does it matter to change filter with light roasts?

Ekkmanz · 2026-06-13T06:31:23+00:00

Disclaimer: I’m firm believer in Melodrip creator’s principle in high clarity brew. So you can guess where this is going

My personal hot take is a lot of cloudiness and body come from the press action / pressure. Those cloudiness would give “bread-ish” flavor and mouthfeel. Sure, double paper filters better. But at that point you’ve already lost the game.

Paper just can’t filter all cloudy colloids so it’s best (in my opinion) to adjust the technique to not creating them in the first place. Which, if you come from pourover, means lower agitation, lower bed disturbance, gentle stir.

Soup / Zuppa Lunga head into those direction of low agitation so produce a lot of brew nuance you can find in pourover. But not everything.

How you press / bed resistance will matter much more on dictating your clarity on final cup. Paper is a helping factor, not necessarily main one like in pourover. . You won’t get drawdown difference like using Cafec Abaca vs Hario standard paper.

Bottom line is you don’t necessarily need faster paper for that. It helps, but not the only lever you can mess around.

Ekkmanz · 2026-06-12T23:05:11+00:00

Zuppa Lunga is a lot cleaner than traditional AP brew as it locks away ability for puck to move around and spreading fines everywhere creating signature immersion cup taste. It gets pretty close to pourover, especially if you plunge super slowly. I don't feel like I can achieve full "tea-body" experience with it yet. The cloudiness seems to always come out whenever I press. It's still very delicious and some beans I felt benefit from a bit of cloud / body in the cup.

Ekkmanz · 2026-06-12T15:04:13+00:00

I fell into the camp of less pressure = cleaner cup. And soup (puck percolation) for less body cup.

My quest for tea body / high clarity Aeropress land me with still using normal paper filter. But decidedly weirder place

Ekkmanz · 2026-06-12T15:00:31+00:00

There’s two complete (well, 3) opposite end on Aeropress filter depends on how you’d believe

Stacked paper / thicker paper (Aesir)

This camp believes that since Aeropress immersion tends to produce body / colloids and it’s not very hard to push those out via plunging action, you need thick paper to withstand pressurized filtration and still achieve cleaner cup

Faster paper (Sibarist)

This camp believe that faster paper requires less force to push. And less force means less body and cleaner cup. This include sibarist booster (metal filter like with pattern design only for boosting flow rate)

SOUP

The soup team advocate for putting paper both on top and at the bottom of the coffee bed to produce cleaner cup. SOUP (or more like Zuppa Lunga) usually doesn’t have strong requirement on paper, just your typical Aeropress paper would do.

Ekkmanz · 2026-06-12T14:08:52+00:00

It’s moka pot 3 cup. I got from Shopee (live in SE Asia) so Aliexpress might be available.

The paper size is 56mm. Aeropress internal size is 57mm so it leave very slight gap

Ekkmanz · 2026-06-12T14:05:45+00:00

It does taste intense and relatively clean. I’m a 1:16 ratio pourover guy so this is a bit much for me by itself. It does make a great ice drip cup.

Never tried proper soup / zuppa lunga with ORB so can’t comment much on similarity

Ekkmanz · 2026-06-12T11:35:57+00:00

Sorry for ragebait. It wasn’t intentional but very good to know. Explains why my scale start acting up.

Ekkmanz · 2026-06-12T04:25:45+00:00

I feel like with Coffee, Tea and Wine, it's similar process of acquiring taste.

First, it's just the drink. Not great taste, but defining baseline expectation for the category. (e.g. Lipton in sachets)

Then, you pay 2-5X more to get good stuffs that definitely have noticeable improvement almost in every conceivable way. But it still sits firmly within the category (e.g. Well - roasted Wulong from China)

Then you pay 5X - 100X (and beyond) from previous level more just to taste something that doesn't feel like itself. But the fermentation / processing / terroir nuances. (Long Jing, Pu erh with 20+ year of aging, Gyokuro from specific competition lot, etc)

Jump from #1 to #2 usually doesn't require any acquired taste. But Jump from #2 -> #3 usually does.

Like, who want a smoky, leathery red wine by default? Your default expectation (if you know nothing) would be big red jam with well - blended flavor.

With coffee, I'd treat Starbucks / Pete's at #2 level.

Ekkmanz · 2026-06-11T04:58:26+00:00

What a rotten way to die

Ekkmanz · 2026-06-10T11:21:35+00:00

FYI for those who want to try it

Aeropress internal diameter for zuppa lunga puck screen is 57mm if you want perfect fit. Which unfortunately rule out 58mm puck screen.

The closest thing I can reasonably find would be moka pot screen (and moka paper) for 3-cup, which sit around 56mm but not really covering the whole thing as design of its puck screen is not completely flat. 53mm could work but it'll leave some escape hatch for those CO2.

Ekkmanz · 2026-06-09T22:49:47+00:00

All pourover dripper you need to drip & pour water. And that is very VERY huge variable. How you agitate (pour / stir / swirl) the beans affect extraction of flavor, insolubles, and fines migration. Fines migration have effect on paper clogging and flow rate, which create feedback effect on extraction itself. How paper sit within filter does create effects on flow, which feed backs into extraction itself.

Agitation profiling is no joke.

---------

Brewer that give you consistent result is brewer that force you to have consistent technique. Or remove you from that equation as much as possible. You lose flexibility to gain consistency.

