Well I broke the glass in my French Press the other day and, in my rage, I threw away the whole thing without realizing I can just buy a replacement carafe.
So now I’m in the market for a new one. Are there any downsides to getting something completely stainless steel like this press?
Not many. Cost for one. Also, it’s cool to see the coffee and foam in a glass carafe. I’m a fan.
You could compromise with a glass carafe that has a stainless structure around it. Plunging too quickly can result in a mess, so it’s useful to be able to see what’s going on when you plunge.
I thought this was going to be a discussion of the French Media and their lack of objectivity in dealing with nation matters. I can get things so wrong sometimes.
I checked in for French media as well, but I’ve broken lots of French Press carafes – in my case, it’s always been a result of shaking the grounds out into a trash can and inadvertently hitting the glass next to something else hard, like a can or empty bottle.
I think a metallic carafe would be fine – what could possibly affect the taste of the coffee? I guess some people are sensitive to this sort of thing, but I drink beer out of cans when I buy beer, and it doesn’t bother me. There’s some chemistry problem that could be worked out, I suppose, acidic solution reacting etc., but I don’t know. I say try it and see/taste, and, at the worst, you have a neat metal carafe for other uses in the kitchen.
Yep I was shaking it to empty it in the trash while I was mad about something. Ended up hitting the edge of the trash can.
Faster heat transfer may be an issue. Your coffee will get colder faster in a stainless steel carafe. We had a similar thread about metal tea pots in General Questions recently which discussed the possibility of leaching (general consensus was it’s not an issue).
Here’s the link to the teapot thread.
Huh. I’d think that the stainless steel might do a better job of keeping the coffee hot than the glass - when we used a glass carafe (which, like everyone else’s, broke), it seemed like the coffee would cool really quickly. But I bought a stainless steel electric percolator as a replacement, so what do I know? (I drink coffee, but I doctor it up with cream and sugar and such. My husband is more of the connoisseur.)
There’s a double-walled Bodum French Press for a little more money - maybe that would be better insulated?
Ooh - there’s also thisone, also double walled.