Bitter Press

Essays: Unintentional Success, featuring The Aeropress (With Guest SpotBy Coava’s Disk Filter)

The best brewing devices are conceived, most of the time, for the wrong reasons. Siphon brewing was invented mainly because vacuums were just discovered as a principal of physics, and coffee was also in vogue at the time. The Chemex was created with a main focus on the thicker paper filter. Cafe Solo was invented because the filter on a french press is hard to keep clean and can trap oils in there.

No one knew that siphon brewing was commendable for it’s supreme temperature stability. No one knew that the conical shape of the Chemex would help us re-evaluate extraction and brew times. No one knew that the onus of the Cafe Solo is the slope of it’s base, which helps naturally filter the coffee grounds and gives an extreme amount of control over the agitation throughout brewing.

Which brings us to the thorn in my side, and shining star as of late, the Aeropress. Invented by a frisbee designer, rumored to be using grocery store coffee to test it, the Aeropress is a simple pressurized brew chamber with a thin paper filter used to make a concentrate, which is then diluted by adding extra hot water. The box calls for the coffee to be brewed at temperatures around 175 degrees Fahrenheit in just about ten seconds. Everything about this, to the average coffee person, just sounds wrong.

That’s because it is. Diluting coffee ruins the natural body of brewed coffee, and coffee brewing is a matter of extraction — coffee extracts best at temperatures hovering around 200 degrees Fahrenheit. Poor temperature management is one of the number one reasons that people have given up on the Clover. And ten seconds? Even with a nine bar pressure and a full tamp, good espresso takes at least twenty.

Because of these circumstances — and the Aeropress’ great commercial success — it has always been a stinky turd in the corner of my mind. A charlatan’s snake oil. Sure, I’d had good cups off an Aeropress before, but wouldn’t supporting the Aeropress financially mean that I’m somehow supporting the dissemination of poor coffee making decrees?

The answer is, no. But that’s mainly because I stole my dad’s Aeropress that he never figured out how to use. And there’s a good chance that you, too, can snatch an Aeropress from a friend or relative that purchased one on a whim. But that’s not really a practical or useful way to think about things. Let’s try that again. Wouldn’t supporting the Aeropress financially mean that I’m somehow supporting the dissemination of poor coffee making decrees?

No. And that’s because there’s a large enough vocal contingent out across the Intarwubbs that are helping to promote safe, practical, and correct uses of the device. And here’s another one. I encourage you, as well, to be one more, too.

It’s all very simple. The boon of the Aeropress is the immersion chamber itself. It’s relatively short diameter combined with the wide paddle means that agitation is very easy to repeat. There’s not a lot of room for different stirring techniques, so basically you are able to count the number of times you back and forth and repeat it time and time again. Even though it may seem a bit wobbly, extending the chamber fully and inverting the Aeropress gives you a solid handle on creating an isolated, easy to maintain brew chamber.

And yet, there’s something still to say about using pressure as an agent of agitation. Espresso, siphon, and now Aeropress — there’s a certain liveliness to all three of these brew methods. Who knows what sort of scientific evidence backs it up — all I’m saying is that the coffee I’ve been brewing is frakkin’ delicious.

Since this is not yet a How To piece, but rather an essay, I’m wary to include the brew recipe I’ve been using. At the same time, however, there are so many complicated ones out there that I think the simplicity of this method I’ve been using deserves to be examined.

Inverted chamber with plunger halfway through the circle 4. Fifteen grams of coffee ground at a V60 setting. Water around 200 degrees Fahrenheit: 185 grams of it. Agitate at 45 seconds with Aeropress paddle until bloom collapses into itself, about four to five stirs. Attach filter. Flip at 1:30, slowly plunge with weight of your hand (not force). Finish plunging at 2 minutes just before you hear the hiss. Finish pressing out all excess whatevers into a sink, let sit for five to ten minutes, and the puck will have dried out and will pop out easily.

It’s easy. It’s fast. It’s clean.

There is something I do have to admit. My biggest love for the Aeropress comes in it’s size. I’ve yet to run into a brew device that singly brews six ounces or less competently, and when you work everyday leveling espresso, I don’t always need the 14oz or so that my V60 relies on jazzing me up before I get to work (you can brew less, but I’ve found it harder to repeatedly brew solid extractions at lower volumes on the V60). Having soft skin means I’m constantly brewing coffee on my fingers and absorbing it through my hands.

I do need to end this with one caveat: every brew I’ve been loving with my Aeropress has been with Coava Coffee’s Disk filter. Originally punched out of leftover sheets from their Kone filter designed for the Chemex, the Disk is an etched piece of metal that resembles the bottom of an espresso basket, if only espresso baskets were that precise in their hole arrays.

Now, this may be because I’ve been loving the profile it offers, or it may be because I forgot to steal paper filters when I stole my dad’s Aeropress. Or maybe I subconsciously didn’t even think to take them, since my sole idea was to steal the Aeropress to test out the Disk. In any case, with a proper grinder, the coffee tends to dam up behind the filter like in an espresso basket, meaning that very little fines/sediment make it through the filter, while a shitload of deliciousness does.

I’m going to say it here, right now, and mean it — the Disk outperforms the Kone, hands down. As great as the Kone is, it’s design leaves room for interpretation. In pour over, the paper filter acts as a regulator for flow. With the Kone, brew times can vary, and need to be monitored. The Disk, however, has no real issues competing with flow on the Aeropress. It’s pushback feels very much the same as paper, and gives you a good sense of pressure profiling (wink).

But what I love more about The Kone, The Disk, and the upcoming Funnel (wait, what?) is that there are now brew methods (or paraphernalia) that are being concocted by real, honest to God coffee folks who know what they’re doing. No longer is it a crapshoot invention re-interpreted by a coffee public. We’ve got someone batting for the home team, finally.

What was the point of this whole debacle again? Proving that there’s salvation in technique? A re-examination of brewing culture and high-tech modders? Or was this just a big thank you to Keith and the Coava crew? I’m not so sure. I feel like an old man trying to deliver a speech while the point is slipping away…

So this may not end poignantly. But I’m going to try and wrap it up simply: I really enjoy brewing on my Aeropress, and I really enjoy using my Disk. I’m not sure what this means in our eventual progress towards the singularity, but I know that there is redemption for brewing devices, regardless of the evil intent of their creators.

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