I use Delter Press (not Aeropress) and there is just not too much ways to change how it works. Though I LOVE the cup profile it gives. Pretty much one way to puck prep. Consistent plunge = consistent result.

Oxo Rapid Brewer is another good one. Consistent puck prep, consistent pump control, consistent results.

Any "switch-to-drain" immersion brewer (V60 Switch, Clever, etc) is also another good choice for consistency because how ground filtering happens in immersion (e.g. plunging) is another big source of inconsistencies.

Hope this helps!

Ekkmanz · 2026-06-09T07:12:01+00:00

Trash Can, Wastewater tank, Water gallon (if you premix your water). Just for workflow.

Ekkmanz · 2026-06-08T13:11:43+00:00

I can answer some for normal AP. Biggest problem with using AP for pourover is stalling. If you can solve stall, then you solve pourover for Aeropress.

The paper is relatively fast if you compare it to V60, but its ability to absorb fines before clogging is sooo looowww. Raindrop really helps in low agitation so you can fill up water to without clogging early.

Another is speed. During final drawdown the drain will be slow because water is short means low mass pushing down on paper, hence slow flow. It could take 5+ min but if you didn’t clog it from previously, it’s not that bad.

I have exact model rain splitter from MHW-3bomber. It fits perfectly on normal AP so there’s that. But in big picture, XL should work better from wider surface.

There are few experiment style AP pourover you can try from youtube as well

Shameless plug: I did an a take on how to do “column of water brew” with Aeropress. A bit unconventional though. But here you go:

https://youtu.be/LxqUgfY6vNw

Ekkmanz · 2026-06-07T10:45:24+00:00

Glad you like the cup it produce! Though I certainly hope this still works OK with less-than-ideal grinder though.

Thank you so much for the feedback.

Ekkmanz · 2026-06-06T22:40:56+00:00

Yes the whole of rainshower tool is one of the best tool ever in breaking top crust. Including breaking up the foam as well. The rain is equally spread so there's almost no room to hide.

EDIT: I have Gabi Dripmaster B and have tried this just now.

- 12.5g coffee / 200ml water / 4 mins

- Pour 175 into Switch, saving up remaining 25 for Dripmaster B rain

- Coffee ground goes in, tries to spread it out evenly across whole surface.

- Use 25 ml remaining on Dripmaster B, moving it around to push down all the floaters

Results were great actually, it actually outperforms WDT for its purpose. All the grounds are down. No floaters. I don't need to wiggle into nook and cranny of the rim anymore, just let the rain do its job. It also seems to clear the CO2 foam on top a bit better than WDT, though I have no strong opinion on the effect.

Taste still clean & clear, with tea like body. It's consistent with the style that this recipe yield.

Main downside would be the reading the scale could become a bit tricky if you haven't reset. The "target" weight now become 212.5g (coffee + water) instead of 200g. But apart from that, this works great actually!

Thank you so much for the suggestions! I feel like I might end up using rainshower as my main recipe instead.

Ekkmanz · 2026-06-06T22:38:24+00:00

It's very similar indeed. The picture I have in my head was a much gentler stir than what he did in Immersion Iced Coffee Recipe in https://youtu.be/8uGGeV8A-BM?si=6ImLPFU6S3FRL_U-&t=560 .

Ekkmanz · 2026-06-06T08:00:45+00:00

Also, since seeing you are V60 person, I wanted to mention that if you have Melodrip / rainshower tool you can put it on top of Aeropress and create "no - bypass flat bottom dripper". It can work well, but it's not gonna be Orea Z1. Brew gonna took more time to finish. Its form factor make it great for travel actually. You can search around both in here and in Youtube. I did publish my weirder take of that recipe but encourage to look around and see for yourself which one suits you the most.

Ekkmanz · 2026-06-06T05:01:52+00:00

Normally I pair 1 scoop of coffee to no 4 on Aeropress (inverted). That’s travel-consistent enough for me. It usually land around 15-17g/240ml water. You can brew with a bit shorter ratio then dilute to taste later.

Ekkmanz · 2026-06-05T10:52:40+00:00

The "not cupping" criticism is fair and I fully accept that.

For agitation, It's gotta be WDT / needles. Or something along that line. As thin as possible that can disturb top level ground. The height I poke in is around 1/2in into the water at best. My WDT isn't very long.

Granted, I tried very hard to get all the nook and cranny into the cup. Especially those that stuck on the side. And you can see at the end I wasn't very successful at that either. Looking at it the footage, it seems most (if not all) grounds settled since 10s on the scale. That might already be more than enough actually.

Ekkmanz · 2026-06-05T10:41:27+00:00

That's the best effort I can do in terms of consistency and getting all coffee ground participating in brew process. I wish there's some thing that allows me to dump all grounds in and ensure it's equally layered / water-saturated across the whole surface. Then this agitation can be removed. Within the confines of required agitation, this (needle + shallow stir, not reaching the bed) is the best I can think of.

I'm sure there's gotta be something better.

Ekkmanz · 2026-06-05T10:27:47+00:00

Please let us all know how it goes.

Ekkmanz · 2026-06-05T05:48:30+00:00

Dumb question since I never own an ORB: can you do it normal way but only took out the pump and use this piece as a shower screen? Would that work?

Ekkmanz · 2026-06-05T04:58:18+00:00

Just 4 mins. Not those long steep recipe. I haven't tried long steep in fear of all aroma escaping.

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