AeroPress Brewing Guide: Upright vs Inverted, and How to Dial It In

Brew an AeroPress the way its maker does: 16 to 18 g of coffee, water at 185°F, a 30-second wait and a gentle press. Why AeroPress discourages the inverted method, and how to dial in the grind.

By Jay Arr Updated

An AeroPress steeps coffee in a plastic chamber for a short time, then you push it through a paper filter with the plunger. It makes one mug at a time, cleans up quickly and travels well.

Our 2020 video shows both the upright and the inverted method, and in it I said I preferred the inverted one. AeroPress’s 2024 instructions strongly discourage inverting, so this written guide brews upright. Use the video for the motions and the text for the numbers.

AeroPress’s own method

These are AeroPress’s instructions for the Original (and the Clear), from its website and its 2024 printed instructions.

  1. Heat water to 185°F (85°C). If your kettle can’t be set to a temperature, AeroPress says boiling water is fine.
  2. Set up. Put a paper filter in the filter cap, twist the cap onto the chamber, and stand the chamber on a sturdy mug on a flat, non-slippery surface.
  3. Add the coffee. 16 to 18 g, or one heaping AeroPress scoop, ground medium-fine. AeroPress gives a Baratza Encore setting of 11 to 13 as an example. Shake gently to level it.
  4. Pour water up to the 4 on the chamber. Some coffee drips through into the mug; AeroPress says that’s normal.
  5. Stir and seal. Stir gently for about 3 seconds (the website) to 5 seconds (the 2024 printed instructions). Then quickly push the plunger in about ½ inch and pull it up slightly, which makes a vacuum that stops the drips.
  6. Wait 30 seconds. With store-bought, pre-ground coffee, AeroPress says to use a medium grind and wait 60 seconds.
  7. Press gently. Hold the mug and chamber with one hand and press the plunger straight down with the other, with gentle, constant pressure, until you hear the hissing begin and end.
  8. Eject the puck. Take off the filter cap and, over the bin, push the plunger the rest of the way to pop out the grounds. Rinse.

AeroPress puts brewing and cleanup together at under 2 minutes. It doesn’t give the water by weight: the numbers on the chamber are the measure, and AeroPress says the Original makes one serving of up to 10 oz.

AeroPress’s safety warnings are worth reading once. Never press if the plunger’s seal is loose in the chamber, because hot water can shoot around it. And never press hard, which can break the brewer or spill the coffee. If the plunger fights you, the fix is a coarser grind next time, not more force.

A recipe by weight

To brew by weight instead of by the numbers on the chamber, here is our Brew Guide’s AeroPress recipe at 16 g, the low end of AeroPress’s dose. The Brew Guide adapts the Classic AeroPress Method in Jessica Easto’s Craft Coffee at its own 1:14 ratio, and for a medium roast it uses AeroPress’s 185°F (85°C), but follows Easto’s timing: a ten-second stir and pressing from 0:30 after the first pour. AeroPress instead stirs for a few seconds and waits 30 seconds after stirring and sealing.

  1. Rinse a paper filter in the cap, lock it on, stand the AeroPress on a sturdy mug, add 16 g of coffee and tare the scale.
  2. Start the timer and pour 224 g of water at 185°F (85°C).
  3. Stir for ten seconds.
  4. At 0:30, hold the mug and chamber with one hand and press down slowly and steadily with the other. Stop when you hear a hiss.

For an 8 fl oz mug, our AeroPress vs French press comparison gives the Brew Guide’s 20 g version, with its hot-water top-up, beside a French press brewed for the same mug.

Upright or inverted?

In the inverted method you stand the AeroPress upside down on its plunger, add the coffee and water, screw on the filter cap, then flip the whole thing onto your mug and press. Jessica Easto, who gives an inverted recipe in Craft Coffee based on her co-author Andreas Willhoff’s method, writes that the two methods essentially work the same way. Inverting just stops water dripping through the cap before you’ve finished pouring, which makes measuring easier. The cost is the flip itself, with a chamber full of hot coffee.

AeroPress now says no. Its 2024 instructions and its product page both say it “strongly discourage[s]” the inverted method, because the brewer is less stable upside down and prone to mishaps that can burn you with hot liquid.

