The Invention of the Aeropress (2014)
priceonomics.com
priceonomics.com
As you can see at https://aeropressinc.com/use-it-now/evolution-of-aeropress/ , they’ve continued to re-evaluate materials, including testing for contamination while brewing coffee.
You can boil an aeropress at pH 5 for an hour without detecting any leaching. The interesting bit is how it ages—how cracks form, where bacteria might find a home, that sort of thing.
On every discussion of the Aeropress, I've seen the ask for a non-plastic version pop up. Every time I've then seen essentially your reply above. I'd just prefer a metal or glass version.
I don't worry about crap leaching out of the plastic as much as bacterial creepy critters lodging in the cracks. Also rancid coffee in the cracks isn't nice. Perhaps I should buy a new one, hopefully the polypropylene is more durable.
BTW, I use 200° water. Brewing time is less than 30s total for me.
https://www.artisansmith.com.au/collections/press
Steel press is $149AUD, which is about $110USD.
Handling metal at boiling temperatures is miserable. Burning yourself in your pre-coffee haze makes the ritual less enjoyable. Plastic is pretty damn good brewing material thanks to it's insulation. Metal and ceramics look great but you end up needing to add cladding and they are still inferior.
Fortunately aeropress is forgiving compared to espresso so you might get away with the temperature changes but I would not be suprised by mixed results.
Why? If you fear BPA or other materials leaching... they've been testing since 2009 and never found anything. And anything recent has been BPA-free.
> The team concentrated on BPA-free baby bottles and water bottles, Bittner says, "and all of them released chemicals having estrogenic activity." Sometimes the BPA-free products had even more activity than products known to contain BPA.
That was just the top search engine result for "plastic leaching".
Not quite the "see, nothing to worry about" hill I would die on when one can just buy glass or metal vessels.
Don't worry, you'll be fine. If that worked, I'd be sucking on plastic spoons all day.
I bought the metal screen filters off of amazon for cheap. Far better than the paper filters. I can't really tell the difference between the different metal filters, but I've settled on using the wire mess screen for some reason.
Interestingly enough, you can get solid knock offs in Vietnam [1] for pretty cheap (450k vnd / $19.50).
If you haven't tried inverted method, do it! Lots of instruction videos on youtube.
[1] http://barista1.viennam.vn/San-pham/dung-cu-pha-cafe-aeropre...
That's why he won't make a metal filter himself.
A metal filter might even make the coffee more enjoyable, but I think when reviewing coffee, the oils cover up some of the more subtle flavours.
But "never" increase the immersion to make stronger coffee.
Automatic drip
French Press
Aeropress
Pour-over (using a Hario v60, Chemex filters, and a cheap, non-Hario Gooseneck kettle)
Next will be a home espresso setup if I can ever get rich enough to justify having one.
Also get a good grinder (kinu m47, commandante or similar) if you do not have it already. It gives you controlled repeatable grind - you can make same coffee taste very different depending on the grind.
> I always manage to spill grounds getting them into the Aeropress,
Use the scoop but don't pour or tap them in - instead put the scoop into the cylinder and then spin the handle to dump out the grounds. Makes it impossible to spill.
> Plus there's the risk of your cup flying away with the amount of pressure you're putting on the top of the press
That sounds like way too much pressure - some new aeropresses can be tight (which can be remedied) but maybe you have too fine a grind. It should definitely not be espresso level which requires that type of muscle. It's not brewing by the pressure you are applying but time + agitation. The press is just removing the grounds.
I have however frequently knocked over a pourover while pouring... my own fault... tend to use a heavy ass kettle which turns it into some weird strength endurance exercise.
Is that right? I’ve never understood the purpose of the high pressure air pocket inside the Aeropress. If the pressure has no effect, why does the Aeropress brew more quickly than a French press?
I think the main variable affected by pressure is what is forced through the filter. A faster push and more force means more oils which can have positive or negative taste changes depending on the coffee.
You see competitive aeropressers (yeah, I know...) do 60s long presses to reduce pressure.
> If the pressure has no effect, why does the Aeropress brew more quickly than a French press?
Typically a french press has a coarser grind and less agitation.
