15 Household Uses For Coffee Filters

Coffee filters can be used for more than filtering coffee. You will be amazed at the many other uses for coffee filters. These creative ideas are both money and time savers, and who doesn’t like saving money? Once you see the wide array of ideas you are sure to come up with a bunch more. Here are a few ideas for putting your coffee filters to use:

Coffee filters can be used as disposable bowls for snacks such as popcorn, chips or crackers, allowing you to save time.
You can use these filters if you run out of paper towels to clean windows, and they do an excellent job.

Heat up leftovers in the microwave and cover them with a filter. This will help keep your microwave clean.
Use coffee filters to absorb grease from greasy foods, they do the job perfectly.

Catch ice cream drips by using a coffee filter as an ice cream cone holder, it will absorb the mess.
Use like a Kleenex when you don’t have a tissue, it will get the job done when you are in a pinch.

Keep a few coffee filters in the trunk of your car, and you will be able to check the fluids with ease and avoid the mess.
Use them to clean your glasses, they actually work the best and won’t leave any lint on the lenses.

Make an air freshener by adding some baking soda and using a twist tie to secure the contents. Then put them in all the places you need to freshen up.

Use as small bowls to divide ingredients to ease the mess in the kitchen and making cleaning a breeze.
Use coffee filters to polish your shoes, this will keep them nice and shiny.

Us e them when you are packing breakable dishes, this will help protect them better than newspaper.
Use coffee filters as coffee cup covers when you are re-heating coffee to avoid any spilling or splashing. This will help keep your microwave looking its best.

You can use them to protect your counter when you are cutting vegetables, they will help make sure you are slicing the vegetables and not your counter.

Coffee filters can be used to help diffuse the brightness of the flash on your camera. This will help ensure that you get the best picture possible.

To Sum It Up

Coffee filters can be used for many things that you may never have thought of, so be sure to take advantage of all these extra household ideas, and you will indeed save time and money.

How a Coffee Maker Works

We all wake up in the morning and depend on our old friend to start our day - the coffee maker. The only effort we have to put in when wanting to enjoy a mug of coffee is to add a scoop of coffee, add the required amount of water and turn the machine on. We stand back and wait for our coffee to be ready before we can enjoy it. Think about it, have you ever stood there and tried to understand how the water gets from the compartment to the top of the machine? Have you ever wondered what that gurgling sound was? Here is what goes on inside.

If you open the top of the coffee machine, you will find the bucket that holds the water when you pour it in before the cycle starts. If you look inside, you will find a hole in the bucket's bottom, and this will become clear to you very soon. You also see a tube, and the purpose of this tube is to carry the water to the area where it drips out. The drip area is the part you see from the top that contains all the tiny holes. This is where the water arrives from the tube and then simply drips through the tiny holes.

If you turn the bucket upside down, you will see another tube and this is called the hot-water tube. This tube (tube2) connects to the black tube (tube1) that you see when looking at it from the top. Remember the hole in the bottom of the bucket mentioned earlier? Well, this is where tube2 picks up the cold water - from that hole. Also visible inside are the power cord and the on and off switch of the machine.  

Next is the heating element. This little part is what makes the water hot. The heating element is just a simple coiled wire. This is similar to filament in your standard light bulb or the element in your every morning toaster. The coil in the coffee maker is held firmly in plaster, and this makes it rugged. This element has two jobs.

* The heating element (or the coil) boils the water when it is put in the coffee maker.
* The element makes sure the coffee stays warm once the cycle is complete.

The heating element inside the coffee machine is pressed firmly against the warming plate. A heat conducting grease ensures that heat is transferred competently to the warming plate. The conducting grease is messy and is extremely difficult to get off yours hands. This grease can be found in power supplies, amplifiers - basically anything that squanders heat. 

There is a part that's not visible in a coffee maker and this is the one-way valve. This valve can either be in that hole that was mentioned earlier or it could be in the heating pipe, and this pipe is aluminum. If a coffee maker had no one-way valve, the hot water would just flow back into the bucket after trying to make its way up the tube. 

The History of Coffee Makers

Coffee has been used as a drink for well over 2000 years.  The first methods of brewing coffee were pretty crude but they have advanced greatly over the centuries.  People used to just chew the cherry that came off the coffee tree to get a stimulant effect.  Inside the cherry was the coffee bean.  Over time with experimentation, people started to roast and then grind the beans for better flavor. 

