Monday, November 29, 2010

First Look: Kaffeologie K250 Mesh

Say hello to Kaffeologie's K250 mesh line for various pour over devices, and chemex.  Samples are being farmed out to reviewers and coffee geeks, and early results have been pretty positive.

So what's in the box?

The filter itself is a 304 stainless steel woven mesh meeting ASTM 2016-06, which is a set of standards dealing with filtration consistency.  The mesh contains 250 threads of .0016" wire per linear inch, and has an open area of 36%.  In other words, 64% of the mesh area is impermeable.   The mesh is doubled during assembly, yielding a net open area of approximately 13% (36% x 36%) and substantially slowing flow-through compared to a single layer.

Unfortunately, because materials differ there is no clear comparison between this open area and equivalent statistics for classic paper or cloth filters.  Any help in developing a common open area comparison for these other materials would be much appreciated!

With ingenuity, the doubled mesh can be adjusted to any pour over shape.  Cut seams are folded over to prevent leaks and stitched with either Argentium sterling silver or pure titanium thread.  A thicker piece of Argentium wire encircles the lip of the filter to maintain shape.

The filters can be cleaned by rinsing upside down and then soaking with puro-caf.  An early tester learned that turning the filter inside-out and scrubbing the seam (ala cloth filters) puts too much strain on the mesh and yields tiny tears.

We're still coming up with the don't-kill-yourself list of things not to do with your filter.  The only one I can think of currently is: This filter contains hot fluids during use.  Don't pick it up and burn yourself!

Finally, here's the first video of the filter in action.  More videos will appear in due time on the site.








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