Coffee Filters – How to Separate Those Pesky Things

Now that New Year’s Eve is behind us, we’ll probably need a cup of coffee or two this morning to revive us from all of the late night celebration, and help us get on with the new year. If you overdid it a bit, you might just be coasting into the morning without any sleep. In any event, a quick peek at Self Reliance Works is a good way to get started, so grab that cup of coffee and have a good read.

This morning’s post is about three basic approaches to separating coffee filters – those pesky, thinner than paper elements that often want to double up and triple up on you, just when you’re looking to get your first cup. Of course, having two or three filters for your drip coffee maker isn’t a frugal use of resources, and it can easily lead to an overflow condition as the multiple filters will inhibit water flow from the filter holder into the carafe.

It can be a bit of a challenge to separate those stubborn filters, but any three of the approaches outlined below can lead to success.  I’ll leave it to you to pick the one you feel most comfortable with. And, by the way, Happy New Year.

The first approach is the tried-and-true method of struggling with the coffee filters, trying to find an edge with your fingers so you can peel off one filter element from the others. This approach is frustrating and a bit time consuming, but it does work.  And, it’s the reason I now suggest the following alternative approaches.

Use a tiny rubber footed pair of tweezers.  These devices were invented by a person who was evidently fed up using the approach described above.  The rubber footed tweezers work rather well.  They allow you to pinch one filter element and let it slide cleanly away from the others. All you have to do is apply light pressure on the inside bottom of the stack of filters, and squeeze. Unless you are especially aggressive with the tweezers, you’ll never grab two or three at a time – only a single filter, just like you intended.  The only drawback that I see with this approach is that it involves another tool, and you have to keep track of that little item along with the coffee filters.  If you make a practice of leaving the tweezers in the coffee filters, then the chance of losing track of this item will be diminished, and you’ll be happy with this rather simple approach to separating those pesky coffee filters.

The approach that works well for me is to simply blow on the edge of the coffee filters.  Doing so separates the filters quickly and easily.  Once the filters are separated from one another, you can easily obtain a single to filter by segregating it from the others as you breath separates them.  This approach requires no tools, no previous training, and is very effective indeed.

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Clair Schwan enjoys his morning cups of coffee as he checks his Email, begins his writing projects, and otherwise settles in for another fine day at the office. Part of his fine day begins with taming the savage coffee filters that insist on clinging to one another. He’s never been a Trekkie, nevertheless, he detests cling-ons of all sorts.