If you don’t know what kind of coffee you drink every morning — whether you make it at home or get it from your local Dunkin or Starbucks — chances are it’s drip coffee from an automatic drip coffee machine. What a lot of coffee drinkers don’t know is that manual drip coffee makers offer better control over the brewing process, and while they take a bit more time and effort to use, they yield a far better cup of coffee.
In this guide, I’m going to be explaining the difference between automatic and manual drip coffee makers, including the different kinds. I’ll also help you decide which is right for you.
What Is an Automatic Drip Coffee Maker?
Think of a standard coffee machine that you’d see in someone’s home, and you’re probably picturing an automatic drip coffee maker. These machines are electric and have a water reservoir, a hidden filter basket, and a shower head that delivers water from the reservoir to the top of the filter basket where your grounds sit.
They also use an electric heating element to heat water. That element is also commonly used to heat the heating plate beneath your carafe to keep your brewed coffee hot.
As the name suggests, an “automatic” drip coffee maker brews your coffee with minimal input from you. You fill the water reservoir, put your filter and grounds in the basket, and hit “brew.” In many cases, you can even set up your brewer and then schedule it to brew automatically at a specific time without you even being present.
The appeal of these machines is that they are autonomous. They don’t require any time or effort from you during the brewing process. However, they don’t make the best coffee, as it often ends up being overly acidic, sour, or far too bitter to enjoy without milk and sugar.
Types of Automatic Drip Coffee Makers
There are hundreds of automatic coffee makers, but there are only a few “categories” that they fit into. These include:
- Single-serve drip machines (1-2 cups)
- Small-capacity drip machines (4-6 cups)
- Large-capacity drip machines (6-12 cups)
- Luxury drip coffee machines
The last one isn’t an official category, but I think it should be. In this subset of coffee machines, you’ll find pretty expensive ones that give you total control over the brewing process. You can dial in things like water temperature, brew time, water flow, bloom time, and more.
Keurig coffee makers and other pod brewers are similar to drip machines, but since they use pods instead of filters, they’re often lumped into a different category altogether. However, the brewing process is the same: you dump some hot water over a bed of coffee grounds and let it soak through to get brewed coffee.
What Is a Manual Drip Coffee Maker?
The term “manual drip coffee maker” is a bit of a misnomer, and you’ll more often see manual “drippers” referred to as pour over coffee makers.
Manual drippers are not automatic and don’t use electricity. Instead, they rely on you as the brewer to heat the water and pour it over the bed of coffee grounds. There are a bunch of different kinds of manual drip or pour over coffee makers, and you can use a few different methods to control the flow of water through the coffee, the extraction time, and more.
The basic principles of all manual drip coffee makers are the same, though: you heat up water, pour it onto the coffee, and regulate how long the water is in contact with the grounds to alter how your coffee tastes.
Types of Manual Drip Coffee Makers
There are many different kinds of manual coffee makers, and there are new ones coming out all the time. Below is a list of some of the “manual drip coffee makers” — i.e. not full immersion brewing, like French press — that you can buy.
- Pour over cone: The Hario V60 is, perhaps, the most popular. It highlights the fruitier and acidic notes of your coffee and uses a conical filter. There are many other brands that make a similar product.
- Chemex: This is kind of a mix between immersion and pour over coffee since the filter is so thick and has a slow flow rate. However, it really qualifies as a pour over/manual drip maker. This produces a very clean, bright cup of coffee using a thick, conical filter. There are other brands that make a similar product.
- Kalita Wave: This device is similar to a Chemex, but it uses a thinner, wavy filter that lets more of the oils and flavor through. The flat bottom on the filter also helps bring out the darker, earthier notes of your beans. However, the filter is partially conical, so the flavor is usually pretty well balanced.
- Clever Dripper: This is a relatively new piece of coffee equipment that mixes the pour over method with immersion brewing. It’s a conical pour over device, but there’s a stopper at the bottom that prevents water from passing all the way through the coffee. This gives you the ability to get a cup similar to what you’d see from a French press but much cleaner and brighter due to the filter.
Automatic vs Manual Drip Coffee Makers: What’s the Difference?
Although automatic and manual coffee makers use the same principles to make coffee, the experience of brewing and even the final outcome between the two couldn’t be much more unique. I’m going to break down all the major differences between these two types of drip coffee makers below.
Time and Effort Involved
One of the biggest reasons most people use automatic drip coffee makers is that they are super convenient. You dump your coffee grounds in, add water to the reservoir, and hit “brew.” A ton of automatic brewers even let you schedule the brew, which means you can have your coffee made for you before you even wake up.
Additionally, there’s no need to stand near your coffee maker while it does its thing. Automatic drippers are…well, automatic, so there’s no input needed from you once you turn on the machine.
On the other hand, manual drippers and pour over devices all require some level of involvement from you. You’ll be the one measuring and pouring the water, making sure the grounds are wet evenly, stirring if necessary, and timing the brew to make sure the extraction is done properly.
And unless you hire someone to make your pour over coffee every morning, there’s no scheduling to be done. If you don’t manually make the coffee, you don’t get coffee.
Learning Curve
Since automatic drip coffee machines are just that, automatic, it should stand to reason that the learning curve for how to use one of these devices is basically non-existent. Sure, you’ll have to figure out the ratio of coffee to water, but beyond that, everything is done for you once you hit brew.
