Coffee percolator

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Electric percolator Perkulator.jpg
Electric percolator

A coffee percolator is a type of pot used for the brewing of coffee by continually cycling the boiling or nearly boiling brew through the grounds using gravity until the required strength is reached. The grounds are held in a perforated metal filter basket. [1]

Contents

Coffee percolators once enjoyed great popularity but were supplanted in the early 1970s by automatic drip-brew coffeemakers. Percolators often expose the grounds to higher temperatures than other brewing methods, and may recirculate already brewed coffee through the beans. As a result, coffee brewed with a percolator is particularly susceptible to overextraction. However, percolator enthusiasts maintain that the potential pitfalls of this brewing method can be eliminated by careful control of the brewing procedures.

Brewing process

Cross-section of a coffee percolator Coffee Percolator Cutaway Diagram.svg
Cross-section of a coffee percolator
A disassembled electric coffee percolator Perkulator2.jpg
A disassembled electric coffee percolator

A coffee percolator consists of a pot with a chamber at the bottom which is nearest to the heat source. A removable vertical tube leads from there to the top of the percolator. Just below the upper end of this tube is a perforated metal filter "basket" to hold the grounds to be brewed.

Water is poured into the pot, keeping the level below the bottom of the basket, and the desired amount of a fairly coarse-ground coffee is placed in the basket.

The percolator is placed on a range or stove, heating the water in the bottom chamber. Water at the very bottom of the chamber gets hot first and starts to boil. The boiling creates bubbles of steam that are directed up the vertical tube, pushing hot water along with it up and out the top of the tube in a process similar to the principle behind a gas lift pump. [2] The hot water hits the underside of the lid, and flows out and over the inner lid of the coffee basket. Perforations in the inner lid distribute the water over the top of the coffee grounds in the basket. From there the freshly brewed coffee drips into the gradually warming water below. This whole cycle repeats continuously, making the characteristic intermittent "perking" sound of the hot water hitting the underside of the lid.

As the brewing coffee nears the boiling point, the "perking" sound becomes a continuous gurgle, signaling that the coffee is ready to drink. In a manual percolator the pot is removed from the stove or the heat reduced to stop the percolation. Brewed coffee left continuously percolating at the boiling point will over extract, making the resulting coffee harsh and excessively bitter.

Some coffee percolators have an integral electric heating element and are not used on a stove. Most of these automatically reduce the heat at the end of the brewing phase, keeping the coffee at drinking temperature but not boiling.

Inventor

The first modern percolator incorporating the rising of boiling water through a tube to form a continuous cycle and capable of being heated on a kitchen stove was invented in 1819 by the Parisian tinsmith Joseph-Henry-Marie Laurens. [3] Its principle was then often copied and modified. There were also attempts to produce closed systems, in other words "pressure cookers".

The first US patent for a coffee percolator was issued to James Nason of Franklin, Massachusetts, in 1865, U.S. patent 51,741 . This mechanism did not use the conventional percolation method as described above.

An Illinois farmer named Hanson Goodrich patented the modern U.S. stove-top percolator as it is known today, and he was granted U.S. patent 408,707 on 13 August 1889. It had the key elements of a conventional percolator: the broad base for boiling, the upflow central tube and a perforated basket hanging on it. Goodrich's design could transform any standard coffee pot of the day into a stove-top percolator. Subsequent patents have added very little.

Electric percolators have been in production since at least the first decade of the 20th Century with General Electric, Schenectady, New York, publishing a 6 - page pamphlet titled "Coffee Making By Electricity" in 1905. Automatic percolators have been available since the 1940s or earlier.

Usage

Large percolators, called coffee urns, are often found in use at offices, cafeterias, community events, church gatherings and other large group activities where large quantities of coffee are needed at one time.

Percolators are also popular among campers and other nature enthusiasts because of their ability to make coffee without electricity, although a simple filter holder can also be used with boiled water poured from a pot. Non-pressure percolators may also be used with paper filters.

Improvements

The method for making coffee in a percolator had changed very little since the introduction of the electric percolator in the early part of the 20th century. However, in 1970 commercially available "ground coffee filter rings" were introduced to the market. The coffee filter rings were designed for use in percolators, and each ring contained a pre-measured amount of coffee grounds that were sealed in a self-contained paper filter. The sealed rings resembled the shape of a doughnut, and the small hole in the middle of the ring enabled the coffee filter ring to be placed in the metal percolator basket around the protruding convection (percolator) tube.

Prior to the introduction of pre-measured self-contained ground coffee filter rings, fresh coffee grounds were measured out in scoopsful and placed into the metal percolator basket. This process enabled small amounts of coffee grounds to leak into the fresh coffee. Additionally, the process left wet grounds in the percolator basket. The benefit of the pre-packed coffee filter rings was two-fold: First, because the amount of coffee contained in the rings was pre-measured, it negated the need to measure each scoop and then place it in the metal percolator basket. Second, the filter paper was strong enough to hold all the coffee grounds within the sealed paper. After use, the coffee filter ring could be easily removed from the basket and discarded. This relieved the consumer from the task of cleaning out the wet coffee grounds from the percolator basket.

