Updated October 2026 · Espresso Recipe Series
The Oxo Rapid Brewer is a portable, hand-pumped brewer that uses air pressure to push water through the coffee. Used the right way, it makes an espresso-strength concentrate with the same dose and ratio as any recipe in the Espresso Recipe Series, then you build your milk drink exactly as the recipe says.
Add the Oxo brew water from your recipe, push gently to the first drip, wait 60 seconds, then pump until it bubbles. The brew water is the yield plus an allowance for the water the grounds hold back, so you end up with the recipe’s espresso yield at the right ratio, ready for bypass water and milk.
The brewer
OXO launched the Rapid Brewer in 2024 to make hot or cold coffee concentrate in minutes. You put coffee and water in the chamber, screw on the pump, and hand-pump air to push the water through the coffee and a filter into the carafe below.
Pressure plus a finer grind gives fast, strong extraction. Brew it as a percolation brewer with a pressurised finish and it makes an excellent base for espresso-style milk drinks.
How to brew
Grind your recipe's dose into the brewer and add the Oxo brew water shown in the recipe settings, at the recipe's temperature.
Fit the plunger and push gently. Stop as soon as you see the first drip.
Wait 60 seconds while the coffee blooms and extracts.
Pump until bubbles start to appear. You should end up with the right espresso yield for the recipe's dose and ratio.
Taste it, then add any bypass water and the steamed milk from the recipe, just as you would with espresso.
Just like espresso pre-infusion and the filter bloom, the pause after the first drip is where much of the extraction happens. Fresh coffee needs time to degas. You are not in a hurry.
Brew water
Unlike an espresso machine, where you stop the shot at your target yield, the Rapid Brewer pushes through all the water you put in. Some of that water never reaches the cup: the wet grounds hold it back. To get the recipe's yield, you add the yield plus the water the grounds retain.
The allowance scales with the dose, and is calibrated against real brews.
As a rough guide, grounds hold back around 2–2.5 g of water per gram of coffee in filter brewing, and OXO’s own recipe (20 g of coffee and 160 g of water giving about 115 g of concentrate) suggests something similar. The Rapid Brewer’s pump changes things, though, so rather than fixing a rule, the allowance in the recipes is calibrated against real brews and refined as more testing is done. The recipe always shows the current figure.
Tips
The Rapid Brewer works at low pressure. It makes a rich, espresso-strength concentrate, not true espresso, so don't expect the same crema. In a milk drink it works beautifully.
If pumping becomes very hard or the brewer stalls, grind a little coarser next time.
Weigh what comes out. If you consistently land above or below the recipe’s yield, your brewer and grind are holding back a little less or more water, so adjust the brew water to suit.
Examples
Every espresso recipe works out the Oxo brew water for you, and the figure is kept up to date as the calibration is refined. Open a recipe to see its current brew water:
Darkest roast · 25 g dose, 25 g yield (1:1)
The middle · 20 g dose, 49 g yield (1:2.5)
Lightest roast · 14 g dose, 56 g yield (1:4)
References
Keep reading
Find your starting recipe, then dig deeper into what drives extraction.
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