Coffeemaster copper death

[jetcone]

 

For years Tom has told me when the copper shows the coffee goes. I decided to try that experiment today. My C-50 has now copper showing on the bottom from being a daily driver for years now. And I got down my UNUSED beehive when Robert,Terry& Greg were here.

Today I made 4 cups of coffee in each brewer.

 

Well Tom was right after all these years, the coffee from the new beehive had all the high notes good coffee has, and the brew from my used up copper showing unit was FLAT! It wasn't bad but it sure was FLAT no high notes nothing savory it was an eye opener!

 

So I guess this C-50 is done!

 

 

[jetcone]

You can see

the difference in the cups! On the left copper killed coffee, on the right fresh chrome brewed!

 

[jetcone]

Out with the old

in with the new!

 

[tlee618]

I've always heard this too Jon.  It's good to know you agree.  That glass beehive is just beautiful and sure made some great coffee while we were there.  Of course that delicious coffee you had helped too.  

 

 

 

[toggleswitch]

SHHH don't tell anyone that an acid in contact with copper becomes poisonous.

The Romans believed it was tomatoes that were poisonous. Later they figured out it was tomatoes COOKED IN COPPER that was killing folks slowly.

 

[iheartmaytag]

I was wondering what erroded the Chrome in the first place, was it the acid from the coffee?  In that case then the chrome was released into the coffee, was that healthy?  I watched Erin Brokovich three times you know.

 

[toggleswitch]

Three/four words

Stainless-steel
glass
ceramic

Sum up what I like my food and drink to touch.

 

[launderess]

IIRC

By the time Sunbeam got around to the C-50 corners were cut in the design of their automatic vacuum coffeemakers. While the new design solved many old problems they used a thinner layer of plating than previous versions. Hence you see the sort of wear shown above which happens on both upper and lower chambers.

Any sort of abrasion such as scouring when cleaning or stirring the coffee whist in the upper chamber (Sunbeam claimed their new design made this normal vac pot brewing step un-necessary but for some old habits lingered.....

Personally vastly prefer my glass Silex pots and won't be going back to automatic metal anytime soon. Should the time come when one can no longer handle doing coffee that way suppose one will have to switch to a drip machine.

 

[tomturbomatic]

The finish inside the lower bowl of the C-50 is pebbly or grainy whereas the finish in the earlier models is smooth. Also, the C-50 used a different heating element so the pot got hotter before it shut down after it boiled all of the water away to agitate the coffee in the upper bowl. This put extra stress on the chrome finish and caused it to wear away faster.

 

[jetcone]

You're right Tom

the C-50 boiled much faster than the C-30 did and the C-30 is much much heavier than the C-50. That C-50 was mint 5 years ago when I put it into service! And I don't ever scrub my pots only use DIP IT. But that is just where cool coffee drips down after all the water goes up and that plate must be hot much hotter than the coffee dripping back down, so I figure the biggest culprit is temp differential between the plate and the coffee and that is enough to push the thermal expansion difference between the copper underneath and the chrome on top that it flakes.

Now how soon does the alzheimer set in?

 

[tomturbomatic]

When I used my C-50, I would unplug it as soon as the water started up to the top bowl. I think the C-50 used a sealed rod heating element. The earlier design Coffeemasters, or at least the earliest, used flat resistance wires looped in sort of a star-shaped pattern between sheets of mica for insulation and that cooled quicker.

 

[mixfinder]

Time Goes By So Slowly

Both vacuum makers and percolators by Sunbeam would loose the factory coating over time.  When Sunbeam was still an entity with local authorized repair outlets, resilvering was a common service Sunbeam offered.