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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. [1] 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. [2] 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. [3] The Bauhaus interpretation of this device can be seen in Gerhard Marcks' Sintrax coffee maker of 1925. [4] [5]
A vacuum coffee maker operates as a siphon, where heating and cooling the lower vessel changes the vapor pressure of water in the lower, first pushing the water up into the upper vessel, then allowing the water to fall back down into the lower vessel.
Specifically, once the water in lower chamber is hot enough that its vapor pressure (the pressure exerted by the vapour component of a liquid) exceeds the pressure of a standard atmosphere, some of it begins to boil, turning into water vapor. Since the density of water vapor is about 1/2000 that of liquid water, the mixture of the air and water vapor in the lower chamber quickly expands, and, when the new pressure exceeds atmospheric pressure, pushes the remaining water up the siphon tube into the upper chamber, where it remains so long as the pressure difference between the upper and lower chambers is sufficient to support it (about 1.5 kPa or 0.015 atm). This pressure difference is maintained during brewing through the continuous heating of the lower chamber. Coffee grinds are added to the water in the upper chamber.
When the coffee has finished brewing, the heat is removed and the pressure in the bottom vessel drops, so the combined force of gravity and atmospheric pressure overcomes the pressure of the bottom chamber, causing the brewed coffee to be pulled into the bottom chamber of the vacuum coffee maker, leaving the coffee grounds in the top chamber. [6]
The iconic Moka pot coffee maker functions on the same principle but the water is forced up from the bottom chamber through a third middle chamber containing the coffee grounds to the top chamber which has an air gap to prevent the brewed coffee from returning downwards. (Additionally, because the water is forced up through packed grounds, the pressures are greater.) The prepared coffee is then poured off from the top.
An early variation of this principle is called a balance siphon. This implementation has the two chambers arranged side by side on a balance-like device, with a counterweight attached to the heated chamber. [ citation needed ] Once the vapor has forced the hot water out, the counterweight activates a spring-loaded snuffer which smothers the flame and allows the initial chamber to cool down thus lowering pressure (creating a vacuum) and causing the brewed coffee to seep in.
In 2022, Japanese Tiger Corporation was working on an automated coffee-maker based on the vacuum coffee maker principle, the Siphonysta. [7] The Siphonysta's heating is electrical. The chambers are made of plastic ("resin").
Distillation, also classical distillation, is the process of separating the component substances of a liquid mixture of two or more chemically discrete substances; the separation process is realized by way of the selective boiling of the mixture and the condensation of the vapors in a still.
A French press, also known as a cafetière, cafetière à piston, caffettiera a stantuffo, press pot, coffee press, or coffee plunger, is a coffee brewing device, although it can also be used for other tasks. The earliest known device was patented in 1852 in France by Jacques-Victor Delforge and Henri-Otto Mayer.
Drip coffee is made by pouring hot water onto ground coffee beans, allowing it to brew. There are several methods for doing this, including using a filter. Terms used for the resulting coffee often reflect the method used, such as drip-brewed coffee, or, somewhat inaccurately, filtered coffee in general. Manually brewed drip coffee is typically referred to as pour-over coffee. Water seeps through the ground coffee, absorbing its constituent chemical compounds, and then passes through a filter. The used coffee grounds are retained in the filter, while the brewed coffee is collected in a vessel such as a carafe or pot.
In thermodynamics, superheating is the phenomenon in which a liquid is heated to a temperature higher than its boiling point, without boiling. This is a so-called metastable state or metastate, where boiling might occur at any time, induced by external or internal effects. Superheating is achieved by heating a homogeneous substance in a clean container, free of nucleation sites, while taking care not to disturb the liquid.
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.
An espresso machine brews coffee by forcing pressurized water near boiling point through a "puck" of ground coffee and a filter in order to produce a thick, concentrated coffee called espresso. Multiple machine designs have been created to produce espresso. Several machines share some common elements, such as a grouphead and a portafilter. An espresso machine may also have a steam wand which is used to steam and froth liquids for coffee drinks such as cappuccino and caffè latte.
A siphon is any of a wide variety of devices that involve the flow of liquids through tubes. In a narrower sense, the word refers particularly to a tube in an inverted "U" shape, which causes a liquid to flow upward, above the surface of a reservoir, with no pump, but powered by the fall of the liquid as it flows down the tube under the pull of gravity, then discharging at a level lower than the surface of the reservoir from which it came.
A heat pipe is a heat-transfer device that employs phase transition to transfer heat between two solid interfaces.
Mr. Coffee is a registered trademark of Newell Brands. The Mr. Coffee brand manufactures automatic drip-brew kitchen coffee machines, as well as other products. Founded in the early 1970s, Mr. Coffee has often been referenced in popular culture and has been promoted by celebrities such as Joe DiMaggio and Dave Kovack.
Vacuum evaporation is the process of causing the pressure in a liquid-filled container to be reduced below the vapor pressure of the liquid, causing the liquid to evaporate at a lower temperature than normal. Although the process can be applied to any type of liquid at any vapor pressure, it is generally used to describe the boiling of water by lowering the container's internal pressure below standard atmospheric pressure and causing the water to boil at room temperature.
Coffee preparation is the process of turning coffee beans into liquid coffee. While the particular steps vary with the type of coffee and with the raw materials, the process includes four basic steps: raw coffee beans must be roasted, the roasted coffee beans must then be ground, and the ground coffee must then be mixed with hot or cold water for a specific time (brewed), the liquid coffee extraction must be separated from the used grounds, and finally, if desired, the extracted coffee is combined with other elements of the desired beverage, such as sweeteners, dairy products, dairy alternatives, or toppings.
The moka pot is a stove-top or electric coffee maker that brews coffee by passing hot water driven by vapor pressure through ground coffee. Named after the Yemeni city of Mocha, it was invented by Italian engineer Luigi Di Ponti in 1933 who sold the patent to 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".
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.
The Minto wheel is a heat engine named after Wally Minto. The engine consists of a set of sealed chambers arranged in a circle, with each chamber connected to the chamber opposite it. One chamber in each connected pair is filled with a liquid with a low boiling point. Ideally, the working fluid also has a high vapor pressure and density.
In chemistry, a condenser is laboratory apparatus used to condense vapors – that is, turn them into liquids – by cooling them down.
Reflux is a technique involving the condensation of vapors and the return of this condensate to the system from which it originated. It is used in industrial and laboratory distillations. It is also used in chemistry to supply energy to reactions over a long period of time.
A hand boiler or love meter is a glass sculpture used as an experimental tool to demonstrate vapour-liquid equilibrium, or as a collector's item to whimsically "measure love." It consists of a lower bulb containing a volatile liquid and a mixture of gases that is connected usually by a twisting glass tube that connects to an upper or "receiving" glass bulb.
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.