Keeping Chemex Coffee Hotter for Longer

Good coffee, like life, is fleeting. One moment, it’s hot and steamy, and the next it is cold and boring.

The truth is that no matter what type of coffee maker we are using, we always want more coffee to keep as hot as possible for as long as possible. Fortunately for us Chemex users this is a little easier to do with our Chemex coffee maker.

One of the most attractive things about owning a Chemex is the special material which they are made of. Chemex carafes are made of non-porous glass which is ideal for coffee brewing. This glass will not only keep smell, taste, and stains away from your Chemex but it will also help keep your coffee hot for longer, as it traps heat inside while at the same time keeps cold outside.

While the Chemex does a great job at keeping our coffee warm, it can’t compare to double-walled insulated glass (which would make the Chemex too big and heavy) or stainless steel, vacuum insulated containers.

Use their lid

Chemex has addressed this issue by offering the Chemex glass coffeemaker cover. It is elegant, fits into all their coffee makers and can actually help maintain coffee strength.

By closing the only opening, we efficiently extend the time we have before the process of evaporation causes our coffee to go cold. This glass lid is also made of non-porous glass and it has a small glass handle which goes upward. The handle won’t get hot.

The Chemex glass coffeemaker cover maintains coffee strength by preventing evaporation. It acts as a physical barrier, reducing the coffee’s exposure to air and slowing water loss. The cover helps retain heat and creates a humid microclimate above the coffee, both of which inhibit evaporation. By keeping water content stable, it preserves the intended ratio of coffee solutes to water. This prevents the coffee from becoming overly concentrated or bitter over time.

While not as effective as insulated containers, the glass cover offers a simple solution to extend the period during which the coffee maintains its intended flavor profile and strength.

Other solutions

If you’re the kind of guy who likes brewing a lot of coffee to drink throughout the morning, then surely a mere glass lid is just not going to solve this problem. You need to look at better solutions. Here are a few solutions for keeping your coffee hot, or warm, for longer:

Insulated Carafe

The best way by far to keep coffee hot for long periods of time is to get a separate carafe – something like a Hario V60 metal server. An insulated carafe will keep your coffee hot for, hopefully, hours. This works by brewing coffee and then immediately pouring it into your insulated carafe.

A better way is to get a stainless-steel vacuum insulated thermos. While these are not designed to hold large amounts of coffee, they do a great job at keeping it hot— sometimes for hours on end. The best thermoses are made both of glass and stainless steel. They are double walled with glass on the inside and on the outside.

Double-walled glasses

A much simpler fix to this problem it’s to buy coffee glasses that are designed to keep coffee as hot as possible. This is a faster method to keep coffee hot and doesn’t involve something big like another carafe or a thermos. It’s also a lot more convenient to have glasses like this around when you want to sip on your coffee instead of gulping it down. Chemex recently introduced their Chemex double walled mug for exactly this purpose

Modern problems require modern solutions

A more tech solution for this problem is to use a coffee mug warmer or a mug that is itself a mug warmer. Mug warmers are similar to hot plates- they have a power cord and are made of a special material that heats up your coffee mug or coffee cup on top of it and it will help keep coffee warm. The concept is like that of coffee drip machines’ hot plates, which are made of metal and keep coffee hot. (But at the expense of a burnt taste)

There are also coffee mugs with even more technology; some of them can be adjusted to whatever temperature you desire. Some can even incorporate a timer so that you can set a time and they don’t just keep heating up forever.

And so, it happens that the simplest solution might be the best of all: drinking your coffee while it’s hot, not letting it cool down. In the end, it’s the most convenient solution. And the cheapest!