Last Christmas, Dan gave me an original, old-school Cona syphon which uses a glass rod (cool pressie, huh?!). I haven’t yet used it, as the rubber seal between the two globes needs replacing; even though I know where I can get a replacement, I still haven’t managed to get organised to do it. Today I saw that James Hoffman tweeted that he was experimenting with a glass rod in his Hario. Now why has this never occured to me?! Hazel’s mentioned it’s do-able before, yet I’ve never thought to try it. So this morning, I dug out some tools, pulled out my spare cloth filter and had a bit of a tinker. Et voilà … my Hario MCA-3 now comes with the options of cloth, paper or glass filtering.
I was a bit nervous about using it, so the first trial was with my Unibuy. Cheaper and easier to replace 
I used some 2 month old Masai I found lying around, and ground a bit coarser than normal (I was nervous - didn’t want to clog the filter with fines and blow myself up). It works!! A few grinds came down, but it’s much less muddy a brew than I expected. Stirring will be an issue - the Hario paddle is just a bit wide, and I don’t want to knock the rod and let grinds go down into the brew. The draw down is quite slow, so that might mean tweaking things too … hmmm … Feeling a bit pleased with myself right now ;D
Click on the pic to see it bigger.
On a random but similar topic. I thought you’d like this article:
Multipurpose Coffee Grounds