Medium-fine to fine — depending entirely on your recipe. The official recommendation is medium-fine, like table salt. For espresso-like shots: grind finer. For a mild filter brew: grind coarser. The AeroPress is highly flexible because brew time and pressure are manually controlled.

What grind size do I need for AeroPress?

Medium-fine to fine — depending entirely on your recipe. The official recommendation is medium-fine, like table salt. For espresso-like shots: grind finer. For a mild filter brew: grind coarser. The AeroPress is highly flexible because brew time and pressure are manually controlled.

Why this is the case

The AeroPress is a unique outlier among coffee brewers: it combines elements of immersion (the coffee steeps in the water) and pressure extraction (the plunger forces the water through the filter). This combination makes it more flexible regarding grind size than any other brewing method.

The official AeroPress recommendation is a medium-fine grind — roughly the consistency of table salt. With a brew time of 1–2 minutes, this produces a very clean, balanced cup of coffee. For most beginners, this is the perfect starting point.

However, the spectrum is much wider. You can achieve espresso-like results with a fine grind and a very short brew time (30–60 seconds). The high manual pressure you apply when plunging compensates for the lack of 9 bars found in an espresso machine. The result isn’t a true espresso, but rather a highly concentrated, strong coffee that works perfectly as a base for milk drinks.

For milder, tea-like brews, you can grind coarser (filter grind size) and extend the steep time to 3–4 minutes. This results in something closer to a French press, but without any of the sediment, since the paper filter holds back all the fine particles.

The inverted method (brewing with the AeroPress standing upside down) offers even more control. The coffee extracts via true immersion until you flip it over and plunge. In this setup, you can vary the grind size even more drastically, as the brew time is completely independent of the water flow rate.

AeroPress World Championships show just how broad the spectrum is: winning recipes range from very fine (espresso-like) to medium-coarse with long steep times. There is no single “correct” recipe. This makes the AeroPress the ultimate experimental brewer — and the grind size is its most important dial.

In practice at Green Wall Coffee

At our café on Sophienstraße 27, we occasionally use the AeroPress for single cups, especially when guests want to try a very specific single origin bean. We usually start with a medium-fine grind and adjust based on how the bean behaves. I often recommend the AeroPress to guests as an entry-level brewer: it’s affordable, incredibly travel-friendly, and very forgiving of mistakes. If you don’t own a grinder yet, you can buy beans from us and we will grind them exactly for your preferred AeroPress style.

Related questions

• How does the AeroPress work?
• What grind size do I need for espresso?
• What grind size do I need for filter coffee?

For more depth on the subject, check out our V60 pour-over guide. Or visit us at Sophienstraße 27 — Mon–Fri 8am–5pm, Sat 10am–5pm.