Metal Maintenance
Caring for Metal filtration equipment is easy and requires a similar procedure used in cleaning the groups of an espresso machine. You can simply soak a metal filter in a solution of coffee soak and very hot water in accordance with the instructions set out on the coffee soap container.
Responsible Use of Chemicals
Coffee-cleaning soap is made from alkaline chemicals. These chemicals can be corrosive, particularly to aluminium. Be sure you don’t overdose them and follow the instructions on the packaging carefully. Avoid contact with your skin. If you get the soap on your skin, just rinse it away with water straight away.
Soaking
The removable parts of immersion brewing equipment like the plunger on a French press benefit from a 15-minute soak each day. Ensure that the parts get a good rinse with fresh water after they are soaked each evening. The hotter the water is when soaking, the more effective the coffee-cleaning soap will be.
Caring for Cloth
For natural fibres like rayon and cotton, it is essential that microbial growth is not allowed to advance. Because these filters will degrade overtime, they should be disposed of after a specific time period. We don’t recommend keeping cotton filters in service for longer than one month.
If you’ve ever used cloth filters, then you’ve probably experienced this: your first few brews are fantastic – full bodied, with a distinctive silky mouthfeel, but great clarity. The next day, the coffee is perhaps still good, but perhaps you feel like you’ve lost a little flavour clarity, and are not sure why. Sooner or later, no matter how carefully you’re cleaning and storing the filter, there’s a definite taint in all your brews: stale coffee oils, cardboardy notes, perhaps wet wool.
Cotton is made of many thin cellulose fibres, which consist of a complex, porous network of cellulose molecules winding around a hollow core (Cotton Incorporated). This creates lots of surface area and microscopic spaces within the fibre — ideal for absorbing liquids,