Ran Out Of Coffee Filters? Use This Common Kitchen Item Instead

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It's a coffee lover's nightmare: You wake up bleary-eyed, ready to make your morning cup of joe, only to find you're out of filters. For the most devoted bean juice fans, such a scenario is almost as bad as finding an empty roll of toilet paper while using the restroom. So, what do you do? Before you DoorDash Starbucks or make a run to the nearest grocery store, there's a temporary fix. If you have napkins or paper towels on hand, they can make a perfectly acceptable substitute in a pinch.

Unlike making easy cold brew at home, adding spices to your grounds, and other clever coffee hacks you need to try, using paper towels and napkins as stand-ins for actual coffee filters is not exactly ideal. They're not fitted for a drip machine the way paper coffee filters are, and can slip out of place easily, but they can definitely work as a backup. For the best results, interlace at least two layers of napkins or paper towels into the filter. If you have a rubber band on hand, using it to secure the paper towels or napkins in place can help as well. Even without a rubber band, you should still fold the towels or napkins over the edge of the filter basket. Then, brew your coffee as you normally do, and enjoy your morning pick-me-up.

Besides the obvious issue of paper towels and napkins being cumbersome to fit into a filter basket, are there any risks associated with this hack? The good news is, paper towels and napkins are made from pretty similar materials to coffee filters, so they're unlikely to pose any physical dangers like fire risks. The best way to brew coffee involves slowly soaking the grounds in hot water, and in terms of flavor, paper towels or napkins will not facilitate that. You might notice an unpleasant aftertaste, given that paper towels and napkins are not commercially designed for filtering coffee grounds.

One might also wonder if there are any potential contaminants to worry about when using paper towels or napkins in a coffee machine. Disposable napkins or paper towels are often bleached, and recycled paper towels especially contain certain chemicals that are not ideal for our health. When used on the skin, there's minimal exposure to these contaminants, but things change when we're filtering beverages through them.

How concerned should you be? As most people are not using paper towels or napkins in place of coffee filters on a daily basis, there's insufficient data on the long-term impacts. A lot boils down to your personal risk tolerance. If you're very rarely using paper towels or napkins as filters, it's unlikely to greatly affect your health, but avoid making a habit of it. If you're low on filters, make a point of picking some up as soon as you can.