As early as the the late 1700s, coffee makers began showing up.  This made it easy for people to brew coffee and not worry about getting grounds in their cup.  This was expensive and not many people had them.  The basic design is similar to coffee pots of today.  There was a pot on the bottom with a place to put your ground coffee on the top.  This was connected to a chamber on top where you poured in your boiling water. 

People tried many different types of coffee maker throughout the years since then.  There have been percolators, vacuum coffee makers, and drip coffee makers.  Percolators use a pot over a heat source that forces the water into an upper chamber where the coffee grounds are.  The water drips through the coffee and back into the lower pot.  You know it is ready when it stops making percolating noises which are easy to hear.  Then you remove it from heat before it boils.  Vacuum coffee makers use what looks like two pots, one upside down on the other.  As it is heated, the pressure forces hot water up into the top chamber where it infuses with the ground coffee.  When you remove it from heat, the pressure is reversed and the coffee goes back to the lower pot ready to drink.  Drip coffee makers are the kind we are all used to.  Whether automatic or manual they work by dumping hot water over coffee grounds that sit in a filter.  It strains through into a pot and is ready to drink.

With the advent of electricity, coffee makers became very popular and a little cheaper.  In the early 1900s coffee makers really started to boom and by the 1970s almost everyone had a coffee maker in their home.  These were usually of the automatic drip variety as they were the easiest to use.  Todays coffee makers have many features.  They have timers that allow you to specify when you want your coffee maker to turn on, have built in grinders, storage areas, and much more.  You can buy home espresso and cappuccino machines also.  Coffee makers today range from the single cup variety to commercial units that make gallons at a time so no matter what your need, you can usually find it.

As more and more people start to enjoy different kinds of coffee, coffee makers become easier to use and offer more features.  Many combine espresso, cappuccino, and coffee all in one machine but it is rather bulky still.  Look for these to shrink in the near future.

Electric Coffee Makers

There are many types of coffee maker available on the market today.  When most people think of a coffee maker, they think of an electric coffee maker.  This means the coffee maker is plugged into an outlet and is powered with electricity.  This is the most common way to power your coffee maker because of its simplicity.  You just plug it in, add water and coffee, and push start.  This is much easier than the older vacuum and stove top coffee makers from years past.

It can be hard to imagine not using an electric coffee maker.  Many of us have grown up with them not knowing how hard it was to make coffee long ago.  It used to take a lot of time to stand there by the stove and watch your coffee brew and make sure everything was going right.  Lucky for us, we just have to push start and wait.  The electricity heats the heating element which is in the water container.  The water is heated to a specified temperature and then by gravity or a pump pushes the water over the ground coffee.  The result is a nice, easy cup of coffee.  This has a great advantage over stove top coffee makers as you don't have to worry about your coffee being too cold or so hot it takes the skin off of your tongue.  Electric coffee makers don't use a ton of electricity so you won't even notice a change in your utility bills.

Electric coffee makers come in many different varieties.  There is everything from a single cup coffee maker to a restaurant grade coffee maker that produces gallons at a time.  By using electricity to heat the water, you are guaranteed the same temperature coffee every single time.  Electric coffee makers also allow you to set a time for coffee to be brewed.  This is handy for those of us on a tight schedule and don't want to waste time messing with the coffee maker in the morning.  Simply set it up the night before and it will start your coffee before you even wake up. 

Expensive models come with all sorts of special features.  There are some that only brew one cup at a time but use special pods of high quality coffee and might even top them off with foam.  Other models can have built in grinders, a storage area for extra coffee and water, or be combination machines that make espresso and cappuccino as well as normal coffee.  You have so many options available, you really need to choose the coffee maker that is right for you.  If you have a lot of coffee drinkers in your home, you might pick a large one.  If you live alone, a single cup maker might be perfect.
    
You can find electric coffee makers pretty much everywhere.  Every store that carries a coffee maker will have 99% electric coffee makers.  Occasionally they will have some that don't use electricity, but these are either for professional coffee makers or campers.
 

