Vintage coffee maker? Do you use one?

[drocu]

I was thinking about all of the fine vintage shaving equipment I have and was wondering about my other love: coffee.

Does anyone use a vintage coffee maker of any type (drip, percolator, espresso, etc.)? Or vintage coffee grinder?

Are there any pro's/con's to using this stuff? I've broken more than a few modern coffee makers due to shoddy materials.

 

[BigBull]

I was thinking about all of the fine vintage shaving equipment I have and was wondering about my other love: coffee.

Does anyone use a vintage coffee maker of any type (drip, percolator, espresso, etc.)? Or vintage coffee grinder?

Are there any pro's/con's to using this stuff? I've broken more than a few modern coffee makers due to shoddy materials.

If you love coffee, go buy yourself a French Press.

 

[JPDyson]

I was thinking about all of the fine vintage shaving equipment I have and was wondering about my other love: coffee.

Does anyone use a vintage coffee maker of any type (drip, percolator, espresso, etc.)? Or vintage coffee grinder?

Are there any pro's/con's to using this stuff? I've broken more than a few modern coffee makers due to shoddy materials.

Howdy! Lots of folks dig old vacuum pot (siphon) coffee makers, and vintage expresso machines are a big deal. Not so much the percolators, because they make bad coffee. As for grinders, I've seen several vintage manual mills here and there. Kinda cool, but I wonder about the performance.

 

[Commander Quan]

I have 2 Cory Vac posts. The one that I use was brand new and in an unopened box. It came from my great aunts house from when my dad and his cousins were cleaning her house after she went into a nursing home. I bought a second to keep as a replacement just i encase the globe or carafe gets broken.

 

[zethreal]

After years of bad drip-coffee, I tried a pot of french pressed coffee & will never go back. I've wanted, but never purchased a vacuum set to experiment with, but have always had other things come up. Whether it's vintage or new, if it works & brews coffee, you're good to go. The main thing you'd want to look out for using a vintage mill/grinder is rust on the grinding part. If there's any rust, you would need to tear it down & either get rid of the rust or replace the parts. Rust tastes nasty and can harbor some pretty nasty things.

 

[brucea]

I have a vintage percolator. I do use it on occasion. Been a while since I used it so I will hold off on a review. I will say the one nice thing and a surprise for me was that even though it is quite old it still has a function to keep the coffee warm

 

[The Nid Hog]

We usually use a vacuum pot or a French press at home, but I have a percolator that belonged to my folks. It must be from around WWII. Once in a while I get it out and clean it up to see if it still works. It does, and the coffee is as terrible as it always was. Back it goes into the cupboard until the next time to check it out rolls around.

 

[zethreal]

percolators don't make coffee... they make swamp sludge from coffee grounds. In my experience anyways... ymmv

 

[Jclifton]

Hmm a vintage grinder would be the tops, I will have to scout one out. I have a French press that I use a lot, but when I am lazy I use the keurig I got for Christmas, which is excellent when I use my own coffee, hmmmm think I will go make a cup shortly.

 

[Arved]

I have a Bunn. Restaraunt style coffee in your own home. Full pot in less than 3 minutes.

Two keys to good coffee are the coffee itself (tastes vary wildly - from the ultra mild Folgers to the ultra dark Pete's coffee), and to remove the filter when done brewing.

The downside is you have to make coffee one pot at a time, but my wife will typically go through a full pot by herself if I'm not around, and we'll frequently go through two or more pots a day together on the weekends.

If there's anything to beat it, it would be a French press. It certainly is inexpensive enough to try.

 

[shammer]

I have an old percolator that belonged to my grandmother, but it hasn't been used in decades. My Mom & Dad used a Chemex back in the 70's, but I suspect that isn't old enough to be considered "vintage".

 

[EricBNC]

I picked up a Melitta ACM-10a auto drip the other day at Goodwill while passing through Greensboro. Someone on eBay is trying to sell an advertisement dated 1982 featuring this exact brewer for ten bucks - maybe I should offer to email .jpg's of the real deal for fifty cents...

For my B&B friends, the image is on the house!



This thing has drops falling into the carafe at 190 degrees in 30 seconds, and finishes neck and neck with my Bonavita BV-1800. Considering the Bonavita's heritage (this brewer), its not so surprising.

 

[AACJ]

Since I've gotten my AeroPress, I haven't been able to go back to drip, or anything else for that matter.

 

[takeshi]

Are there any pro's/con's to using this stuff?

Depends on the specific piece of equipment (they're not all identical) and your tastes. What are you considering?

 

[drocu]

Depends on the specific piece of equipment (they're not all identical) and your tastes. What are you considering?

I'm not really, just curious. The vacuum style coffee makers sound interesting. I do have a French press which I thoroughly enjoy.

 

[Arved]

Since I've gotten my AeroPress, I haven't been able to go back to drip, or anything else for that matter.

That looks interesting. I think I'll try one. Thanks for the suggestion. I've put it on my Amazon wish list. I use my wish list to pad smaller orders to get free shipping.

"Ships in Certified Frustration-Free Packaging" - LOL! I never seen that before!

 

[Slash McCoy]

If your perk coffee sucks you aren't doing it right.

First of all, don't fill it up to the mark with water. 2/3 up to the mark is about right.

Second, start with cold water.

Third, use a medium to coarse grind. A filter halps reduce the sludge but purists will hold their noses.

Fourth, use a small burner if you have a choice. You want the heat concentrated in the middle, and you don't want high heat. The idea is to spot heat where it will do the most good, where it will push water up the tube and onto the basket.

Fifth, use enough coffee. And pre-wet it.

Sixth, don't over-perk it. You don't want the coffee to keep passing through the grinds over and over and over for 10 minutes. That will give you awful coffee.

Seventh, don't try to keep it hot on the burner for more than a half hour. All the aroma just evaporates. Pre-heat a thermos or insulated carafe with boiling water and decant your coffee into this after you pour your first cup. It will still be good for a couple of hours.

We used to find the old enameled creole style drip pots in the thrift stores, and they made some good coffee. The basket holes were pretty big so you had to grind pretty coarse, pre-wet the grounds with very hot water, and drip it through very slowly. You would still have a little mud in the bottom but we just decided it was a good thing and drank it down to the mud. Cafe au lait with Luzianne or French Market made in those pots was a classic start for the day. As Doc would say, those pots had "mojo".

 

[GarageBoy]

Odd thing for me is, for all the stuff I love in vintage form, kitchen gadgets never did a thing for me.
Maybe a La Marzocco GS/2

 

[ironfisted]

The French press was first patented in 1929, so I guess that counts as vintage. I use one almost every day and love it. But I don't love it as much as my Saeco espresso machine, which I definitely use every day.

 

[Domminigan]

My friend gave me a new Coleman perk pot to replace my Grandparent's 50's perk pot that developed a hole in it. Like Slash said, use a heavy grind, lower heat, watch the time and don't over-perk. It's not the easiest way to make coffee, but it's a fun way to brew up some coffee in the mornings!