
Once you reach the end of the plunge, pull up again on the plunger to create a small vacuum again and you can remove it from the cup and flip the aeropress upside down.
Now to clean up you just unclip the end with the filter, and push out the grinds. This is super easy for capturing most of your waste. A small rinse and you’re ready to go again.
Cost: $$
Time: reasonably fast though multiple cups need repeated presses
Effort: not huge, and quite easy to clean up
Flavour: fantastic though can be quite delicate in your process
Actual honest to goodness espresso (and not just a pod machine)
This one I basically never do, but it is possible if you have the electrical setup for it (or access to an old 1960s gas-heated espresso machine).
When I say electrical setup, you’ll need the ability for something between 1000 and 2400W inverter to be run for around 15 minutes for most machines to properly get up to temperature. This needs both a battery system that can support high current loads and also has a good 100Ah+ storage amount.
I won’t fully explain how to do espresso shots, but I have previously used my lever La Pavoni to get good espresso. It isn’t very portable and you really do need to let it warm up fully before using it, but you get an amazing result noone is expecting if you go to the effort.
My auxiliary battery system is really not set up for the constant 90A draw required to feed even the 1000W heating element in the La Pavoni, but if you design one around this it is possible (albeit overkill).
Many hand grinders also do not go fine enough to really work with such a system, so you also need the electrical budget to run a super fine grinding electrical grinder if you are super determined to do this.
If I had a caravan, a big electrical setup and all the time in the world it’s probably how I’d do things, but since I don’t I think there are better options that give different but just as enjoyable coffee for both less effort and much less cost.
Cost: $$$$$$ mostly in the electrical system
Time: pretty quick once the units have heated up, but you really need them to heat soak throughout to be consistent
Effort: I mean you’re dragging an actual espresso machine out, effort is off the chart
Flavour: practically you’ve got barista coffee once you know how to do it well
Comparison table
I’ve amortised the unit cost of the equipment over 250 coffees in calculating the cost per coffee. Specialty beans are priced at $60/kg which is the upper end of prices you’ll pay at roasters in early 2025. For boiling water I’ve standardised on a $10 kettle though obviously you can pay more (or even do it cheaper) and also amortised that over 250 coffees though it obviously has more uses.
I’ve included grinding time for methods that use ground coffee, though this can be saved by buying preground or grinding at home.
| Equipment cost | Supporting equipment cost | Ingredient cost | Cost per coffee | Ease of making | Ease of cleanup | Time involvement | Flavour/enjoyment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Instant (100 g organic) | $0 | $10 kettle | $6 for 50 serves | $0.16 | Very easy | Very easy | < 1 minute | Meh to ok |
| Drip filter | $25 holder $12 for 100 papers | $10 kettle $60 hand grinder | $60 for 1 kg = 66 serves | $1.41 | Easy | Very easy | 4 minutes | Ok to good |
| Preloaded filter coffee | $0 | $10 kettle | $75 for 40 serves | $1.92 | Very easy | Very easy | 3 minutes | Ok, but flavour profile locked in |
| Plunger | $30-$100 plunger | $10 kettle | $60 for 1 kg = 50 serves | $1.36 – $1.49 | ||||
| Moka pot | $60 for 4 cup | $10 kettle | $60 for 1 kg (70 serves) | |||||
| Aeropress | $80 aeropress $17 reusable metal filter | $10 kettle | $60 for 70 serves | |||||
| Pod machine | $250 | $1.5k aux battery system | ||||||
| Espresso machine | $500-$2000 | $1.5k aux battery system | ||||||
Bonus: camp espresso maritnis
You really can only do this if you have access to ice when camping, and not everyone with a Jimny will, but it’s actually hilarious to do if you can. I pre-prepare a Kahlúa and vodka mix for it at home, then you just need to make coffee, cool it down, and shake coffee + the prepared cocktail mix over ice and off you go.
The recipe is:
- Kahlúa and vodka mix: 40 mL vodka, 20 mL Kahlúa per serving.
- Add 60 mL of this mix to cooled coffee:
- 20 mL of espresso shot
- 40 mL from a moka pot
- 100 mL from a French Press or drip coffee
- 50 mL from a short aeropress mix (make it using 1.5 units of water not 3)
- Shake coffee, Kahlúa and vodka over some ice cubes to cool it
- Strain out the ice and serve
It truly makes you king of the campground to bust out the espresso martinis at 9pm, especially if you freshly make the coffee for them!
Downside: they can be a bit tasty and people will want more, meaning you make more coffee, and people will not go to sleep for a while!
What about tea?
I like tea plenty good enough, I just don’t tend to make it too often when camping I guess.
Camping is a great place for loose leaf teas even tea bags feel like the easier option. You can even go proper traditional outback style and make a billy tea: chuck a bunch of leaves in sufficient for everyone, boil it let it steep in the billy for 5 minutes, then pour it out carefully to strain the leaves out.