   

Manual Drip Coffee Makers

Many people don't really know the difference between automatic and manual drip coffee makers.  It's really very simple.  An automatic drip coffee maker pours the hot water over the ground coffee for you while a manual drip coffee maker requires that you do it yourself. 

Manual drip coffee makers typically come in single cup to twelve cup varieties and basically give you similar results as an automatic drip coffee maker.  Many people feel they get a better tasting cup of coffee when they have the ability to pour the water themselves and choose from a variety of filters and filter holders.  A good thing about manual drip coffee makers is that they don't use electricity and can be used wherever you happen to go.  This makes them a great choice for camping.  You can boil water over a fire or portable stove for your coffee.

The main components of manual drip coffee makers are the pot or cup, a filter, and a filter holder.  There are more complicated varieties available but for most of them, this is all you will need.  First you set your pot or cup on a counter, set the filter holder on top, add a filter and fill it with ground coffee. You boil water on a stove and pour it into the filter.  It's pretty easy but if you don't know what you are doing or have the proper pot to boil water in,  there is a potential to get scalded.  Using a teapot or special pot that has a place for pouring is the best way to go as a saucepan isn't designed for pouring water out.

Every manual drip coffee maker has a special filter and filter holder.  The filters can be permanent metal ones or your basic disposable paper ones.  Many people like the metal filters because they can be used many times and provide the same water flow each time.  Paper filters, though cheaper, can end up costing more in the long run and each brand might let water flow a little differently.  The filter holders come in hundreds of varieties but you usually get one with your manual drip coffee maker.  If you buy a different one, you run the risk of overflow.  Filter holders can be porcelain, plastic, metal, or glass and come in many different sizes.

     
The manual drip coffee maker pot or cup is an important thing to consider.  Do you want to make a single cup or ten cups?  A single cup version will take up almost no counter space and is a great choice for people who live alone or in a very small place.  The ten to twelve cup versions are great for homes that drink a lot of coffee or for big camping trips.  They aren't as big as an electric coffee maker and can be taken apart for easy cleaning and carrying.

The most important part of any coffee maker is the type of coffee you use.  Expensive coffee that is freshly ground will taste much better than coffee from a discount store.  Try different types of coffee and decide what kind you like the best.

Single Cup Coffee Makers

People love coffee and buy tons of coffee makers each year.  The problem with your average coffee maker is that it is usually designed to make ten to twelve cups of coffee per pot.  This is fine for the office or maybe a diner but a casual coffee drinker doesn't need all that.  With an average coffee maker, if you only drink one or two cups a day, you are wasting between eight and ten cups.  That's a lot of coffee!  Another thing is if you buy a big can of coffee, it will most likely get stale after a while.  These are all good reasons you might want a single cup coffee maker.

Single cup coffee makers are perfect for single people and those that just want a better cup of coffee than a normal coffee pot will allow.  A single cup coffee maker gives you a higher quality cup of coffee because it was designed for just that.  One premium cup of coffee.  Other coffee makers will brew more at a time but they are designed for speed not quality.

Single cup coffee makers are a bit more expensive than multi-cup coffee makers.  This is because normally the only coffee you can use in them is sold in "pod" form. This is basically a self contained package that has coffee inside little flat oval shaped filters.  If you browse your retail aisles, you should be able to tell easily what sells and what doesn't.  This is good to keep in mind so you don't buy a new coffee maker only to have it obsolete and useless in just a few months.  There are a few name brands such as Senseo and Mr. Coffee that you can't go wrong with but you should definitely shop around and read some reviews and comparisons before making your purchase.

Each single cup coffee maker tends to be unique.  Some will let you change the strength you desire or if you want four or eight ounces of coffee.  Some will put foam or froth on top of each cup.  There are many different options available to you. 

There are many places you can purchase a single cup coffee maker.  The most obvious choice is a retail store that has many different types lined up on a shelf.  This lets you see what they look like, what they do, and what they offer.  Appearance is important because if your entire kitchen has stainless steel appliances, a black plastic pot might not fit the theme of the kitchen.  Price is always a factor because if something will do the exact same thing for $50.00 less, you might as well give it a shot and upgrade if necessary.

The only drawback to single cup coffee makers is that they only make one cup at a time.  If you have many guests you will have to run back and forth, replace coffee pods, and make individual cups.  The guests might appreciate the higher quality, so that is a choice you will have to make.