Sciencemadness Discussion Board - French press vs Percolated coffee

French press vs Percolated coffee

Yttrium2 - 4-4-2018 at 08:31

The moka pot is very similar to siphon coffee and common drip style coffee pots. The water passes through the coffee in these devices generally only once.

In a French press / Percolater
It steeps in the water and or water goes around and around in againr, possibly losing volume each time, which might be good.

this is the immersion way of making coffee. Yet?, my guess is a percolated brew is stronger because hotter water touches the beans?

Which device works best with fine' groun'?

[Edited on 4/4/2018 by Yttrium2]

clearly_not_atara - 4-4-2018 at 09:49

For finely ground beans you want to use a percolator. French press / pour over coffee makers work better with a coarser grind.

Truth is, if you're interested in improving your coffee experience I think it's more important to freshly grind your beans in the morning rather than worrying about the coffeemaker. I use a $2 plastic pour over together with this baby:

https://www.amazon.com/Capresso-559-04-Coffee-Burr-Grinder/d...

For french press / pour over / coffeemaker / Chemex / other coarse styles, usually a cheap grinder like this one will do fine. Make sure you buy a burr grinder and not a blade grinder. Blade grinders are a rip-off: it seems cheap at first but you have to replace the blade so much it quickly becomes more expensive. I've been using this coffee grinder for three years with no problems and no replacements: that's what you want. For espresso / moka pot / percolator other finely-ground high-pressure coffee, you might want a more expensive grinder.

I could never go back to pre-ground coffee. Actually I did buy a bag of ground coffee recently while I was away on a trip and it just isn't the same.

happyfooddance - 4-4-2018 at 09:57

I agree with everything that clearly_not_atara said, but I will add that temperature is super crucial. Some beans (ground) will release significantly more tannins if brewed even a few degrees hotter, even for steep times as low as 3 minutes. Water at its BP does not make great coffee. Everybody's taste preference is different (I myself enjoy "bitter" much more than the next guy, but...), I have seen that people most enjoy coffee that is brewed around 80°C or lower.

aga - 4-4-2018 at 10:20

sounds like that comment is culled from ..... this :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJ83kt4a2-A

happyfooddance - 4-4-2018 at 10:25

Quote: Originally posted by aga

sounds like that comment is culled from ..... this :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJ83kt4a2-A

But it isn't. It's culled from 20+ years of making coffee every day... Professionally and personally. And about 5 years of studying separation science.

As if one could learn to make coffee from that show, which, despite the subject matter being a chemical, is utterly devoid of anything of interest to a chemist.

Edit: FYI, almost all coffee roasters (Starbucks, Seattle's best, Peet's, and most others) have professional coffee experts on their staff; if you call their customer service number they will connect you with them. They will discuss and help you troubleshoot brewing issues, specific to your roast. They will ask you about your brewing equipment, temperature, concentration, purity of water, etc... And they will lead you to the perfect cup.

Sigma Aldrich has pretty much the same service. It's like a direct line to Nicodem, almost. But without the trolls.

[Edited on 4-4-2018 by happyfooddance]

clearly_not_atara - 4-4-2018 at 11:09

Alton Brown did an episode of Good Eats about espresso where he elaborates on the importance of grinders and temperature control. He also discusses espresso machines (duh) because that's how he likes it I guess. Might be a slightly better reference than some guy who can't reduce nitromethane

happyfooddance - 4-4-2018 at 11:17

Quote: Originally posted by clearly_not_atara

Alton Brown did an episode of Good Eats about espresso where he elaborates on the importance of grinders and temperature control. He also discusses espresso machines (duh) because that's how he likes it I guess. Might be a slightly better reference than some guy who can't reduce nitromethane

Out of curiosity, who can't reduce nitromethane? Doesn't seem like much of a challenge. That being said, I doubt anybody on the food network would know how to reduce nitromethane.

aga - 4-4-2018 at 13:08

I do no know how to reduce nitromethane.

Guess i could google, but at this very moment, i have very little idea how that would be done, nor what the result(s) would be.

