About a month ago, I ran out of Aeropress filters.  From the link, the traditional filters were made of paper but before I ran out, I decided that I would go back to a metal filter.  My first metal filter was from the Kickstarter S-filter campaign and that campaign also gave me the Aeropress that I’m still using today.  Although the metal S-filter was nice in minimizing trash, I didn’t like how thick it was.

After some research into the thickness of a metal filter, I had bought two filter replacements that each offered a different way of extracting espresso.

Clearly from the picture, the top is the Able Fine Disk filter and the bottom is the Fellow Prismo.  I didn’t do perform too much of a detailed research into both products.  I knew I wanted a thin metal filter that allowed the perforated bottom to screw on tightly.  The original S-filter was too thick of a filter makes so I found that it was harder to unscrew since I had to screw it on tight to create a good seal.

From a few YouTube videos, the Prismo seemed like an interesting way to make shots as well.  One of the major issues with the normal Aeropress of making coffee was that the coffee filtering into the cup occurred almost immediately after pouring hot water.  An alternative way (which is how I make my coffee) was to invert the Aeropress with the plunger as the “bottom” and mix the hot water with the grinds. Then place the filter/perforated bottom on the top. Then flip the Aeropress into a cup and push down on the plunger to filter the grinds.  The Prismo was designed such that the inversion was unnecessary.  This allowed more flexibility in how much or how little water can be used so as to mimic a true espresso shot more closely.  Keep in mind, the Prismo should be considered an replacement for the perforated bottom/filter assembly.

Overall, I think the Able Fine Disk filter is great.  I did notice a slight difference in taste going from paper to metal on the same coffee beans.  But that’s to be expected since the paper filter tends to trap some of the extracted coffee oils. The Prismo however was somewhat of a disappointment and surprisingly a little more difficult to clean up then traditional metal or paper filters.  The grinds sit slightly offset from the cylinder because of the way the Prismo assembly is attached to the Aeropress.  Taking the filter off in order to save the grinds for composting is a little more work than a regular filter.