People are asking what the difference between an Aero Press and French Press. The benefit to an aero press is the paper filters. They filter out some of the oils when making a cup. French press you get the oils or whatever you want to call it. I have tried several coffee makers over the years, gadgets like the vacuum coffee maker from bodium etc, and nothing comes close to the simplistic aero press for a decent cup of coffee.
Depends what you mean. I've used one before, and it worked well, but with mesh filters you will always get the oils coming through that paper removes. Some people like it that way, others don't. James Hoffman prefers paper filters; when I heard him say that and why, I gave them another try and decided he was right. They do give a "cleaner" quality to the taste.
Not to mention you get fine particulate with a French press compared to aeropress. There are better ways to make coffee out there, but I don’t think there’s better value for money/time than an aeropress.
Call me weird, but I've done somewhat ok attempting to avoid the oils/fines with a French press by basically putting a paper towel over the glass before putting the plunger thing back into it. So the paper towel wraps around the metal mesh, not only adding its filtering to the mesh but also improving the seal it makes against the side of the glass. It does mean that I have to press it down more slowly before pouring, but that's just because it's doing its job so I don't mind. It also means that the mesh/plunger bit requires less cleaning afterward.
Hi, so I went from using an electric coffee/spice mill that gave wildly inconsistent results to a Hario Mini-Mill Plus and I'm very happy with it. This is a hand-wound ceramic burr grinder. I did a tonne of research before hand and one reason I picked this one is because having looked at some other options I couldn't at the time justify spending more than £100/$150 on the ones other people were recommending like the Baratza Encore, Timemore etc. I purchased the Hario as part of the V60 pour over kit for about £35 (actually cheaper than buying the grinder on it's own for some reason and meant I got an extra funnel and a bunch of filters). My experience with it so far is it is enjoyable to use, produces a great result for my stage in the coffee making journey, is light for travel-- if that's your thing-- and was way, WAY cheaper than other options. Granted my coffee habits have gone from instant freeze dried to jug machine to moka pot to Nanopresso to V60/Nanopresso, so the more experienced might have more objective info! Hope you find what you need.
Any kind of burr mill grinder in your price range is recommended. For my first couple years of use I would daily a hand crank burr grinder I ordered from Amazon around $30 usd.
I got this Rhino hand grinder that works great. Bonus 'feature' is the crank fits onto a hex shaft that also fits my cordless drill when I'm feeling lazy :)
A conical burr grinder with incremental adjustments is my recommendation. I hand a Bartaza Encore and it was a great grinder but I gave up caffeine for a while and gave it away. I picked up a 1Zpresso Q2 S after I decided to ease back into the coffee world and I don’t have many complaints.
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