Not Another Question About Coffee

An Ask the Profussor is pending.  It’s been on my editorial calendar for a while, but it just keeps getting pushed back.

A few days ago AddiesDad left a comment about coffee makers. If you missed it, here it is:

My Cuisinart drip coffee machine has finally died. This is the one with the internal reservoir, and both my wife and I adored it and the coffee it brewed (but probably not hot enough). We are now in the hunt for a new coffee machine, and while I’d love to buy the Tecnovorm Moccamaster with its copper heating elements, 5 minute brew time, and perfect 19o* degree brewing temperature, I just can’t drop $300 on a coffee machine before Christmas.

So, I’d like to hear from the Profussor and his milleu regarding best bets for a home coffee machine. I’m open to all brands and methods, as long as it’s not too, um, fussy.

Now the most observant among you will notice that there isn’t a single question mark to be found in the entirety of the comment. Bad, bad, AddiesDad.  My method for sorting through weeks of comments for my regular Ask the Profussor post is to search for question marks.  So please remember, if you have a question and want a response, use the appropriate punctuation.

Had this problem not been so intriguing, it would have completely passed below the radar.

I was just talking about this machine with Lee Cohen at The Daily Grind last week, and about brewing coffee in general.  The truth be told, I’ve never been able to duplicate at home the richness and deliciousness of a cup of brewed coffee from the Battery Street Peet’s in San Francisco, much less from even finer establishments.

The thing is, there are just so many damn variables:

Freshness of the beans, quality of the grind, purity of the water, temperature of the water, dispersion of the water over the coffee, ratio of water to coffee, brewing time, brewing method, and the nature of the filter, just to name a few.

This is one of the reasons why I would really like to work at a coffee shop.  It would give me the chance to really make a ton of coffee and tweak all of these variables.

That said, I’ve had my eye on a couple of different brewing technologies.

One is the vacuum pot, although I might be tempted to buy a hard-to-find Japanese model.  In theory this method heats the water to a perfect temperature, which once achieved forces the hot water into the brewing chamber.  The grounds are stirred and steeped in the water until they are filtered back down into the warmed glass vessel below.

The method has its drawbacks.

It has a lot of pieces.  And if all the water doesn’t leave the bottom chamber, you can get some diluted coffee.  But the fans of this method swear that it makes the best brewed coffee they’ve ever had.  Water temperature is such a critical part of the process, and it’s harder to control than one might imagine.

The other technology seems odd to mention in the wintertime, but that’s not going to stop me.  It’s the cold brewed toddy system.  Now some will argue that you don’t need to buy a kit to execute this simple cold extraction.  It’s not entirely dissimilar to a large French press that can hold a pound of ground coffee. But I’ve never been terribly handy, so I appreciate having everything laid out in front of me.

The idea is that with enough ground coffee, you can create a coffee concentrate that is a lot less acidic than hot brewed coffee.  Since it’s a concentrate that you can store in the refrigerator for weeks, hot coffee is ready in as long as it takes to heat a kettle.  Put some concentrate in a mug and dilute with boiling water, and you’ve got a delicious and steaming cup of joe.

What you don’t get is the smell of coffee brewing.  But you also get some of the best iced coffee you’ll ever drink.  Assuming of course you use good beans and all the rest.  

I’m really tempted to get these tools.  Although I imagine that Mrs. Fussy is breaking into hives at this very moment over the very thought of another gadget on the kitchen counter.  Don’t worry, sweetie, you’ll love them.