AeroPress: The Most Controversial Coffee Brewer

In this episode, I dive deep into the world's most controversial brewing device - the AeroPress. I share my honest journey from initially thinking it was garbage to learning to appreciate its unique capabilities. I discuss a thoughtful comment from a listener about AeroPress techniques, exploring both the traditional and inverted brewing methods. I break down the common leakage issues with paper filters versus metal filters, and why I've come to prefer the metal filter for its consistency and reusability.

I also explore how the AeroPress community is beautifully divided in their opinions and techniques, which actually drives innovation and improvement in brewing methods. I discuss how manufacturers like AeroPress and Prismo have created accessories to solve common brewing challenges, showing how user feedback shapes product development. By listening to this episode, you'll gain insights into different AeroPress brewing techniques, understand why this device sparks such passionate debates, and learn how to approach coffee brewing with an open mind focused on personal preference and continuous improvement.

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro
• 1:30 Listener Comment Discussion
• 3:05 Traditional AeroPress Method and Issues
• 5:00 Inverted Method Explanation
• 6:45 Pressure vs Agitation Comparison
• 8:30 Personal Brewing Philosophy and Preferences
• 10:25 Community Feedback and Innovation

Transcript

[00:00:00] We are live right now. Today is Tuesday, July 15th, 2025. This one's going to be interesting, guys. A lot of times I get my topics from myself or consult AI for different things to talk about. And then once I have something, I just go from there. And it's been a lot of fun that way. I'm not going to lie, I do love getting comments on the YouTube channel and all that stuff.

[00:00:37] This one is going to be all over the place. I'll try to wrap it up as much as I can. But this is about the AeroPress. Again, our trusty good old friend AeroPress. I think it is probably the most controversial brewing device in the coffee world. I don't know why, it just is. And I think the reason why is because there's so many people that like it. There's so many people that think it's okay. There's so many people that think it's garbage.

[01:10] I've thought for the longest it's garbage. It actually works fine. And I've learned to become more appreciative of it and all that stuff. But we're just going to have a discussion about preferences, gear, operation, and all that good stuff. As I sit here, take it apart. Let me go ahead and share what somebody has said to me about the AeroPress. And that's the reason why I'm actually talking about this in particular.

[01:40] Here's this comment: "I've been using AeroPress for a while and it's been first rate from the start. As I use a fairly fine grind, some sort of filter is essential. I've settled on an inverted method and when as soon as it's in place, I put the bottom section with paper filter on. Then I run the timer, then flip it and plunge. If one is not using an inverted method, I recommend gently inserting the plunger just at the top so that there's a seal, but don't plunge yet. This will prevent the rest of the coffee from dropping through the seal when it turns the AP into a pour over, which is not what it's for."

[02:24] "That's why the accessory you're using doesn't come with it. Also, my experience is that the Prismo accessory is better than the AP accessory. We all have our own taste and preference. From my perspective, I feel that your chosen techniques with the AP seem to be creating this issue that you're reporting and the AP is much better and more consistent than it appears in this video. Again, from my own perspective and experience."

[02:49] Nice person, said what he needed to and I responded back. I pretty much told him that I like the device, I like this attachment and all this stuff. And essentially it solves all the solutions or issues that I had with the AeroPress. I think the AeroPress is probably one of the most finicky pieces of gear ever, just because of the way it is, the way that it's designed and really the multiple ways that you can actually make coffee.

[03:21] The regular way, we just have this for demonstration, is you put it on top of the cup, right? And you have your thing. I don't have that filter thing because I don't know where it is. Let's just pretend I did and I put it here, right? You put it on top of the cup, put the water in. It's supposed to be like a French press. It really does, it's supposed to. Meaning that it's not supposed to leak through.

[03:44] You go ahead and stir it. And then after you stir it, you wait a couple of minutes, whatever recipe that you want to go with. And what tends to happen with the AeroPress, as the gentleman has stated, is that it just, if you don't do it in a certain way, especially if you use a paper filter, that's the thing that he didn't realize, that he didn't say, is that if you use a paper filter, it leaks through quite a bit.

[04:13] And he does have a point to an extent where you just put it up top like this and you're just creating a seal. So it does help, but it still leaks through, especially with a paper filter. I like the metal filter just because there's not that much bigger difference with taste. It leaks through quite a bit with the paper filter. And the taste variations are very close to each other. So I just roll with the metal filter.

[04:34] I think it works, it's better. You can use it as many times as you want. It's not as significant of a difference with the AeroPress. It's a big difference, or at least to me, that I'm finding out with a paper filter versus a metal filter. However, I'm coming back around to this whole paper and metal filter and how you can appreciate metal filters in a pour over. Again, story for another day.

[04:59] The biggest thing that I'm getting at is that I just showed you one way to make the AeroPress. The other way, which we all know and love and hate, is the inverted method, which is what he mentioned before. You do like this, right? You go ahead and get everything set up. You put coffee and water inside the vessel. This is a regular size AeroPress. So this is mainly made for one person.

[05:29] So put your recipe in there, stir it, you put the top on, you don't, some of the heat will go off, whatever. And then you wait a minute or two or 30 seconds or whatever your recipe may be, fine grind, boiling water, whatnot. And then you put it up top, right? Like so. And then you wait. So guess what happens here when you do it that way? There's no leakage. You don't have to worry about leakage at all.

