HONEY IM HOME!!!

[mr_sparkle]

Hi gang, im back wit ya all, sorry I havent been about for ages, but you know how it is!

Anyway youll be seeing me more now im home. I have been chatting now and then to my beloved toggleswitch, so havnt been completly out of it!

Hmm ok appliance chat, well I just ordered a new coffee percolator, but am a little annoyed you cannot buy traditional ones in England anymore, this is the closest thing I can get , what do you all think? I HATE those filter makers, and yes I know all about how you should make coffee but isnt perc'd coffee just the best? its SO HOT!!!! I dunno maybe I carnt tell the difference but I really dont taste any burnt oils and bitter coffee when i drink Perc coffee - what you all think , and drink?

Anyone used this Dualit perc before?

http://www.beststuff.co.uk/dualit_percolator.htm

 

[sudsmaster]

I haven't tried the Dualit perc, but I do have a big 40 cup Delonghi stainless percolator for large gatherings etc. I like it for several reasons: with good fresh ground coffee, it makes a tasty brew; it has a row of lights that indicate how long the coffee has been sitting - sort of a freshness indicator; it has a real glass percolator top, so you can actually see as well as hear the coffee brewing.

Unfortunately, I usually drink only a couple of cups of coffee a day, so most of the time this unit sits in its original box on a shelf, awaiting the next gathering. But it does quite nicely when needed.

Which leads me to believe that it's not the coffee maker that makes the biggest difference - it's the coffee beans and how they are ground. I always use quality whole beans, roasted at a local facility, and I grind them fresh daily for use in the coffee maker. For daily use I use a small Melitta 2 cup brewer - it works great with small conical paper filters, and beats any office coffee made with pre-packaged pre-ground beans.

 

[panthera]

Rich

You got that right: Which leads me to believe that it's not the coffee maker that makes the biggest difference - it's the coffee beans and how they are ground.
I agree 100%. Good beans, freshly ground and brewed will taste good in a percolator. Or a filter. Or an espresso machine.
Or, boiled in water till they foam up thrice, then poured directly into the cup. Maybe the best of all.
My first visit to England in the 1980s left me convinced the English had not the slightest idea how to make a decent cup of coffee.
By the early 1990s this had changed - my last visit left me wondering if they could be pursuaded to share their secret with the rest of the world.
Wonder if it has anything to do with Princess Di and the decadent Blair government?
(ducks and runs fast)

 

[mr_sparkle]

Grrrr

Dont get me started on Blair!!! LoL

This whole boiling up the coffee 3 times till it foams thing - that cowboy coffee aint it?

 

[kirk280980]

Regarding drip coffee never being hot enough, I think this is something that has got worse in recent years with coffee machines becoming cheaper and more plasticky. They always seem to turn out a brew that is either just very warm or barely hot, and the coffee tastes "thin" with no real guts to it.

Best filter machines I've ever come across are the Technivorm Moccamaster series. Expensive and ugly, but at over 1400 watts they do turn out great coffee and it's scorching hot too. Personally I use the Bosch Solitaire filter machine, which brews equally as well and shares far too many similarities to be purely a coincidence - if it's not made for them by Technivorm, then it's an excellent copy, although Bosch wouldn't tell when I asked.

Moccamaster USA: Premium Pour-Over Coffee Brewers

Coffee brewers handmade in the Netherlands out of high-quality, sustainable materials, built to last a lifetime. Dedicated to seeking the real taste of coffee.

www.technivorm.com

 

[sudsmaster]

Convential wisdom has it that coffee is best brewed with water just below boiling point. Such as 190F (88 Celcius). Such a temp, when added to a cold carafe, will perhaps not be warm enough, as it cools further when added to a cold cup. A solution is to pre-warm the carafe so that the coffee doesn't lose heat as it drips. I routinely do this with my Melitta 2 cup drip machine. I pre-warm a 2 cup stainless travel mug (it's huge) with hot water before brewing. Then I pour a cup into a nice Corelle cup, and it's just about perfect temperature.

What's really bad is leaving the carafe on one of those older unregulated drip hot plates. This tends to overheat the coffee which seems to give it a baked, rancid taste after a while. Most office coffee tastes like that, and it's already inferior due to pre-ground pre-packaged grounds of uncertain provenance.

I visited Ireland in '96 and I don't recall drinking any remarkable coffee there. But the Guinness in a real pub was extraordinary.

 

[panthera]

ah, but when you can have Guinness, who wants coffee...

...why would the Irish - or the Scots for that matter, have to learn how to make good coffee?
They have better things to drink.
Seriously, "cowboy coffee" or "Turkish" or "Greek Mocha" or Middle Eastern everywhere...the three times foamy and then quickly into the cup produces a wonderful tasting arabica...too bitter with robusta.
Try it - use a fine mesh filter and let me know what you think -
(I know the just below boiling rule, too. Here in Germany there are machines imported exclusively from Italy (which apparantly is a city on the Yellow River) that actually provide a digital readout "proving" they run at the optimal temperature, just below boiling.
Beats me - but I do know that the oil in coffee turns rancid in less than 20 minutes after grinding. Which is why you either keep it packed away air-tight (in the freezer is said to be best) and only grind the beans you need for right this moment - or you have bitter brew.
The whole robusta/arabica fight is silly - you need both for some blends, only arabica for others.

 

[gadgetgary]

Perk Prince(ss)

Mr. Sparkle,

Perking is my specialty. Have in my collection well over 150 perks.....and IMHO, they make the BEST and the HOTTEST brew...unlike the P**S warm brew from those drips.
Everythign from Faberware to Corning to Universal to Proctor Silex and beyond....you cannot miss with a percolator. And that little action in the viewable top is hypnotizing.

Gary