Just wanted to check in with y’all, I hit the 1 year anniversary with my Fellow Aiden and it’s been great!
I finished grad school at the end of last year and started a job with a bit of a commute. I no longer had time for my morning V60 so I splurged on an Aiden to streamline the process. After settling in on a recipe and learning to compensate for the higher extraction, the Aiden consistently makes cups that are 90% as good as my best pour-over. While my best pour-over cup beats the best Aiden cup, I’ll take the connivence and consistency of 90% every weekday morning.
While I use this function only once every couple of weeks (my wife’s not a coffee drinker so I only go batch when my brother in law comes over), the Batch Brew functionality also tastes great. You just need to remember to stir the pot before pouring because the carafe design doesn’t enable mixing as the coffee brews.
Recipe: I’ve bounced around with variations on the Hoffmann 1-Cup and Lance Bloom + 1 Pour but my daily driver recipe is this one created by the Coffee Chronicler: https://brew.link/p/PGbM.
Dose: 18.9g coffee, 320ml water
Coffee: I only brew light roasts (the first half of the year I had a Sey subscription and the second half I’ve done the Africa subscription from Tandem Coffee roasters. It rocks.)
Water: I use 1/2 strength TWW for my water.
Grinder: 1Zpresso K-Ultra. I usually grind between 7.5-8.5, with my zero set at the point in which the handle no longer moves.
Overall I just love the machine, it speeds up my morning routine. I grind the beans, press a button three times, and then can go shower and brush my teeth while it brews.
I’ve seen a lot of hate for the machine on the sub in terms of mechanical issues/quality control. I’m not discounting their experiences at all, there may indeed be some QC issues, but I’ve luckily had no problems. People tend to only review and post if they have issues (I’m guilty of that) so I thought I’d just give a review of something positive for once.
Also have one for a little over a year. Around 250 brews, mostly batch, no issues, I like it a lot.
Yeah, it's a really good machine. I can choose the appropriate recipe to adjust for desired extraction based on the beans, which makes it about as versatile as pourovers and far more consistent. The batch brew coffee is extremely good and probably not appreciated enough.
I really wish they would move away from the circular dial and round screen as the only interface (outside of the app) on all their products, but other than that, I'm pretty happy with the Aiden.
Completely agree about the circular dial and screen, it drives me crazy how annoying it it to go back in a menu. I also wish they would show the amount of grounds needed before water volume, it doesn’t make sense to me to have water volume first. But like you said, just minor annoyances
Yeah coffee weight is such an easy fix! Just show the corresponding coffee weight along with the water volume, instead of having to click into the volume to see the weight.
Nice, yeah agree with your experience - same for me.
I left the Fellow Reddit cos folk were posting negatively with a 12 minute old account and I couldn’t be bothered anymore.
Without sounding too sheepy, I wish people were more appreciative for the products Fellow have made, and how they’ve impacted our hobby.
As one of the engineers responsible for the big swings we take; I just wanted to say thank you.
That’s cool you’re here man. Appreciate you!
I’m sure you get asked this a lot, but is there any chance of a V2 in the works? 😊
I can never talk about roadmap. I enjoy my job too much. :)
Haha totally understand. Keep up the great work!
Is there any chance to have an option to show the bean dosage before selecting the water volume? It would make a huge difference to me!
u/HodorsCousin we totally hear you on this feedback - our team is always working to make Aiden's UI better and better! I can't say with full certainty that this will be built into a future update, but I do know we are exploring to see if we can make this happen.
From the coffee team over here at Fellow, I want to echo Nick's thank you. Posts like this mean a ton to our team. We appreciate you taking the time to write it all out and post :)
Have had mine and enjoyed for the past year - agree on positive reviews not getting posted enough. That said, considering going back to another machine because of all the plastic in the machine itself. Not sure if anyone else shares that concern but hopeful that Fellow will consider a machine in the future with glass - that would be amazing.
I like the machine but not its reliability. I’m on my second one with only one cup a day, four days a week, and water prepared with TWW.
Really debating getting one or waiting for a gen 2. Could scoop a local deal for a new in box one somewhere in the 200-250 range but I don't need a batch brewer just yet and that's the only reason I'd want it beyond it looking cool lol.
Don’t buy from a local deal unless you can get a proof of purchase. The machine is extremely fragile, it breaks down easily, and fellow warranty isn’t transferable
That's also a big reason I've held off. Definitely leaning towards waiting for a gen 2 with the kinks worked out because it does seem genuinely cool
I use that brew profile too for single and mainly Nicks rec for batch. Also nearly 1 year in as got mine last xmas. Use it Monday to Friday morning to fill my fellow move cup for work. I get the gustatory subscription so mainly light roasts too
I too really love my Aiden. I was an early adopter, buying pretty early on. We brew about 210 grams of coffee a week, sometimes close to 250. I use a GPT to create recipes for me including recommending grind size settings on my Ode Gen 2 then it generates a QR code which I scan and it automatically saves as a recipe in my app. This automatically gets sent to the machine. I have had very few problems with it and nothing has ever broken or warranted a repair or replacement. I only do 450mL at a time so i just keep the single basket inside. I don’t like how it keeps dripping after I pull out the carafe but I learned this is a “design” so now I unseat the basket which sort of helps. I don’t like the knob and display because going “back” is cumbersome. But other than that I really like it. It’s much better than the Oxo I used for years.
I just got mine yesterday for Christmas! We should use this thread to share brew profiles!