A German percolator named Neuerer Aromator in urn form Aromator (Urnenform).JPG
A German percolator named Neuerer Aromator in urn form

While most percolators use metal filter baskets the Neuerer Aromators used double-layered cross-slitted porcelain filters [4] similar to those in Karlsbad-style coffee makers, not requiring any paper ring filters.

Decline

With better brands of instant coffee and the introduction of the electric drip coffee maker, the popularity of percolators plummeted in the early 1970s, and so did the market for the self-contained ground coffee filters. In 1976, General Foods discontinued the manufacture of Max Pax, and by the end of the decade, even generic ground coffee filter rings were no longer available. However, as of 2019, coffee percolator filters are still produced by the major coffee device maker Melitta and are readily available in stores and from online sources.

Terminology and unrelated brewing methods

The name "percolator" is derived from the word "percolate" which means "to cause (a solvent) to pass through a permeable substance especially for extracting a soluble constituent". [5] In the case of coffee-brewing the solvent is water, the permeable substance is the coffee grounds, and the soluble constituents are the chemical compounds that give coffee its color, taste, aroma, and stimulating properties.

While many popular brewing methods and devices use percolation to make coffee, the term "percolator" narrowly refers to devices similar to the stove-top coffee pots developed by Hanson Goodrich mentioned above. [6] His percolator was one of the earliest coffee brewing devices to use percolation rather than infusion or decoction as its mode of extraction, and he named it accordingly. Other brewing methods based on percolation followed, and this early naming convention can cause confusion with other percolation methods.

A moka pot uses pressure and does not recirculate coffee into the brewing process. Moka Animation.gif
A moka pot uses pressure and does not recirculate coffee into the brewing process.

In 1813, Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford published his essay, "Of the Excellent Qualities of Coffee", in which he disclosed several designs for percolation methods which would now be most closely related to drip brewing. [7]

Siphon brewers appeared in the early 1830s. [8] Using a combination of infusion and percolation, they were the first development in coffee percolation. However, the complex, fragile devices remained a curiosity. Siphon brewing relies on vapor pressure to raise water from a pressure chamber up to the brewing chamber where the coffee is infused. Once the heat source has been removed from the pressure chamber, the atmosphere within cools, lowering the pressure and drawing the coffee through a filter and back into the pressure chamber. Distinctions from percolator brewing include the fact that the majority of the extraction takes place during the infusion phase (as an immersion brewer) and that the water is not recycled through the grounds.

Filter drip brewing (invented 1908, Melitta Bentz [9] ) uses a bed of coffee grounds placed in a holder with a filter to prevent passage of the grounds into the filtrate and hot water is passed through the grounds by gravity. This is distinct from percolator brewing due to the fact that the water is not recycled through the grounds, and the water does not have to be boiled to reach the brew chamber. (In many automatic drip machines, the water is boiled or nearly boiled to raise it through a tube to the brewing chamber, but this is an implementation detail specific to those machines, and not required by the process, which was first used manually.)

Moka brewing (invented 1933, Alfonso Bialetti [10] ) uses a bed of coffee grounds placed in a filter basket between a pressure chamber and receptacle. Vapor pressure above the water heated in the pressure chamber forces the water through the grounds, past the filter, and into the receptacle. The amount of vapor pressure that builds up, and the temperature reached, are dependent on the grind and packing ("tamping") of the grounds. This is distinct from percolator brewing in that pressure, rather than gravity, moves the water through the grounds; that the water is not recycled through the grounds; and that the water does not have to be boiled to reach the brew chamber. In the South of Europe, in countries like Italy or Spain, the domestic use of the moka expanded quickly and completely substituted the percolator by the end of the 1930s.

Since both percolator and drip brewing were available and popular in the North American market throughout the 20th century, there is little confusion in the United States and Canada between these methods. However, moka pots have only recently become readily available in that market; and vendors and customers alike often conflate moka pots with percolators, [11] despite their fairly disparate mechanics and results.

See also

Related Research Articles

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">French press</span> Coffee brewing device

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Drip coffee</span> Drink made by pouring hot water onto ground coffee beans

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coffee filter</span> Coffee brewing utensil

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Espresso machine</span> Device used to brew espresso coffee

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Indian filter coffee</span> Drink made with coffee and milk

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mr. Coffee</span> American coffee machine brand

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Neapolitan flip coffee pot</span> Flip-over coffeemaker that relies on gravity

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coffee preparation</span> Process of turning coffee beans into a beverage

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vacuum coffee maker</span> Device used to brew coffee