I use a generic $4 filter holder from the local kitchen supply store, generic size 104 Melitta-style filters, and a basic kettle. I buy good quality coffee in small batches, which I grind at the store and go through in about a week. The fancy Hario etc. stuff is for hipsters IMO.
I do bust out the moka pot when I feel like changing it up a little, and it does make a very robust and flavorful, dark chocolate-like brew.
I also enjoy the coffee from the Aeropress, but I find it rather fiddly, which is not good for me in the morning.
Ultimately I went with the manual lever because I got tired of trying to figure out the espresso machine market, and I knew that the limiting factor in my espresso would be me, not the fact that I didn’t buy a copper boiler, PID-enabled $6k monstrosity.
If the frothy milk thing isn’t something you care about, then these things look pretty amazing and get good reviews on Amazon: https://www.flairespresso.com/ I didn’t go this route because I wanted something that could make my morning latte in addition to espresso, but this looks amazing.
You’ll definitely want to get a decent quality (read consistent) burr grinder to get good espresso. I had a ~$80 Capresso grinder that was great for Aeropress, but didn’t deliver enough grind consistency or enough control over grind size. I broke down and bought a Breville grinder on a friend’s recommendation (listed for $400, got for $180 on sale).
I love the precise grind times, because I’m lazy. But, in the spirit of cheap and manual, I’ve heard good things about the handheld Kyocerra grinder. That plus a cheap digital scale should get you some amazing results.
To recap, you could get the Flair espresso maker for as little as ~$150, and a handheld grinder for <$50 and probably be making as good an espresso as an expensive machine.
It's a cheap option, but scarcely the most usable one--among other things, you also have to go way beyond their recommendations when it comes to filling and tamping the shot, and pre-heat of the assembly with hot water is kinda essential. But for roughly $100 all in including a hand grinder, it was a cheap stab at seeing if I wanted to tinker with espresso. Turns out I do, so sometime in the next couple of years I'll buy into a mid-grade machine for the countertop.
I'd recommend going a mini/nanopresso if you enjoy the smallness of a aeropress but want the bite of an espresso-style shot. Really great little machines - not as simple as an aeropress but makes nice short blacks. Much cheaper than getting a home espresso machine as well.
It is great to learn how a great inventor thinks.
My coffee of choice is a flat white, so I need silky smooth microfoam (not froth), which the espresso machine does at the same time.
Also in terms of an "exact science" in consistently good taste, and getting the best from the beans, the extraction process of an espresso brew is superior and more reliable. Provided you take the time to learn how to do it.
Next best after an espresso machine is a stove-top coffee pot. Best for coffees where it's mostly water and only some milk.
> "Proponents of the device claim that drinks made with the AeroPress are more delicious than those made with thousand-dollar machines."
Yeh that's funny, is this article a paid promo?
Brewed coffee and espresso are two completely different things.
When talking about good coffee it's important to distinguish if you mean coffee you like to drink or if we're talking about flavours, mouth feel etc.
The coffee used and recommended for good complex espresso shots does not necessarily translate to good and complex cups of filter coffee. Comparing an espresso machine with an aeropress is like apples and oranges.
I could tell you several ways in which the aeropress is superior. But it doesn't matter, they are quite different devices for different purposes.
Lastly, for someone who wants espresso on the cheap, but doesn’t care about frothy milk, the Flair espresso maker looks like a winner, as I mentioned elsewhere: https://www.flairespresso.com/
To recap, yes they’re different beasts, both good. There are often disingenuous comparisons to espresso made on both “sides.”
Article says aeropress makes "best coffee in world" and "better than $1000 machines." Apples and oranges juiced well before I arrived. Coffee is the beverage you end up with, it's only fair to compare.
Also, how much did your espresso machine cost? My Aeropress cost $30. I use it daily at the office and make a cup that's 100x better than what the machine (or the starbucks downstairs) makes.
Your plastic thing doesn't make better coffee, I'm quite sure of that.
If you like burnt and bitter coffee. The Moka pot company, Bialetti, is in fact struggling, partly because there are just so many better ways of producing coffee. The Moka pot had its time, but nowadays people know that pushing (> 100 degree) boiling water through coffee grounds just doesn’t produce a great cup of coffee. It’s a pretty device though.
With good quality beans, my Bialetti produces coffee that is very similar in profile to high quality dark chocolate.