MODERN · PULSAR · 7 MIN READ
NextLevel Pulsar: The Bypass-Free Brewer From an Italian Engineer
An aerospace engineer asks: what if water actually had to go through the coffee, every time, no shortcuts?
The NextLevel Pulsar launched in late 2022 from an Italian mechanical engineer turned coffee obsessive, Federico Rivetti.[1] The brewer is a small flat puck — a perforated metal disc — that you place on top of the coffee bed inside a paper-lined Kalita Wave (or any flat-bottom dripper). Water hits the disc, distributes through tiny precision holes, and falls onto the bed evenly.
The problem it solves: bypass
In a conventional pour-over, water always takes the easiest path. Some flows down the paper wall, some carves channels through the bed, and only a fraction of it actually contacts every coffee particle. This is called bypass — and modern extraction nerds estimate it accounts for 10–30% of the water in a typical V60 pour.[2] Bypass means uneven extraction, which means a muddied flavor profile.
The Pulsar disc forces water to pause briefly on top of the bed and percolate through it. The hole pattern is engineered so that flow rate stays roughly constant regardless of grind, water temperature, or pour technique. Lance Hedrick and James Hoffmann both posted "this thing is cheating" reviews in 2023 — the cups were measurably sweeter and more extracted than the same coffee through a normal V60.[3]
How to use it
- Dripper: Kalita Wave 155 or 185, or Orea V4.
- Coffee: 18 g, ground for filter — slightly finer than usual.
- Water: 300 g, 95 °C.
- 0:00 — Bloom 40 g, swirl, wait 40 s. (No disc yet.)
- 0:40 — Place the Pulsar disc on the bed.
- 0:40–1:20 — Pour directly onto the disc up to 300 g. Don't worry about technique.
- Drawdown completes around 3:00.
Result: a noticeably sweeter, more even cup, even when your pour is sloppy. The disc removes about half of the variables a barista normally tries to control.
Why it matters
For decades, the way to get better filter coffee was: better grinder, better technique, better kettle. The Pulsar is the first widely available product whose pitch is: your technique barely matters. The hardware does the work.
A unique fact
Rivetti has stated in interviews that the disc's hole sizes (around 0.4 mm) were derived from CFD simulations of fluid distribution under low-pressure laminar flow — the same numerical methods used to design fuel injector plates in aerospace.[4]Coffee, finally, has its first piece of brewing hardware designed by a fluid dynamicist.
References
- NextLevel Coffee. "The Pulsar." nextlevelcoffeeofficial.com
- Rao, Scott. "Bypass and Extraction." Scott Rao's Blog. scottrao.com
- Hedrick, Lance. "Pulsar Review." YouTube, 2023. YouTube
- Coffee Ad Astra. "Interview with the Pulsar inventor," 2023. coffeeadastra.com