The Best Plastic-Free Coffee Makers

A drip machine with a glass-and-steel water path

SimplyGood lists every part the water touches, and the list holds up: a borosilicate glass water tank, a stainless steel boiler, 304 stainless steel tubing, a steel showerhead, a steel filter basket and a glass carafe. It names the soft parts too: medical-grade silicone in the tank cover, the carafe lid seal, the connectors and the drip stop. The company sells a seal kit, along with the carafe, showerhead, basket and lid, so the parts that age can be replaced.

Using it is simple. One button, no touch screen, water levels marked on the machine, and an optional bloom setting that wets the grounds first, the way you would with a pour-over. It brews at 195 to 205°F and makes 8 cups, 40 oz, in about six minutes, onto a hot plate. One owner who collects old drip-o-lators and French presses says their coffee just tastes good now, and that even year-old beans ground in a cheap spice grinder came out fine.

Not everyone thinks it makes better coffee than a regular machine. One buyer found it no better than the Ninja they had before and paid the extra only to keep plastic out of their coffee.

A big, hot pot you can keep repairing

The Presto is a plug-in percolator. Water goes in the bottom, grounds in a basket on a tube, and the pot pumps hot water up and over the grounds again and again, about a cup a minute, until the light tells you it's ready. Presto describes the body, the basket and the tube as stainless steel. It makes 2 to 12 of Presto's 5 oz cups, so a full pot is 60 oz.

Percolated coffee is its own thing. Because the coffee passes through the grounds several times, it comes out hot, strong and full of aroma, the old-fashioned pot a lot of people grew up with. It's also more bitter than a pour-over, and it gets harsher the longer it sits on the keep-warm. I'd pour it for a crowd on a Sunday morning, not sip it slowly over three hours.

What I like most is the parts page. Presto lists nine parts for the 02811, from the basket and the perk tube to the cord and the knobs, so the pieces that take the most heat can be replaced one at a time.

Percolator coffee on the stove, or over a fire

Coletti makes the Bozeman from 18/8 stainless steel, with a glass knob on top and a hardwood handle, and says there's no plastic and no aluminum in it. You set it on gas, an electric coil, a glass-ceramic hob or a campfire, and watch the coffee bubble up into the glass knob, darker each time. When the color looks right, you pull it off the heat. The 9-cup pot holds 45 oz.

People who own one talk about it with real affection. A welder whose 1950s Pyrex glass percolator shattered at the base of its tube one day bought this to replace it, worried the thin handle would be too hot to hold, and found it only gets warm.

It makes the strong, full, diner-style coffee percolators are known for, in about 17 minutes from start to finish by one owner's clock. For one big mug, another uses about 500 ml of water and 25 to 30 g of coarse grounds, brings it to a perk on medium-high, then lowers the heat and lets it go for seven minutes.

Small, strong coffee on any stove

Most moka pots are aluminum. The Venus is Bialetti's 18/10 stainless steel version, and it works on gas, electric and induction without an adapter. Fill the bottom with water, the basket with grounds, set it on the heat, and when it starts to gurgle, turn it off. The 6-cup size makes 7.9 oz, measured in espresso cups, or about 8 oz in a mug. That's a strong, dark, almost espresso-like coffee, good on its own or stretched with hot milk.

A moka pot seals its boiler with a gasket, and Bialetti's is silicone, pressed by steam and hot water every brew. Bialetti sells sets of three gaskets with a steel filter plate. One owner bought spares right away, and more than two years later still hasn't needed them. They wash it with warm water and a bottle brush, never soap, and pop the gasket out with a butter knife every few weeks to clean underneath.

An all-steel press that keeps the coffee hot

Ziruma makes this press from 316 stainless steel, the grade it calls surgical, and sells it as 100% plastic-free. The walls are doubled, so the outside stays cool and the coffee inside stays hot, and the filter stacks four layers of steel. It holds 34 oz, has measuring marks inside, and goes in the dishwasher.

A French press makes a fuller, rounder coffee than paper, because the oils stay in, and that's how one owner describes this one: full-bodied but not bitter. More than one says no grounds make it into the mug. One who likes to sip for a few hours finds the pot still warm long after they expected. Press slowly, over about five seconds, because the steel filter is a snug fit.

Ziruma also paid Light Labs, in Michigan, to check it for heavy metals moving into hot contents. The company reports that mercury wasn't detected and that none of the metals on the panel turned up.

A glass press for about $27

Veken's press is a thick borosilicate beaker, rated to take 360°F of thermal shock, in a steel frame with a 304 stainless plunger and a four-layer steel filter. Veken's listing says no plastic touches the coffee and names the one other material in the brewing parts, food-grade silicone. It holds 34 oz, and Amazon shows a two-year warranty.

At $27 you get to watch the coffee turn dark as it steeps, and the scoop and water marks printed on the glass take the guessing out of it. One owner finds the coffee rich and smooth, with no grit at the bottom. One replaced an old press after finding mold under its plastic lid. Others use it for tea and herbal infusions as much as for coffee, and it works as a cold brew jar too. (If cold brew is the plan, my cold brew guide covers the method.)