[06:01] It acts, I guess in this form and everything, it acts like a French press. You're just waiting, okay? That's what a French press looks like. Let me get a French press and show you. Here's the French press. So again, it's almost the same thing. Let's not get crazy with this, okay? Put the water in, you wait, plunge.

[06:18] They call this pressure, it's not really pressure, it's just agitation. So you are changing the dynamic of the coffee, right? Some people are very gentle with it so they won't agitate as much because, I don't know, that's just their recipe. Some people just plunge all the way down and just pour and just keep it going, right?

[06:28] But at the end of the day, let's just say it's up top. And you're just waiting, okay? You're just waiting for your cup of coffee. Just waiting for it to do its thing. So both of these things were acting the same, right? The difference here, which everybody knows, is that you're going to plunge down. There's no real pressure in the French press, right? So that's what the French press does. That's the coffee that it makes.

[06:55] The interesting thing about the AeroPress is that it's pressure, right? So you turn it over and you plunge down. You go as fast or slow as you want because it's your recipe. You can stir it, you can not stir it, you can go at 212 degrees Fahrenheit. You can do whatever you want. A lot of recipes are like that, right?

[07:17] But I think the biggest thing that we have to come back to with the AeroPress is that no matter which or how much frustration that we do get with the device, we're still the one brewing the coffee. We like what we like. And a lot of times with coffee, especially when it's gear hungry or gear heavy, is that we use something for a while and it doesn't just work for us, fine. We tend to move on. We buy another gadget. We justify it. And we find the things that we like about it. We find the things that we don't like about it.

[07:46] And then we go on our merry way. And then at times, devices like the AeroPress or even the French press, they stay hidden or covered somewhere. And sometimes we use it. And I think that's where it comes from. It's about preferences. It's like finding the joy in our coffee gear, why we like it, why we don't like it.

[08:12] And I will tell you this is that my newfound love for the AeroPress mainly because of this device. And it could be just because of the way I actually brew, like the gentleman has stated. Probably the way I brew is not conducive to using the AeroPress the way that it is. Sometimes I beg to differ. But that's probably the case because think about it. If you are doing something in a way where it doesn't gel with you, you're going to have to do one or two things or multiple things.

[08:40] You're going to find a way where you can use it, where it does help you enjoy the cup of coffee that you're trying to produce from the machine. It could be to the point where you just put it down and not use it ever again because you just can't make a tasty cup out of it. Or the other solution, which I'm glad AeroPress picked up on that, I think Prismo probably made it first. But AeroPress made the accessory for their own device too.

[09:17] It's because they realized that people were probably having a lot of issues making a cup of AeroPress coffee. So I'm not unique in my own purposes in the way that I go about making coffee with the AeroPress. And I think that's a cool thing really about AeroPress. It has such a big community. It's divided. And division is not bad. Division lets us know what you like and why you like it and how you are planning to mitigate that situation.

[09:43] But you have figured out a way for you to enjoy your coffee no matter what. And to me, I think it helps increase the pressure and the mechanism of what's going on here with this whole coffee thing. Because if we are here to improve and to get better in the way that we understand coffee, I think that's the only thing that matters.

[10:06] And it's pretty cool that a company and other companies have figured out solutions that a good bit of people are challenging themselves or having issues with a device that isn't perfect. Because guess what? No device is actually perfect. We just kind of use it in the best way that we can in order to mitigate or to make the best coffee that we can.

[10:26] And I think that's the best part about all this discussion, understanding people's tools, why they like it, why they don't like it, and ways that they can do better in order to just get better in brewing coffee. And I think that's really what it's all about here. It's about how we can actually brew a cup of coffee that's better for ourselves.

[10:47] Because it's cool to get comments. It's cool to get people's point of views and everything. But at the end of the day, especially even after I'm done making this video, I'm going to turn the kettle on. I'm going to do a recipe at 190, 205, test a couple coffees out for another video. And then I'm going to sit there and analyze it by myself. And I'm going to think about what I like about the coffee, what I don't like about it, and ways to improve it or roast it better and whatnot.

[11:20] Because it's all about preferences. It's all about trying to maximize what we give back to other people so they can understand and to reproduce the coffee that they want to. Because that's the biggest thing about all of this, really. It's like, can we get better? Why do we want to get better?

[11:41] And I think the really coolest thing about all of this is that when a manufacturer and people that's making these solutions to devices are seeing the issues and trying to mitigate that as much as possible, we can also see how that can gel with us in order to make a better cup of coffee a lot better in the grand scheme of things.

[12:38] So I love this comment. I love thinking about things like this. And sometimes you may get a video out of me because I think it's perfectly fine for us to just talk about this, talk about differences of opinions, different purposes, the way that we actually brew our coffee. Because that ultimately determines what probably a manufacturer may do, what we may do, what we may make with a 3D machine, whatnot. I may get into that. Who knows? I've gone down this rabbit hole and I don't know where the exit is at. So we're going to just keep going with it, right?

[12:39] So yeah. AeroPress. The most controversial coffee device that we have using. And that's perfectly fine. We have our opinions, have our preferences. We have the ways that we like what we want to use with AeroPress. And as long as we're honest with ourselves, even with our techniques, even if it's not perfectly perfect, that's perfectly fine. It just is what it is, right?

[13:10] So this is a little different. I hope that you got something out of this. Hopefully that was a benefit to you. And let's talk about it. Let me know what you think. This is Okey at Everyday Bean signing off. Talk to you later. Bye.