Hey All,
Just how much does taking the middle cup of coffee out of the pot before the whole pot is brewed screw up the coffee for the next person?
The office coffee maker has a valve that allows you to pull the pot out and fill a cup during the drip cycle and not spill coffee all over the heating plate.
For a 12 cup pot, I pull the pot out at about 7 cups full, fill my cup, and then let the remaining 5 cups drip in. My wife said that I ruin the pot of coffee and I think it’s not that bad. What’s the straight dope?
If you do it fairly quickly, I don’t think it makes much difference. Here’s what happens: When you pull out the carafe, a little stopper shuts off the output of the filter basket. The hot water keeps going in, so the water level in the basket rises while you’re getting your cup. That might slightly increase the overall strength of the remaining cups. If you dawdle, though, and talk about last night’s game before putting the pot back, the water in the basket could overflow the filter. If that happens, coffee grounds will get into the coffee, and your co-workers will get chewy coffee.
I was thinking more about the quality of the coffee left in the pot. The first cup out of the filter would be ‘stronger’ coffee and the last cup would be ‘weaker’ coffee, but all the ‘cups’ mix in the pot to make ‘normal’ coffee. As I am taking out a middle cup, I’m throwing the final coffee pot out of whack by some degree.
I’m wondering if it’s such a degree of whack that I should stop doing it for the sake of the quality coffee for those that partake after me, or the degree of whack is such that it doesn’t matter? Or, is it really all about me?
Just take the first cup, then let the carafe take the rest. That way you get the best and strongest coffee, and everybody else in the office gets the weak stuff. You’ll be awake and perky and they’ll all be falling asleep at their desks.
My girlfriend has a similar belief regarding the pot in my house. I thought she was nuts when she first mentioned it (read: scolded me).
After numerous informal taste tests in which I sometimes took the first cup, sometimes took one in the middle somewhere, and sometimes waited until the entire pot brewed, I came to the conclusion that she is, in fact, nuts.
Well, I’m confused, Sandwriter. Is your wife also one of your officemates, that she knows you do this? Or did you happen to mention to her that some of your cow-orkers were giving you heat over the issue?
If using the take-an-early-cup feature had a seriously adverse effect on the rest of the pot, I suspect the coffeemaker manufacturers would stop incorporating it into their designs.
Kalyasdad99,
I was explaining to my wife how I prepared my only cup of coffee for the day, how I had to get the coffee out of the pot before all the bubbles on the surface went away. How I grab the middle cup from the pot as it’s brewing. How I sit and drink it and if someone comes up and bugs me and the coffee goes cold, I have to wait till the next day, etc. etc.
Her comment was that I was too complicated and that I was ruining the coffee by taking the middle cup.
But thanks to Exgineer, thanks Exgineer, there isn’t any evidence to support the ‘ruined pot’ theory. whew!