COFFEE FILTERS ARE FOR MORE THAN BEANS

I’d never really thought about coffee filters as anything other than, well, handy little things to filter coffee. Whether they’re cones or the basket style, they’re just cheap brown papers that sit above the coffee machine. Or, at least, they were.

One day we ran out of paper towels, so I grabbed the nearest thing I could to wipe up a juice spill—a few coffee filters. To my surprise, they were actually more effective than paper towels. It made me wonder what else they could do.

Over the next few weeks I started experimenting with the filters. The local dollar store sells them in the hundreds for just a few bucks, so I had plenty to play with. And play with them I did.

I’m a fan of microwaving my bacon, but the fat and grease that get released is substantial. A coffee filter under the bacon soaks up all of that fat, leaving crispy bacon and a lot less mess to deal with. A filter over food keeps it from splashing in the microwave.

And the cones make great snack holders for our two little girls. Whether it’s popcorn, pretzels or Goldfish crackers, they’re just the right size for a small serving, with no clean-up afterward.

Coffee filters make great window-cleaning rags and shoe polish applicators. And as they’re lint free, they produce a better result than an average cloth.

When we repot a plant, we line the pot with a coffee filter. This allows the water to seep through without losing any soil or making a mess, and filters won’t disintegrate like a paper towel would.

My wife often uses coffee filters to remove nail polish when there are no cotton balls in the house. Once again, they’re actually more durable than cotton or tissue. As an artist, I’ve used absorbent coffee filters to blot ink.

And the filters also make great straining devices. We’ve used filters to strain pieces of broken cork out of wine, pulp out of orange juice, and food particles out of oil.

All in all, a great return from something that costs so little.