You can stop the drips without flipping:

Water temperature

AeroPress suggests 175°F (80°C) for dark roasts and 185°F (85°C) for medium and light roasts, and calls these starting points, not rules. Easto writes that medium to dark roasts may need to go as low as 175°F. Our Brew Guide follows AeroPress for dark and medium roasts but starts light roasts much hotter:

RoastAeroPress’s starting pointOur Brew Guide
Dark175°F (80°C)176°F (80°C)
Medium185°F (85°C)185°F (85°C)
Light185°F (85°C)205°F (96°C)

The 205°F for light roasts is our Brew Guide’s own starting point, the top of its AeroPress range, not AeroPress’s advice. Try either, and change one thing at a time.

One reason a lower kettle temperature makes sense here: the AeroPress holds its heat. In The Physics of Filter Coffee, Jonathan Gagné, an astrophysicist who studies brewing, explains that an AeroPress insulates so well it brews at almost exactly your kettle’s temperature, especially with the plunger on. A V60’s slurry, by contrast, loses about 9°F (5°C) as soon as the water lands. In his experience, only the most insulating brewers, such as the AeroPress, can brew so hot that the coffee turns acrid or bitter, above 205°F (96°C). So if a light roast tastes harsh at 205°F, try 185°F on the next brew. Our brewing temperature guide covers the other brewers.

Grind: the first thing to change

With a grinder, AeroPress says medium-fine; for pre-ground coffee, medium, with the longer 60-second wait. The Brew Guide’s band for the AeroPress is about 350 to 500 µm, like fine sand, and it moves toward the finer half for light roasts and the coarser half for dark ones. Easto’s Classic AeroPress Method grinds finer still (“fine,” 6 on a Baratza Virtuoso) for a smaller, stronger cup. A particle size only becomes a setting on a particular grinder, so treat any of these as a starting point.

Our Grind Guide gives the common signs for the AeroPress. Too fine and pressing gets hard, and the cup can taste bitter. Too coarse and the water runs through before you press, and the cup can taste weak or sour. For a sour cup, grind one step finer; for a bitter one, one step coarser. Change the grind on its own, so you know what made the difference. Our grind size guide covers every brewer.

Bigger cups and stronger shots

AeroPress says the Original brews one 10 oz serving per press, or up to three shots of what it calls “espresso style” coffee for lattes and cappuccinos. It calls this espresso style, not espresso. Our guide to what espresso is explains the difference.

For a mug bigger than the chamber holds, the Brew Guide presses about 230 g of water through the coffee and has you add the rest to the mug as hot water; past about 22 g of coffee, it suggests two presses. Competition recipes range much more widely; our World AeroPress Championship recipes collects some of them.

Paper or metal filter

Black coffee with a layer of fine bubbles on top, in a white cup

AeroPress sells both, and its own filter guide explains the difference. Paper absorbs oils and holds back fine particles, for a clear-flavored, light-bodied cup with no grit. Its stainless steel filter, laser-cut to 178 microns, lets oils and very small particles through, which gives a heavier texture but, AeroPress says, tends to mask delicate flavors. The metal filter is reusable.

Paper also holds back cafestol and kahweol, the compounds in coffee oils behind unfiltered coffee’s effect on LDL cholesterol, according to a review by Rob Urgert and Martijn Katan; boiled and plunger coffee, which skip paper, raise it. If you drink several cups a day through a metal filter and are watching your cholesterol, ask your clinician whether paper is worth sticking with.

My recommendation: start with paper. Once you know what you like, try a metal filter and see if you prefer the added body. Our AeroPress metal filter guide compares three of them.

Why an AeroPress earns its place

It’s fast and easy to clean: AeroPress says a rinse is enough day to day, because the plunger wipes the chamber as it goes down. It’s also built to travel. It’s plastic, it’s light, it fits in a backpack. I’ve brewed AeroPress coffee in hotel rooms, at campsites, and at the office. All you need is hot water and ground coffee.

If you brew for several people at once, or want a heavier cup, a French press may suit you better; our AeroPress vs French press comparison weighs the two, and our French press guide covers that brewer.

If you’re buying one, the method above is written for the AeroPress Original (Amazon search).

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