Pour over guy here but I enjoy just a touch of oils in my extractions so I’ve settled on coffee sock use. Never liked the French Press side of things, but I’ve just learned about FP with paper filters, the Espro paper filter and more interestingly the Caffi bag filter. I’d like to experiment with this. The Caffi filter especially is appealing as the cleanup looks super easy (big change compared to my coffee sock ritual) and I like the idea of cleaning up the murky FP taste with some decent filtering. I’m considering trying an Espro device so I would have the option to try their paper filter too, but that’s less interesting since you still have to clean grounds out of your FP bucket. The Espro devices are pricey though. I’m curious if anyone thinks the finer mesh buckets on the Espro would contribute any cleanup benefit at all if using a paper filter like the Caffi bag? I would assume the much finer filter mechanism of the paper would just trump any plunger filter mechanism. Ok, my next question is what’s going on with insulated FP brewers? Stanley, Yeti, even Espro (they even make a travel mug FP that you just leave the grounds in!!) and many others make these. I don’t mean to be rude, but are FP drinkers just barbarians that think there is no such thing as over-extraction? How in the world can you just leave coffee grounds sitting in contact with your brew for hours as these insulated FP brewers claim? Don’t you need to decant as soon as the brew is complete?
I also am a mainly pour over person but incorporate other methods (French Press, AeroPress, Syphon, etc.) depending on how I’m feeling and the beans I’m brewing. Check out Hoffman’s French Press video. I used to not enjoy most FP because I would either way over extract or make it too weak. His approach has minimal agitation, maximizes immersion by letting it sit as long as possible after removing the bitter floating grounds, and reduces the grinds in the final brew by not plunging all the way and decanting slowly. As an addition, you could just decant through one of your pour over filters if you still don’t enjoy the mouth feel.