OT: Small appliances - again! Coffee maker

Yes! It is so nice, after being rudely awakened by the alarm, to stumble into the kitchen with your eyes still fighting opening to the smell of coffee ready to drink.

Wes

The problem I always had was timed coffee is made with room temp water. Ice cold water is a necessity, it changes the timing. From my point of view. But, you have a very valid point about that all-important first cup!

I was shocked a few years ago to see marriage of kitchen range and refrigerator. The range had an oven that also had refrigeration. You put your pan of whatever in before you left for work, the oven kept it cold until time to light the fire and bake it.

By ice cold do you mean tap water or are you using refrigerated water? I'm always interested in a better cup of coffee. Since I quit smoking long ago, that first cuppa joe has to be the day starter now.

Wes

Used B&D with the thermal carafe for about 10 years, then got an Oster with an even BETTER thermal carafe, and love it dearly. First one died in a small electrical bump, glad to have found another. B&D still the back room standby just in case. Secret - hotter water, and teh carafe must have some kind of perhaps inductive heater that keeps it warm for hours without burning / oxidizing.

And, of course, a Krups pump espresso / capo maker...

In the summer, I use refrigerated water. In the winter, my water is COLD! It brews slower, on some makers it's better but it just might be psychological. I wonder if the shade-grown $20/lb is psychological? (seldom occasion)

For a treat, I will brew a pot and pour it into the thermos then brew half a cup of water with scoop of fresh grounds in a new filter and add a tablespoon or so of this concentrate to a cup out of the thermos.

That's about how strong I like my coffee straight. My maker shuts the flow off when you pull the pot out. For a special treat, I take that first half cup out with four large scoops in the basket - espresso!

If you really enjoy good coffee, you must try the Italian fresh grind and brew makers like the models from Saeco. They are significantly better than the machines you are used to. They are also pricey, but well worth the money. They are all automatic and brew one cup at a time. You can control all the parameters and tailor every cup to your preference. Typical time from button depression to ready is around 30 seconds, once the boiler is at the desired temperature. From cold, this takes about 3 minutes. They make every coffee variant you can think of including instant steam for milk. Steve

My favorite way to make coffee is boil the water in a large mug in the microwave, then add 2 heaping spoonfuls of fresh ground, finely ground coffee. Stir, and wait until the grounds settle to the bottom. Drink carefully to avoid disturbing the sludge at the bottom. I've never had better but some of you all seem more experienced.

CarlBoyd

We've used a bunch of different coffee makers, and finally settled on Braun, because my wife's uncle worked at a hotsy-totsy department store and would replace them free when they died, which they did, usually about every 3-5 years - the latest has hung on longer, based on your advice we'll try Black & Decker - her uncle now works in the shoe department.

But now the useful advice - if you like to wake up to the smell of fresh coffee, don't buy a pot with a built in timer - the electronics fails first. We buy bottom of the line Braun coffee pots and get mechanical timers from Ace Hardware, usually about 2 for $6 on sale, and they last maybe 5 years.

Now I'll get my advice heavily discounted - we use Publix Columbian drip coffee, tho we're switching to French Market coffee with chicory (my wife grew up in New Orleans) - stay away from Albertson's coffee, smells like the cat litter box and tastes terrible too... Joel in rust central (Florida east coast) ==============

On Fri, 6 Mar 2009 23:12:29 -0500, the infamous "Buerste" scrawled the following:

You rich guys, I swear... ;)

You were wondering which of our sins he died for, right? Lack of coffee, of course.

(Think I'll get mail?)

Yum, boiled coffee. Ya Perv!

I use a $7 Proctor Silex drip since my last Mr. Coffee died a horrible death. (The expensive carafe broke) When it dies, I'll likely buy a French Press. I've always immediately turned off the maker so it didn't burn the coffee on the burner. And when I make coffee, I brew it into the cream (milk), adding pink sweetener later. You should see the look of the neighbors' faces when waking into my kitchen for the first time as I brew a pot. LOL!

You shop at Searz? And here I thought you were an enlightened soul...

We use that at Mom's when I'm there. It makes good coffee but even with boiling water sitting in the carafe overnight, the made coffee isn't hot enough. Since Mom doesn't have a microwave (just a baby oven) I have to warm coffee in a pan on the stove. Yum!

When I was working for others, I had to be at work on time and used the timer to wake me up. Who can sleep through coffee brewing?

You lesbians are all alike: easily impressed by kitchen implements.

P.S: What do you mix with the KitchenAid?