Manual coffee drippers take some time to get used to, especially if you’re coming from an automatic machine that does the work for you and takes the guesswork out of the process. And since you can change every portion of the brewing ritual with a manual dripper, each method can be infinitely tuned to make the best coffee possible. The ability to tinker is great, but it can also be overwhelming.
Just as an example, using a simple pour over cone like the Hario V60 requires a bunch of steps, including:
- Remembering to wet your filter beforehand to remove the papery flavor it can impart to your coffee
- Starting a timer at the same time you keep an eye on how much water — usually in grams — you’re pouring over the coffee
- Wetting the grounds evenly for the bloom
- Timing the bloom
- Stirring the coffee grounds during the bloom at the right time
- Doing the swirl method
- Slowly adding water evenly across the bed of grounds, being careful not to pour directly down the sides
- Monitoring how quickly you’re pouring and optimizing pour speed based on the elapsed time
It’s a LOT. And every manual drip or pour over maker has a different set of guidelines you can follow and change based on what you want in the final product.
Now, this might seem totally overwhelming and not worth the effort, BUT…manual coffee makers also provide better…
Overall Taste and Coffee Quality
What automatic brewers provide in the way of convenience, manual coffee makers provide in terms of taste, quality, and brew customization. Generally speaking, manual coffee makers will make better coffee than automatic drip machines. This is not always the case, but if you get some experience with a manual method under your belt, you’ll consistently produce way better coffee than a…let’s say, sub-$150 automatic drip coffee maker.
Your coffee from a manual coffee maker will tend to have less of a nasty acidic taste, it likely won’t be nearly as bitter, it more often won’t require sugar because the method pulls natural sweetness from the grounds, and it will have way more flavor. You’ll actually be able to taste the coffee and not just the bitter and acidic compounds that drip coffee makers tend to pull out.
I do have to say here that I have nothing against drip machines. I personally don’t like most of them, but if you DO like the coffee you get from yours, then that’s fine! As long as you’re enjoying your coffee, I’m happy.
Additionally, there are automatic brewers that produce really high-quality coffee. These are quite expensive, though, often costing over $300. Some examples are the Breville Precision Brewer (my favorite) and the Technivorm Moccamaster.
Control Over the Brewing Process
I’ve already mentioned this a few times now, but the control you get over the brewing process couldn’t be much more different between an automatic and manual coffee maker. And I’ve mentioned it so many times because it’s important to have control so that you can change up your routine to make coffee you LOVE and not just coffee that keeps you awake.
With most automatic coffee makers, you lose control over the water temperature, the bloom time, often the presence of a bloom at all, the extraction time, and how the water is distributed over the coffee grounds. Manual brewers give you control over all of these things. Again, control is good, but it can also be overwhelming and demands more time and attention from you during the process.
Equipment Cost
Finally, automatic drip coffee makers are usually significantly more expensive than manual equipment. The average price for an electric drip coffee machine is around $80. Yes, you can get ones in the $30 to $40 range, but you can also get machines that are well over $300. And I generally don’t recommend the cheaper ones. You can get a breakdown of why in my guide to buying a drip coffee machine.
The prices of the manual coffee equipment averages around $30, and something like the Hario V60 pour over cone is close to $10.
The cost of getting into manual coffee is much lower in most cases. And if you want really good-quality, full-flavor coffee, you’re looking at about a tenth of the price, on average, to go manual.
Wrapping Up: Automatic vs Manual Drip Coffee Makers
After all that, I’ll still say that there’s no clear answer as to which is better. In my opinion, manual coffee makers are, by far, the way to go. They’re cheaper, more fun to use, give you total control over the brewing process, and generally lead to significantly better coffee.
However, if you’re into convenience over quality and don’t care much about controlling how your coffee tastes or you’re willing to invest $300+ on a good automatic drip coffee machine, then automatic might be the best option for you. Either way, I hope this guide has helped you decide.
FAQ
What’s better: manual or automatic coffee makers?
There’s no clear-cut answer to this question, unfortunately, as it’s based on personal preference. I personally prefer making coffee manually over using automatic drippers, but if you favor convenience over the quality of your coffee and control over the brewing process, then an automatic drip machine might suit you better.
What are manual drip coffee makers?
A manual drip coffee maker doesn’t really exist, but lots of people use the term to refer to pour over methods of brewing coffee. It involves a hands-on approach to brewing, which is why it’s called manual, and it gives you control over every aspect of brewing your coffee.
Manual drip brewers are different from automatic drip brewers because of the effort involved in the brewing process. They’re different from immersion brewing equipment — like the French press and Aeropress — because you don’t allow the water and coffee grounds to mix continuously as the extraction process continues. The only exception to this is the Clever Dripper mentioned above, as this is a mix of immersion and pour over.
What’s the best automatic drip coffee machine?
In my opinion, the Breville Precision Brewer is the top-of-the-line drip coffee maker. It lets you maintain total control over the entire brew process, is super durable, offers options for flat-bottom or conical filters to control the coffee flavor, and, most importantly, brews a delicious, full-flavor, well-balanced cup of coffee.
It combines the convenience of an automatic drip machine with the quality of coffee you’d expect from a manual brewer. However, it is quite expensive.