Comment by aaronbrethorst | Hacker News Reader

Comment by aaronbrethorst | Hacker News Reader

I almost always do a pourover at home in the morning (except the last two mornings when I was out of filters and did a french press instead). I think they're significantly better than what you can get out of an automatic coffee maker, and easier than any other coffee-making process I've seen.

It's kind of odd that there aren't any links given to buy the stuff you need to get started:

* Coffee filter holder: http://www.amazon.com/Cilio-Porcelain-Coffee-Filter-Holder/d...

* Filters: http://www.amazon.com/Melitta-Coffee-Filters-Natural-Brown/d...

There are a couple other things I do to simplify or improve the process:

* Wet the inside of the filter holder. This'll make it easier to get the filter to stay put.

* Wet the filter once it's in the holder, but before you fill it with coffee. I think this makes a difference in the final taste.

I use a rounded tablespoon of coffee grounds per 4-5oz water (i.e. two for a regular cup of coffee, and three for a travel mug). I don't worry about water temperature outside of whether or not it was recently brought to a boil.

I love pourovers and ended up getting this Bodum auto: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jordanshapiro/2013/04/07/hands-o...

It makes a very good pourover, I recommend it if you don't have the time to do it properly.

How do you compare it to an aeropress?

There's a subtle difference in taste. It's also much easier to make with the Aeropress. I really get very consistent results with it, whereas pour-over can be more difficult to get the timing right.

On the other hand, it's more fun to make a pourover. Aeropress feels like a toy in comparison. Feels like not much skill is involved.

Aeropress is something between filter/pourover and french press. I think it produces better tasting coffee than both of these methods most of the time.

You don't really... Espresso makes highly concentrated brewed coffee that people consider to be closer to espresso.

The 'debate' is that any coffee pulled under pressure is technically espresso - but (real, read: not home machines) pull espresso shots at ~9 bar. Aeropress generates about 1.5 - 2 bars of pressure, and thus is... something between coffee and espresso. Most people have taken to calling it "Espresso style coffee" which is like calling Tofurky meat style tofu. WAT?

Anyway, most people (but not me) dilute their Aeropress coffee in water to make a Americano-style drink, so its not really comparable at this point to a true pour-over anyway.

All that said, I think aeropress makes quite good coffee - but its not a replacement for a pourover, and there's a lot more batch variation due to the lack of control in an aeropress.

Hope this helps!

I love my Aeropress. I make a single cup from 20g of lightly roasted coffee beans, that I grind in a blade grinder because thats the one available around here (Brazil). I don't dillute this very much - sometimes 10% to just to fill the cup.

This "pourover renaissance" is very surprising - its how everyone "down here" does their coffee[1] for the last hundred years and, at least with my way of doing it, doesn't produce anything as flavorful as the Aeropress...

If you use your Aeropress daily, check out the S Filter from Kaffeologie -- it's a mesh filter. It allows for more oil to come through instead being absorbed by the paper. I find it's best with an inverted process, but that's personal preference.

The filter is pricey for what it is, but it does have a lifetime warranty.

http://www.kaffeologie.com/shop/s-filter-for-aeropress-coffe...

What do you mean by "home machines"? My espresso machine goes up to 16 bar.

My experience has been that if you are pouring every day and your technique is really good, than a pourover will have slightly more complex flavors. But an Aeropress will be almost just as good and be much more consistent and have a much flatter learning curve. I always recommend an Aeropress to people getting into nice coffee. A pourover is much more theatrical and looks more impressive, though :/

Also consider that the Aeropress is very, very easy to clean.

I think pour-over with a disposable filter is probably comparable in ease of cleaning.

Sure, but depending on the pourover, you probably have ridges that are slightly less trivial to clean, at least compared to the Aeropress.

I'll disagree. A paper filter with grounds pulled out of a Chemex, Kalita, Hario V60, etc. is a lot easier to clean than an Aeropress, which I'll agree is an improvement over the mess that a French Press makes. A paper filter keeps the grounds contained in a way that makes composting simple, rather than washing half the grounds down the drain.

Hmm - do you pour directly into your cup?

With the Aeropress I brew directly into the cup, then I move it over the garbage can and press the thing to throw away the compacted paper filter and coffee.

Then just rinse the Aeropress - which you could even skip if you're really lazy/green.

Friends more familiar with making their own espresso seem to love the Aeropress. Friends familiar with pour over seem to moonlight with Aeropress now and then.

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