Storycrafting: 5 No Waste Household Uses For Coffee Grounds

What can your characters dye brown with coffee grounds? Could coffee ground fire logs cause a chimney fire? Is this safe to use in the winter around livestock? How can it make your character’s home smell good? Find out on this episode. 

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What can your characters dye around with coffee grounds? Could coffee ground fire logs cause a chimley fire? Is it safe to use in the winter around livestock? How can it make your character's home smell good? Find out on this episode. Welcome to Writing Rural with Alley, the Fiction Writers Weekly Inspiration Station for Rural, Life, and Lifestyles from historical to post-apocalyptic, helping you bring your rural stories to life. I'm Alley. This is episode number 81, Five No-Waste Household Uses For Coffee Grounds. Stick around to the end to find out all the ways things could possibly go wrong. Now, let's get into this. Number one, dyeing fabric and paper. Coffee ground dyeing dates back to approximately 800 BC, when African tribes used them not only to eat, but to dye fabric. Coffee didn't make it into Europe until roughly the 1600s. Coffee grounds dye fabrics brown. Unused grounds will dye the cloth a darker brown, while used coffee grounds will them a lighter color. Fabric is dye by placing water onto heat. When it's hot, coffee grounds are added along with the cloth that the character wants to dye. They are boiled together thoroughly to dye the fabric. The longer it's in the liquid, okay, basically coffee with floaters, the darker the fabric will become. In modern times, having paper look vintage is considered cool, and people will pay for paper that they think is old. This is accomplished one of two ways. Taking the still wet coffee grounds and smearing the water off on the paper or placing the grounds inside the paper, making it into a wrinkly ball and dipping the whole thing into hot water. This will have the paper with a more ruffled look that some people like. Your character will need to be careful. Wet paper is easy to tear, and nobody wants that. Number two, repairing scratched furniture. Yes, the old coffee grounds were fixing dark wood scratches that I just found out about two weeks ago. Okay, maybe not old to me. While I did know that coffee, the drink, can stain wood in the seams and scratches, I did not know that coffee grounds could do anything. So let's cover what I learned. There are two ways to do this. The first is with the coffee grounds and water. Adding just enough water to the coffee grounds to make a paste will allow your character to place it inside of the scratch, helping to blend into the rest of the table. Once it is dry, it can be sanded down to the perfect blend of the height of the table. The second is to use wood glue instead of water, as the glue will hold much longer than the water. It is possible for there to be something spilled on the table that soaks into the water and dissolves the hold. Glue will not have that problem. Historically, or in an Apocalypse, your character can simply use a sticky substance. The first thing that comes to mind for me is tree sap from pine or possibly cedar. This too can be sanded down. Remember, it is important that this is for darker wood. If your character tries this with lighter wood, they will make the scratch dark and draw attention to it. Which, to be fair, if your character is poor, they only care that it fills the gap and not what it looks like. Number three, making homemade candles. Coffee grounds can be used in homemade or handcrafted, whatever you want to call it, candles. These are not placed into the candle for any reason that It has anything to do with function of the candle, but for other purposes. There are two reasons the coffee is added. First, for the smell. Yes, most people like candles that let off a pleasant smell, and historically, they did not have as many smells to work with. Hence, coffee was tried, and it worked. Remember, it will not be as overpowering as modern candles bought at the stores, and is more of a light hint in the air. The second is to turn the candle brown. Yes, just as it turned boiling water brown, it also turns melted wax brown. In history, we tend to think of pale white candles, but in reality, there were many colors and designs. This was one of the ways they turned wax brown. Number four, coffee fire logs. Fire logs are manmade blocks that burn for extended periods of time. They are most often in the shape of a log or a brick. Normally, I see these made of straps of wood or saw dust that are compacted together. However, coffee logs are a little bit different. To make the coffee ground fire log, your character would use candle wax, molasses, and dry coffee grounds. That's a weird combo. The wax will need to be melted, and then they are all stirred together until it makes a consistency of sludge. Yeah, not my idea of a fundamental image. Next, it is shaped into a loaf shape, free-handed or place into a loaf pan. Then it is cooked in the oven at 260 degrees Fahrenheit or roughly 120 degrees celsius. The time is different in different recipes between a half hour to an hour. Whatever it takes, the loaf should be bone dry all the way through. And voila, your character has a fire log. Now, I see one giant hole in why I would personally never use this. Do you know what that is? Take a minute if you need to. I'll even give you a hint, it's in the ingredients. Did you guess? If you guess, space suit, lay off the Star Trek episodes. If you said wax or molasses, you guessed right. You see, wax melts, and I don't want to be scraping that off the bottom of a wood stove or fireplace. Furthermore, I don't trust the smoke that would come off of molasses not to build up on the inside of the chimley and risk a flue fire, which is a huge risk for a house fire. My house burns the ground from a flue fire, and I don't recommend it. Number 5, traction on ice. If you were here for the last couple of episodes on coffee ground uses, we learned coffee grounds are abrasive, and that makes it perfect for making traction on ice. We can't always melt ice, even if we want to. Living in the country means there are many places that your characters will need to go to take care of animals, and ice melt is not say for their paws, claws, hooves, or whatever they're walking on. However, coffee grounds are safe to have around livestock. This means your character can use it on the way to the barn, in the fields, pin, or anywhere else that they or their animals might need traction. Bonus. Air freshener. Yes, your character can place bags of coffee grounds all around their home as an air freshener. It will leave a smell of coffee grounds while it absorbs the bad smells. Many people place them in a tea bag type of containers, but I know people who have placed them in old socks and just hung the socks around their home. Fun fact. At the time that I'm recording this in 2024, ground coffee candles are considered trendy. At least that's what Google AI says. Speaking of coffee, Writing Rural With Alley now has its very own Buy Me A Coffee page. There, you can find bite-side pieces of rural wisdom, early previews for new projects, and unique stories that you will not find anywhere else. If you're interested and want to learn more, check the link in the description. For those watching on YouTube, you can find the link in my about section. Now for everyone's favorite part. Likely to go wrong. Your character uses wet coffee grounds to make paper look aged. However, They are not careful, and when the paper gets soggy, it rips. Also likely to go wrong. Your character forgets about their coffee grounds sock air fresheners when they bring someone home that they have a crush on. The person thinks they are weird for having socks hanging all over their house. Possible to go wrong. Your character is mad that the coffee ground fire log doesn't smell like coffee. While it is made of coffee grounds, these logs do not smell like coffee. Also possible to go wrong. Your character doesn't place enough coffee grounds out to make traction on the ice and they fall. Your character could be hurt. Unlikely to go wrong. Your character tries to rub coffee grounds directly onto fabric to dye it and doesn't use water. This does nothing to the fabric. Also unlikely to go wrong. Your character uses coffee grounds to fill in a scratch on their table. However, water is spilled on the table and it loosens the coffee grounds, causing them to come out exposing the scratch again. Improbable, but still technically in the realm of possibilities. Your character put so many coffee grounds into a coffee ground candle that it lights the grounds inside the candle on fire. If not dealt with swiftly, this could lead to a house fire. Also improbable, but still technically in the realm of possibilities. Your character uses coffee ground fire logs. It puts off a lot of smoke and builds up a residue inside of the chimley. When enough is built up, they have a chimley fire. This could easily lead to a house fire. Thanks for listening. Until next time. Happy wordsmithing.