Edit:

It would be nice to be informed.

Disassociater: i also have no idea what the 'food channel' is, unless it starts with Shopping and ends with toilet paper (some biology happens inbetween).

[Edited on 4-4-2018 by aga]

Yttrium2 - 4-4-2018 at 14:07

Why does fine grind work better in a percolator?

Which filters the best between a percolator and a French press. My guess is it's the Percolater because of the gap between in the French press, between the filter and the wall of of the device.

Also percolators can include paper filters, so it can be better filtered than regular camp style no filter percolation.

Which would you recommend and why?

Also, which device uses the least water to brew? (I mean which is better at extracting using the least amount of water) My guess is that drip coffee is more potent because the grounds are washed and washed again with fresh water (I think I mean drip coffee is a more efficient extract!?)

Please answer the above question.

Anyone ever make coffee in a soxhlet?

[Edited on 4/4/2018 by Yttrium2]

Chemetix - 4-4-2018 at 14:36

This one has taken up considerable amounts of my time getting right.
French press makes insipid coffee to my tastes, and the ever present stovetop percolators with the screw together sections, you know the hexagonal ones, make a overly bitter brew. But the screw together ones make a quick coffee and with a bit of attention to detail they make an excellent coffee.

Most people screw them together after dumping in some water and spoon or two of whatever coffee grinds and them boil them until there's steam bubbling out the top.
Wrong!

1) add the right amount of water relative to the amount of coffee, measure it!
2) add the coffee at the right particle size why this is important will be explained.
3) don't let the water boil.

The best coffee will have a trace of the bitter polyphenols and tannins but not too much, they become mobile above about 90C or so I'm told. So try to keep the water in the extraction process below this or ever so briefly over. So run the percolator on low heat, watch the stream come over, and when a trace of bubbles appear move the percolator over into a source of cooling water and stop the water from getting to boiling. Back pressure will affect the boiling point, don't over pack the coffee with small particles that leads to higher back pressure and higher temperatures. Don't make them too coarse either, they wont extract properly.

Keep this in mind next time and experiment with what you favourite coffee tastes like by letting the final touch of heat go a little longer or shorter.

Bon appetite!

Yttrium2 - 4-4-2018 at 15:10

Enough lecturing, please stick to the questions I am asking in this thread.

Im talking about a regular percolator that recirculates the hot coffee through the grounds.

Not a stove top moka pot. These only pass the solvent through the beans one time, but its similar to drip coffee in the sense that it might be an efficient extraction because its sorta like several washes of beans as the water passes through,

but with a percolator, the coffee recirculates over the beans again, when the device is opened there is a lot of coffee soaked up in the grounds which is holding onto the caffiene.

as opposed to a drip brew coffee where the grounds aren't soaking up the coffee, but the coffee drips through

Do people see what I'm saying about how in a traditional percolator, the coffee grounds are holding onto a lot of multi brewed coffee whereas in a drip brew coffee device, the grounds are repeatedly flushed with fresh solvent. --- So that in this device, it does a good job at getting the caffiene from the beans.
comments here please.

[Edited on 4/4/2018 by Yttrium2]

[Edited on 4/4/2018 by Yttrium2]

Yttrium2 - 4-4-2018 at 15:30

percolator produces a concentrated brew, but some of the caffiene is still in the grounds

whereas

drip system - several washes of the beans have been done, leaving less potent grounds behind

In summary, drip coffee and or likely a moka pot uses more water but gets all the goodies

A moka pots use wasn't occuring to me earlier because I wasn't seeing how the beans get flushed till there is hardly anything remaning, like in a drip system.. I should realized it..

[Edited on 4/4/2018 by Yttrium2]

Yttrium2 - 4-4-2018 at 15:38

If a precipitate was produced when percolating something, would it get sucked up and end up in the filter at the top of the basket?

also, check out the bialetti mini express !

[Edited on 4/5/2018 by Yttrium2]

Chemetix - 4-4-2018 at 17:56

Please forgive passion for coming across as "lecturing". But a "regular" percolator is not regular here, we don't see the recirculating ones so my idea about what you are referring to was different.