P.P.S: What coffee bean do you find interesting? I've settled on a Bolivian blend from the local roaster. I simply can't find the extremely good Sumatran beans I used to buy from Costco. Kivu (and/or Fred Meyer stockers) have been putting just any old frackin' bean in the Sumatran Mandheling bins of late.

-- "Not always right, but never uncertain." --Heinlein -=-=-

On Sat, 7 Mar 2009 00:41:51 -0500, the infamous "Buerste" scrawled the following:

Poor Wes! He sleeps so soundly that a freshly brewing pot doesn't wake him?

My tap water is 43F, so that's not a problem here. But, if you -need- coffee to wake up, how could you possibly tell the difference between coffee brewed with cold water or room temp water?

I'm lucky. I hit the ground running and don't need caffeine to wake me up. It's nice to have, but it's unnecessary for my morning alertness. My old blend was half decaf.

-- "Not always right, but never uncertain." --Heinlein -=-=-

On Sat, 7 Mar 2009 02:41:17 -0600, the infamous "Karl Townsend" scrawled the following:

If you take that first cup out of the drip before the thing is finished brewing, the entire rest of the pot will be spoiled.

Jerks where I used to work would do that and people would scream at them for it. Often, if people who liked coffee were there before the jerks, they'd stand guard over the pot until it finished brewing.

I like strong, flavorful, non-bitter coffee, so someone weakening it gets my ire, too. If you brew it stronger than the rest of the family likes it, then divert the first strong cup, leaving the rest of the pot the way the family likes it, no harm is done, though.

I'm drinking tea this morning but all this talk of coffee is getting to me. I'm off to the kitchen to brew some coffee right now. Ta!

-- "Not always right, but never uncertain." --Heinlein -=-=-

Well I am going to chime in here. For a quality drip coffee maker look to Bunn. They work entirely different than the Mr. Coffee clones.

Under the plastic housing, a stainless steel tank is heated with an immersion heater and kept at temperature with a second heating coil wrapped around the tank. All internal parts are of industrial quality and made in the USA.

When you want coffee, you pour in water into the top. This water is fed into the main tank via a drop tube and the hot water in the tank is then forced up and out through the drip tube to the shower head.

The basket is deeper than the cheap dribble models as the water is flowing at a faster rate and this optimizes the time that the water is in contact with the coffee. Hence the need for the deeper filters and basket.

My first Bunn was a used restaurant model that had over 1/4 inch of calcium deposits in the tank. It took me days to clean out the scale but when I was done the interior sparkled as much as the exterior.

Parts for that machine are still available, but as they all still work well I have never had to avail myself of getting any.

The home models are similarly constructed, except the footprint is smaller and the exterior is plastic rather than stainless steel.

There are several other things you can do to get better coffee however. First is to consider the coffee. Buying pre-ground beans that come in a can means you are getting coffee that is months old and commercial coffee producers actually pressurize their canned coffee with that coffee smell. The coffee is actually stale by the time they put it in the can.

If you have a local coffee roaster in your area, obtaining small quantities of whole bean fresh roasted coffee and grinding them immediately before brewing will optimize the quality of the coffee in your cup. I said immediately before brewing as the grinding process allows the flavorful elements in the bean to be released and if you grind it tonight and brew it in the morning, you kitchen might smell nice, but the flavor is lost forever.

The grinder is another factor that can't be ignored. The whirly blade type is not optimal as it mashes some of the beans to powder, and leaves other bits too large for extraction. Much better is a burr grinder.

But to really get the flavor of coffee that tastes almost as good as it smells, you will want to roast the beans yourself and use them within 10 days.

The next step is to optimize extracting the essence of the coffee. This means espresso. To properly make espresso, the elements of time pressure and grind are critical, but the results are astounding. The properly brewed shot of espresso is drinkable straight, and is neither bitter or sour. It has a velvety smooth texture that lingers in your mouth after you have swallowed the sip.

Another real option is home roasting of the beans. I built a roaster from a discarded gas barbeque grill that I fitted with a stainless steel drum. Others use methods like converting a thrift store popcorn popper or using a heat gun and a dog bowl whilst stirring with a wooden spoon.

Yes, I do like good coffee.

Does anyone have reccomendations for a bulletproof espresso maker? I gave an espresso maker to my son as a graduation present a couple of years ago. As it happens sometimes, he had mentioned the want of an espresso maker to a beautiful redhead and ended up with two espresso makers. The one from from mom and dad became the work espresso maker, and enjoyed many trips by conex and use on deck before it gave its' last drip. Any suggestions?

