I don’t ask for much but I truly hate when my co-workers can’t wait for a pot of coffee to brew before helping themselves to a cup. It’s not that I want it all for myself; it’s just that when a person steals a cup in the middle of the brewing cycle, the coffee left in the pot is weaker than it should be.
One solution to this problem would be to incorporate an interlock that senses the water level in the basket. A simple float and lever design should work just fine. Connect the interlock to a lock on the coffee pot. The interlock disengages once the brewing cycle is complete and the water has drained through the coffee grounds and into the pot.-- augusta, Oct 10 2006 One of the many one-shot coffee machines out there http://www.keurig.c...GX0RDSHTPFBRWRE8SB0Now you can argue over who gets to empty the cartridge disposal bin. [DrCurry, Oct 11 2006] //when a person steals a cup in the middle of the brewing cycle, the coffee left in the pot is weaker than it should be.// - would what's left it not be more concentrated and therefore stronger?-- xenzag, Oct 11 2006 my initial thought too.-- po, Oct 11 2006 ah ! so it's another case of the weak following the strong.-- xenzag, Oct 11 2006 If you're the person who always ends up being the one to brew a new pot, this just jams you with being the one who always has to wait for it to finish brewing. So a coffee-flavored fishbone for you, from an inveterate mid-brew coffee-swiper.
(By the way, also being an inveterate scientist, and not liking strong coffee, I conducted field tests, taking a few drops of the brewing stream into separate cups at the start, middle and finish of the cycle. To my eyes, they were equally dark. But your percolator may well give different results.)
In any case, just get one of those modern office models that brews single cups every time - that saves a lot of pointless fuss from the anal control freaks.-- DrCurry, Oct 11 2006 [DC] Color tends to be rather constant through the brew, flavor is more concentrated at the beginning.-- Galbinus_Caeli, Oct 11 2006 Now *that* I *really* doubt. But I'll do a taste test next time, too.
P.S. Now where's waugsqueke when you need a good argument about coffee?-- DrCurry, Oct 11 2006 I think mostly it is an artifact of human sight. Going from clear to cloudy takes only a tiny amount of colorant. From cloudy to pretty dark only takes a bit more. Once it reaches the mostly opaque stage, it takes relatively more colorant to make it look significantly darker.-- Galbinus_Caeli, Oct 11 2006 [DC] //anal control freaks// I've always been an advocate for anal control.
Oh and thanks for the coffee flavored fishbone. I've wanted one of those for years now.-- augusta, Oct 11 2006 An aquaintence of mine once told me that brewing tea bags for 5 seconds or so would rid the tea of most of the caffeine. Tossing the first cup of water and then rebrewing the bag would result in a cup of naturally (mostly) decaffeinated tea. Since I heard this, I have assumed that coffee brews similarly and now wait until the coffee is completely done to take some from the pot, unless I want that first cup to have ALL of the caffeine, that is.-- MoreCowbell, Oct 12 2006 //flavor is more concentrated at the beginning//
I can't find anything to back this up. I think that the flavor and also caffeine would be present at a higher concentration in the first cup as well, but this is just a thinking guess on my part.
I base this guess on the idea that the filterable coffee particles will be more diluted after a certain quantity of water runs past them in the dispensing process.
It would be interesting to see a test. (I am surprised at [DrC]'s results, though)-- Zimmy, Oct 12 2006 I like strong coffee, whether real or de-caf. Now that I'm semi-retired, I favor decaf, but still like it strong.
When I was in an 8a-6p job, I tended to make coffee with double the usual grounds, and take a cup as it was dripping. I figured that one could always dilute the strong coffee with hot water, but it is pretty tough to distill strong coffee from weak!-- csea, Oct 12 2006 Zimmy: any competent chemist with access to a chemical lab should be able to confirm (or deny) this quickly.-- DrCurry, Oct 13 2006 The penalty for first cup thievery is temperature. The first cup worth of brown water to dribble into the carafe would logically be cooler than subsequent cups, as the initial water has had to percolate through unheated coffee grounds. By the time the last cup percolates through, the grounds have been heated to a temperature more akin to that of the water. Hence the last water exchanges much less heat with the grounds, and is consequently hotter and thus more sought after.-- Texticle, Oct 13 2006 And dissolves more flavor? Good thinking!-- DrCurry, Oct 13 2006 random, halfbakery