But as for extraction, caffeine is highly soluble in water, many of the flavour components are less so. Running extended extraction will just make an unbalanced flavoured coffee. You say there is left over caffeine in percolated coffee, I was led to understand otherwise so I'm interested in your source on that point.

But there is a different cultural perception about what makes a 'good' coffee, Australians generally can't stand the American coffee pot style coffee. Italian espresso style is something Australians are more aligned with but culturally we like our flat white.

And yes I've Soxhlet extracted coffee and it tastes weird.

j_sum1 - 4-4-2018 at 19:54

What Chemetix describes is a stovetop espresso rather than a percolator. I haven't seen one of those in ages - they are good if you like stewed coffee. If you are going to do that you may as well boil your grounds with the water for a while and then filter.

The thing about these espresso gadgets is that there are a fairly large number of variables that you need to get right. And only one variable that you "measure" -- the final taste. This means that over time you develop a knack for getting the kind of brew you like but exactly what conditions produce that brew is difficult to nail down.

Beans vary considerably -- both the bean flavour and the roasting. My latest bag of beans is from a different source and I have had to adjust my method considerably.
Fineness of grind -- this is related to the roasting process since a dark roast bean is more brittle, has fewer oils and breaks up differently.
Rato of beans to water. I have several stovetop coffee makers and most simply don't get the proportion right. Running it only partially full does not always give the right result.
Tamping the grind -- this affects the pressure at which the extraction takes place. It also affects the temperature and the rate of the extraction.
Heat input -- I am going to disagree with Chemetix that the temperature varies a whole lot -- the system is driven by a head of steam and so the remaining water is close to 100C. But the rate at which the steam is produced combined with the fineness of teh grind and the tamping affects the volume flow rate and hence the lengtyh of time that the water is in contact with the beans.

I know this is all off topic since this is not the device the OP was asking about. But it does serve to show that these kind of cullinary processes are surprisingly complex. And with only dependent variable (taste), and that subjective, coffee making is definitely more of an art than a science.

Yttrium2 - 4-4-2018 at 20:19

Definitely...

Yttrium2 - 4-4-2018 at 21:09

Hey! : l

JJay - 4-4-2018 at 22:47

I like regular espresso made by putting small amounts of boiling water through coarsely ground coffee. Supposedly, the caffeine is more soluble in water than some of the off-flavored compounds like tannins. Diluted espresso is called an Americano for some reason, although Americans typically just drink brewed coffee.

j_sum1 - 4-4-2018 at 23:22

That sounds similar to the Vietnamese method Jjay. Look up chemplayer's tiramisu recipe for a great-looking extraction. Mouthwatering stuff.

JJay - 5-4-2018 at 17:35

I just looked up how to make Vietnamese coffee... with espresso, the boiling water is forced through the grounds at high pressure, remaining in contact with them for a minimal amount of time... typically less than 30 seconds. Also, less water is used I think - 60 mL of espresso can easily make a strong 250 mL Americano.

j_sum1 - 5-4-2018 at 17:45

Ok. That's different again.
Did you see chemplayer?

JJay - 5-4-2018 at 17:46

Yes. I see that sum_lab has some new videos.

j_sum1 - 5-4-2018 at 20:36

Quote: Originally posted by JJay

Yes. I see that sum_lab has some new videos.

Yeah. It has taken a bit of doing. But I am pleased to have some new stuff up.

JJay - 5-4-2018 at 21:40

Quote: Originally posted by aga

I do no know how to reduce nitromethane.

Guess i could google, but at this very moment, i have very little idea how that would be done, nor what the result(s) would be.

Edit:

It would be nice to be informed.

Disassociater: i also have no idea what the 'food channel' is, unless it starts with Shopping and ends with toilet paper (some biology happens inbetween).

[Edited on 4-4-2018 by aga]

I seem to remember reading something about Organikum using zinc and hydrochloric acid. I suspect it is probably possible to do it many other ways.