making coffee

MAKING COFFEE
Last summer I posted an article on solar coffee. In essence, you make it just like solar tea. Leaves ( in this case grounds ) in the water, set in the sun all day in a glass jar. The next morning you heat and serve. Even when it got colder, we just went from placing them outside to putting them in the sun on the kitchen counter. We also used Mason jars which we already had around. Now, this was not the greatest tasting coffee. It was rather weak. However, we were in full frugal mode and I wasn't going to spend one extra cent on grounds or propane. It got us through to the first few paychecks while I got back on my feet. Of course, as soon as I could I upgraded. I bought a $13 french press to try out. That made a lot better coffee. It tasted a lot better while using no more grounds or propane.
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For a time all was just peachy on the coffee front. I broke the first coffee press, but I blamed myself. It was during a real bad cold snap and everything was staying frozen. The toothpaste, the dish soap. For laundry soap I would take a free cup of powdered soap the laundromat offers and toss it in my half empty liquid soap bottle ( the bottom half staying frozen ), add a little hot water and shake it up to turn the powder to liquid ( I hate powder soap- it doesn't work well with cold water washes which is how I wash ). We barely kept the water jugs from freezing solid, being able to squeeze a bit of slush from them after placing them by the heater. I didn't quite have to melt snow, but it was close. I just got two freezers from work, no charge. They were destined for the dump ( faulty compressors ) so I got them. I'm going to use them for water storage next winter. Anyway, I thought I had killed the coffee press by tapping it too hard to dislodge grounds while it was so cold. So I confidently ordered another two units, thinking I would just be more careful next time.
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And careful we have been. We treated that sucker with kid gloves. Always being careful, always only gently caressing rather than rough housing it. But the piece of crap still broke after a few months. The cross braces on the screen ( you soak the grounds for three minutes, then push down the plunger that is a flat screen on the bottom ) just broke off in several pieces. The same thing that had happened to the first press. They advertise that the carafe is unbreakable. Yeah, it sure it. But the other parts are flimsy crap. In the comments section at Amazon when I bought the press, we were warned about just that. But he said after a year of use. We only got two or three months of use. Granted, it was used half a dozen times a day, a dozen on the weekend when I don't suck up free work coffee, but you wouldn't think that would shorten its life span so much. But evidently you are only guaranteed a years use if you use it once a day.
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I was pretty hacked off. $13 plus shipping for the first unit, $25 for the second two. Out over $40 for less than six months of coffee making. Well, I still have the third unit unused, but I'm out the money no matter how you look at it. I'm sure they have french presses out there that are built far better. But I was done with plastic coffee makers. Or anything else as flimsy. Well, it was time to break out the percolator. We've had one in storage for years. I had not used it since I envisioned extra propane use. You know, let the sucker sit there for ten minutes boiling away. Since we didn't have a wood stove, propane use was an issue. The french press was great because you just needed to bring the water to a boil and that was it. You made one cup at a time ( it claimed three cups but where I come from four ounces does not make a cup of coffee ) and had little water to boil. I carefully measured out the same water and grounds as the press used. Started it up and as soon as it started making noise, I poured a cup. Already it tasted better than the press. Then I put it back on the flame and as soon as it made noise I turned down the heat and let percolate five minutes on low. It groaned, farted, gurgled and hiccuped, making every noise imaginable while it worked away. I poured it and it was blacker than my ex-wife's heart ( which, as a point of reference, compared to a black hole ).
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Ah! Glorious and delicious mud. When I started out drinking coffee I was in the military. Everyone made fun of the brew, jokes to the effect a spoon stood straight up it it, but not only did it warm you up on the coldest morning but it woke you up even after a night of poor quality sleep interrupted by the infamous fire watch. And here it was again, the glorious military mud. Better than Starbucks. I had accidentally rediscovered the best coffee around. I had never thought it was because a percolator had been used. I guess I had imagined they just used a lot of grounds. No, it was the percolator. I'll never go back to french press or drip makers again ( an unfortunate side effect here is that now my free coffee at work tastes like crap ). And this was using Wal-Mart coffee. I know a lot of folks will disagree with me on this. They are a lot fussier when it comes to coffee. They want fresh roasted beans, filtered water, etc. I'm not that refined. I just like bitter, strong and boiling hot. If you need a recipe I used a quarter cup of grounds to 50 ounces of water and let it make noise for about five minutes. My unit is aluminum with a cheap plastic bulb on top. My Amazon product page, www.bisonpress.com , has a small one that is similar for about $12. I also added one that has no bulb on top ( the only thing that seems would break ), about $20.
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So, what about my fuel use concerns? I think they were highly overblown. It takes the same energy to bring each to a boil, and then you perk on a very low flame ( if it isn't turned down it boils over from the spout ). So the extra five minutes had almost no extra fuel being used. Plus, being enclosed, the extra you leave on the stove can be heated with very little fuel. Less than bringing the next batch of french press water to a boil. So, I either come out even on fuel use or I use just a slight bit more. Considering the french press will break and the aluminum percolator won't, a long term, post collapse coffee maker should be the perk machine. As a bonus, it makes much better tasting coffee for the same amount of grounds. This is the second time this week I must kick my own ass for trying to get fancy and not sticking with the simplest tool. My bad.
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