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Hario transparent plastic dripper cracking
(thelemmy.club)
Dear coffee juice estimators, I’ve had this V60 02 dripper for 3,5 years and some hairline cracks have been building up all over the cone. At one point, a bigger horizontal crack appeared and a short time ago a bigger vertical one took off while pouring - I really heard and felt the plastic creaking. It has almost never seen the dishwasher, mainly only rinsing and hand washing.
I’ve used this V60 regularly, more often in the last year than the years prior, but I wanted to ask if someone experiences the same degradation with other colors of plastic? I have two AeroPress devices that are like new, one being older than this dripper…
It looks like a very poor material choice, but maybe it’s due to the crystal clear transparency.
Close up:
I don't have a V60, but my bonavita drip machine has a clear plastic window that has tiny cracks like that, but only exactly where the hot steam escapes between the dripper and the shower head, so I suspect we both have heat fractures from thermal shock. For me at least, it still is watertight so I'm not worried about it too much. Yours looks like it might be soon losing structural integrity.
I would stop preheating with boiling water straight from cold, can you first heat it with hot tap water for 30 seconds or so? Might reduce the thermal shocks if it's already at 120 instead of room temp
I already rinse the paper with hot tap water but I don't think the material retains heat long enough to make a difference once I pour the 95°C kettle water. No idea what 120 is, in my world water boils at around 100 :D
Oh sorry I should have been more specific. 996.84 BTU per gallon freezing water. Approximately. If your tap has a few more brits in it that's probably OK, too.