Cone vs. basket. Where did this schism come from?
Not just the shape is different, but it is different paper.
The cone type has much finer pores, and requires a slower flow of hot water, can be used with finer ground coffee, and typically yields a stronger “Euro style” brew. These are made with lab grade filter paper.
The basket type will clog the pores, and and overflow if you grind the coffee too fine. These generate a weaker american style brew. Not sure what the material is, but it is NOT what you’d find at a lab supplier.
I had to work this out on my own after returning from living in Vienna, and trying to duplicate the coffee I had become addicted to. It simply can’t be done using a Mr. Coffee with the basket style filters.
Not to mention different basket sizes. The Mr. Coffee basket filter is too small for a Bunn.
All of this became a Big Issue in Apollo 13, when the Ground Crew worked through the night to come up with a way for the astronauts to use the LM coffee filters in the Command Module after the explosion in the fuel tank. The two craft had different style coffee filters, and for a time t seemed as if they would tragically have to finish the voyage without coffee.
Heh…“ground crew.”
Actually, I thought the cone filters were only used by those idiots who open their eggs on the pointy side.
Where do those gold filter baskets fit in to the coffee-strength spectrum?
BTW, this question came up because we have an assload of old Mr. Coffee 4-cup basket filters, and are out of the 4-cup cone filters for the new Cuisinart coffeemaker. I used the basket one, after a bit of folding, and it seemed to work OK.
As long as the coffee is “drip ground” (not excessively fine), the basket filters will work OK in that format (save for the ocassional event wherein they’ll collapse onto themselves and wad up). It doesn’t quite work in the opposite direction, though.