A vacuum coffee maker brews coffee using two chambers where vapor pressure and gravity produce coffee. This type of coffee maker is also known as vac pot, siphon or syphon coffee maker, and was invented by Loeff of Berlin in the 1830s. These devices have since been used for more than a century in many parts of the world. Design and composition of the vacuum coffee maker varies. The chamber material is borosilicate glass, metal, or plastic, and the filter can be either a glass rod or a screen made of metal, cloth, paper, or nylon. The Napier Vacuum Machine by James Robert Napier, presented in 1840, was an early example of this technique. While vacuum coffee makers generally were excessively complex for everyday use, they were prized for producing a clear brew, and were quite popular until the middle of the twentieth century. Vacuum coffee makers remain popular in some parts of Asia, including Japan and Taiwan. The Bauhaus interpretation of this device can be seen in Gerhard Marcks' Sintrax coffee maker of 1925.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Moka pot</span> Device used for brewing coffee

The moka pot is a stove-top or electric coffee maker that brews coffee by passing hot water driven by vapor pressure and heat-driven gas expansion through ground coffee. Named after the Yemeni city of Mocha, it was invented by Italian engineer Otello Amleto Spadini in 1937 who had an agreement with Alfonso Bialetti, an aluminum vendor. It quickly became one of the staples of Italian culture. Bialetti Industries continues to produce the original model under the trade name "Moka Express".

Alfonso Bialetti was an Italian engineer who became famous for manufacturing the Triplerapid Miracol 900 which he modified and sold as Moka Express coffeemaker in the 1950s. Designed in 1937 by Otello Amleto Spadini, the coffee pot has been a style icon since the 1950s. While many variations of the Moka have been developed, including the Bialetti cow-printed Mukka Express, the original remains a time-honoured classic. Bialetti was also the founder of Bialetti Industries, now an Italian kitchen-ware company. The Bialetti brand is now owned by Bradshaw International, which manufactures and sells Bialetti brand kitchen-ware.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Melitta Bentz</span> German entrepreneur and inventor of the coffee filter

Amalie Auguste Melitta Bentz, born Amalie Auguste Melitta Liebscher, was a German entrepreneur who invented the paper coffee filter in 1908. She founded the company Melitta, which still operates under family control.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">AeroPress</span> Manual coffee brewer (developed 2004)

The AeroPress is a manual coffeemaker invented by Alan Adler, founder of AeroPress, Inc. It consists of a cylindrical chamber, and a plunger with an airtight silicone seal, similar to a syringe. Ground coffee beans and water are steeped inside, then forced through a filter at the bottom of the chamber by pressing the plunger down through the chamber. It is capable of brewing highly concentrated coffee, which the manufacturer describes as "espresso style", but can also be used to brew filter strength coffee, or cold brew coffee.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Single-serve coffee container</span> Soft or hard container filled with a single portion of coffee grounds for brewing

A single-serve coffee container is a container filled with coffee grounds, used in coffee brewing to prepare only enough coffee for a single portion. Single-serve coffee containers come in various formats and materials, often either as hard and soft pods or pads made of filter paper, or hard aluminium and plastic capsules.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coffeemaker</span> Cooking appliance used to brew coffee

A coffeemaker, coffee maker or coffee machine is a cooking appliance used to brew coffee. While there are many different types of coffeemakers, the two most common brewing principles use gravity or pressure to move hot water through coffee grounds. In the most common devices, coffee grounds are placed into a paper or metal filter inside a funnel, which is set over a glass or ceramic coffee pot, a cooking pot in the kettle family. Cold water is poured into a separate chamber, which is then boiled and directed into the funnel and allowed to drip through the grounds under gravity. This is also called automatic drip-brew. Coffee makers that use pressure to force water through the coffee grounds are called espresso makers, and they produce espresso coffee.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chorreador</span> Coffee-making device in Costa Rica

A chorreador is a coffee making device used in Costa Rica in which hot water leaches through coffee grounds held in a cloth filter mounted on a wooden stand, then drips into a container.

"System Büttner" coffee makers have been a type of manual and semi-automatic coffee makers combining coffee steeping with drip-filtering (percolation).

References

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  2. "What Is A Coffee Percolator And How Does It Work?". 2019. Retrieved 2019-06-09.
  3. pootoogoo (2015-03-05). "Elevator to espresso (Episode 3)". The black blob spot. Retrieved 2017-07-02.
  4. "Neuerer, Aromator Modell 3, Decor 1286, Underside of filter part, manufactured in the 1950s". Archived from the original on 2023-08-06. Retrieved 2023-08-06.
  5. "percolate". Merriam Webster. 2008. Retrieved 2008-01-09.
  6. "Inventor Goodrich Was in Our Town". Times-Leader, McLeansboro, Illinois. 1968. Retrieved 2013-05-29.
  7. The Complete Works of Count Rumford, Volume 5. American Academy of Arts and Sciences. 1812. Retrieved 2013-05-29.
  8. "The Historical Development of the Vacuum Coffee Pot". 2001. Retrieved 2013-05-29.
  9. "About Melitta Bentz". Archived from the original on 2013-05-29. Retrieved 2013-05-29.
  10. "The Origins of Bialetti". Bialetti Industrie S.p.A. Archived from the original on 2012-07-19. Retrieved 2013-05-29.
  11. "How To Make Coffee Using A Stovetop Percolator". Homegrounds.co. 2020-04-28. Retrieved 2020-12-12.