Kevin Gallimore

I prefer a timer. My coffee pot wakes me to a treat every morning. I usually relax in bed contemplating the day until I here the pot finishing up the brew, then head in for my coffee, turning off the alarm before it ever sounds. I hate alarm clocks, and the coffee pot is a great substitute. To me, the alarm is just a back up.

I like the thermal carafe type. Fresh coffee until it's empty, even 4 hours later.

But what I want to know, is why do I have to keep filling the coffee pot? Seem by now some enterprising sole would have designed something that would connect to my water as easy as an ice maker. How long has is been since we stopped filling ice trays?

Maybe my palate isn't as sensitive as yours - some people can taste flavors that others can't - but I think you're barking up the wrong tree if you want good tasting coffee. Buy any cheap coffee maker and roast your own beans - that's the secret to good tasting coffee. The beans go rancid quite quickly after roasting, so you'll have to experiment with how long they last post roasting to satisfy your taste buds.

I drink swill on a daily basis because I'm too lazy to roast my own any more, but here's how I did it. Get an old hot air popcorn popper from a thrift shop - some are hotter than others and you need to find one of the hotter ones. A popcorn popper only has enough power to roast a small amount of coffee - maybe a day or two worth. At any rate, turn it on and roast till you hear the first crackling sound - that's the first crack - continue a couple of minutes longer till there's a quieter second crack. When the 2nd crack tapers off, turn the popper off and dump the coffee out onto a pan to cool quickly. It was about 6-7 minutes total with the corn popper I was using. The instructions are out there on the web. I suspect you could do the same thing using a heat gun from your shop as the source, but I never tried doing it that way since I'd have had to cobble something up to hold the beans. Do it outside. The coffee smokes and it smells more like burning leaves than the nice coffee aroma we associate with coffee brewing.

For coffee that doesn't get bitter when left in the pot for hours at a time, try Sumatra mandeling. I don't know what was different about that species, but it tasted better to me for longer than the other types of raw beans you can buy.

Since you live in a city, you might be able to find a coffee roaster who sells freshly roasted coffee. I'd insist on coffee roasted that day if you go buy some to try. Don't buy more than about 8 oz. because to me the good flavor was gone in a week or less after roasting. Roasting time makes a difference too. I like dark roasts myself, but to others that makes the coffee taste burnt. YMMV.

Once you're hooked on roasting coffee, why don't you set your machinery up to make a small domestically produced coffee roaster that would do about 4-8 oz at at time. Those automatic roasters exist but the reviews aren't good - at least they weren't the last time I read about them.

RWL

Your comment reminded me of something else I read about but never tried. Google for "cold brewing". The principle is that you extract the flavor from the coffee by prolonged soaking and then add this extract to some water in your cup and nuke it in the microwave.

RWL

Don't forget I paid $16 for the T-Fal toaster as an "open box" special at Newegg! Think about it, if you were God, would you send your only son to a coffeeless world? If you were Jesus, wouldn't you say: "Dad, can't we wait a millennium or so?"

Look into "Toddy Maker". You don't need to buy one to try out the method of cold-brewing. I like the coffee but I like a bit of bite. French press is a good method too, Starbucks' owners prefer it.

My sister and I started baking Christmas cookies for our friends, customers and suppliers about 10 years ago. I put penises on the "Santa" cut cookies, I thought my 90 year old aunt was going to die when she saw them! We usually make about 100 doz. but none this year due to the "move". I'm going to pursue the perfect piecrust next. When they made our granite countertop, I asked for them to make me a pastry stone from the scrap, they made a 60 lb. one for me, great for butter/lard crusts! Give me a year and I'll be winning pie contests! (great way to meet other lesbians)

Every so often I buy coffee from:

I don't see their Puerto Rican now but it's my favorite. I believe it's seasonal. But, HOLY CRAP it's good! But, it's $20/lb.

When I was in the US I really took a liking to those Bunn coffee makers they had in Dunkin' Donuts stores. I nearly bought a used one to bring home, but it was more than I could carry on the flight (I brought the pump from a Carver hydraulic press home instead, which I was given, so the baggage allowance didn't go to waste).

The Bunn OL and OT machines are my favourites:

I have a Hobart commercial coffee brewer which is broken. All stainless and well built, but some idiot put electronics in the machine. The electronics broke, and now the machine doesn't work. Anyone who wants to fix it can have it free (e-mail me at chris AT ruggedmachines DOT com if you want it). There is no carafe included. Pick up from England.

Best wishes,

Chris