One more thing on the metal thing and I'll let it go
A curious experiment would be to do a double-blind triangle test using two kettles. One would be my 10+ year old bonavita, which has begun rusting inside on the base, and a fresh, new kettle (or a ceramic coated or glass kettle). Water from my filter comes out at a pH of 6, so over time it has corroded the cheap stainless used in the kettle.

It was a good and educational session based on his experience. He also mentions that the material of the dripper in terms of absorbing heat has no noticeable or substantial effect. What is your experience on this?

baldheadracing wrote:The compounds are the same, but access isn't.

This. IIRC Gagné writes in his book that grind size will affect how the compounds extract, just like other factors.. And that it's not possible to adjust the other parameters to get identical results.

The problem with metal mesh in my experience is that it's very difficult to clean without chemicals. Hot water just isn't enough - and eventually there's usually a small taint of rancid oils in the brews. A bit like brewing with cloth unless it's cleaned thoroughly after every session.

Often the material can have other effects in any case, for example a plastic V60 will have slightly different ribs than a ceramic one - resulting in slightly different flow due to how the paper sticks*. Personally I think that has a bigger impact than the heat absorption as long as the dripper is properly pre-heated.

*probably not the case with April brewers though, due to using fluted filters.

baldheadracing wrote:He's going to like his flat-bottomed dripper that he designed - but clarifies that this is in the context of only his coffee - which is refreshing to hear as so many are after the 'best' for everything, which he seems to be of the opinion is impossible.

He takes a shot at most conical hand grinders - but not all - by alluding to pretty much most burrs being stock burrs from a Chinese manufacturer that he doesn't name. (My guess is Foshan Great Full Hardwares Company Limited http://www.greatfullind.com/ ) His current favourite is the P100 with the 98mm SSP HU - again, within the context of his company's coffees and brewing methods.

Patrik isn't a huge fan of conical and cone brewers in general, he is in a process of making his own hand grinder in fact, he also disliked the EK43 (he found it to constantly loose calibration and wasn't happy with the cup) and later got the 804 as he preferred that, now he likes the p100. April is one my local roasters and I talked to them several times as I frequently go there to fetch some coffee. They are some of the most geeky coffee people and really like to test and experiment and they only use stuff they find suit their style and preferences.

He designed the brewer because none fit entirely to what he wanted to achieve, this is how detail oriented he is! Yes he does not believe in the notion of a thing is good for everything. He is very much into everything tailored to what he dos in roast and brew.

I tend to agree I mostly just use his brewer and recipe for his coffee. I rarely use it for everything else

I generally try avoiding metal around my filter coffee, kettle and grinder the exception. It always seem to negatively do something. I once tested a batch brewer and with its metal there was always precent off taste to it and the texture was not great, changing it to glass or plastic greatly improved things. All my brewer are since then glass, plastic or porcelain. There definitely some issues in regards to keep it clean especially metal mesh or the rough metal holes in many brewers, I had a few and all where sold or dumped, my expensive espro was sold as well it added a really unpleasant taste compared to the glass one

baldheadracing wrote:My experience is that if someone is selling something made in three different materials then they are not going to say something that would discourage sales .

April does claim taste and heat differences on their website: https://www.aprilcoffeeroasters.com/pages/equipment

I don't own an April brewer.

But I think in this case it's totally believable that the claim is true. The April brewer with a wave filter behaves drastically different regarding heat, because of the geometry, than (for example) a v60 with cone filter. Because the wave filter has no support from the side, it barely touches the brewer wall. It has only support from the bottom, but even there it's only partial (about 20% of the total surface of the bottom of the filter). So the slurry practically doesn't get into contact with the brewer itself until it leaves the coffee bed, and so when the heat properties of the brewer's material doesn't matter anymore.

So what he says is not in contrast with those experiments about brewer materials which was done on a v60.

I think the taste differences mostly come from the fact that the April brewer made by different materials are not the exact copies of each other (Rolf talks about this in the video, it's because of manufacturing constrains).