We have a drip coffee maker at work. When it’s time to make a new pot, I simply add a couple scoops to the old grounds (that are already in the filter). That way, the coffee maker is still able to extract some coffee molecules from the old grounds, in addition to the new.
But then I was busted by our group’s Coffee Snob[sup]TM[/sup]. She was aghast that I wasn’t using a new filter and new grounds for each pot. I thought to myself, “This is just drip coffee, lady. If you’re that uptight about it, bring in a French press and make your own.”
So what are your thoughts? Does anyone else do this? Or am I just a hopeless lowbrow?
In most plant infusions, including coffee, the oils are extracted first, then the volitile (or essential) oils, which are actually alcohols, then the tannins then the bitter alkaloids.
Whattsat mean? It means if you brew coffee too long or too slowly or try to get two pots out of one set of grounds, you’re going to get too-bitter coffee, even if you’re “freshening” the pot with some new grounds as well. Stop it. There are no “coffee molecules”, there are a hundred gajillion different chemical compounds in the coffee bean, and you only want some of them in your cup at the end.
It is wrong. Others aren’t demanding gourmet coffee, they expect coffee that isn’t prepared in a method perhaps favored by penny-pinchers, the lazy, or the near-indigent.
But we would never never never do this to a guest, or at work. I swear. We do weird stuff to ourselves to save a penny, but we don’t impose our weird stuff on other people. Honest.
The responses are interesting to me. This was a common practice during WWII and my parents certainly did it. Coffee was rationed and expensive when available. Surely there are some other older Dopers who remember this?
I’m late coming into the thread, but I thought I should post that coffee grounds can ferment, so be careful if you are re-using them. They can also mold quickly in moist weather as well. Both of these reasons are why I don’t re-use coffee grounds.
Ah, but you too are wrong! Anyone with even a modicum of corporal-punishment comportment knows that you must always use fresh, new newspapers for the beating. Never a mix of old and new papers or just old ones, for heaven’s sake! The essential oils in the vegetable-based inks dissipate within hours after a paper comes off the press. This lessens the amount of humiliating black smears on and about the coffee-offenders face and body.
More importantly, the newsprint (paper stock) loses crispness and “body” very quickly once it comes off the giant rolls, runs through the press, and is collated and folded. Clearly both the “thwacking” sound (SO important for proper psychological debasement) and the ‘bite’ of the swat are less than satisfying if the newspaper is too old. DO NOT use a newspaper that has been trucked for miles out into the boonies or flown across the country (like the NY Times, for example). Make sure to use a local paper that you have bought off of a newsstand just after delivery.
Don’t get caught up in journalistic integrity-- the New York Times is clearly a better newspaper content-wise than your local Bum Fuck Gazette, but good heavens! THINK man! This is no time to lose focus— which paper is more fresh? That is all that matters here.
My mother talks about the privations of the depression and WWII sometimes. She recalls eating mustard and onion sandwiches. She speaks of this with more fondness than one would expect.
Here in the deep south, I’ve seen coffee grounds in a filter mold overnight. I keep my beans in the freezer, and grind 'em each time, but once you’ve poured water into that filter, the grounds hold the water and the paper holds the water. You’re probably drinking a slew of unhealthy things, and probably mold amoung them.
