Vacuum Coffee -Say What?
Invented by Loeff of Berlin in 1830s
vacuum method of brewing coffee fell out
of favour by the 1960?s but started to
make a comeback in the 1990s and is
growing more popular in 21st century.
There many different names for these
“machines” – vac pots, vacuum brewed
coffee, siphon brewer, siphon vacuum
coffee, syphon coffee maker etc.
If you have ever seen any of these
coffee makers, your first question
probably was – how on earth does this
thing work?
A siphon brewer basically contains 4
parts – a bottom container, where you
pour water; a top container, where you
put coffee grounds; a siphon tube that
connects the containers; and a filter,
where the liquid and gases pass through.
The device?s working principle is based
on expansion and contraction of a gas
(water vapor). The bottom container is
heated up, which creates the water vapor
that pushes the water up the tube and
through the filter to the top container.
Once most of the water has moved to the
upper chamber the gas can escape through
the siphon tube (the tube doesn?t touch
the bottom of the lower chamber, there?s
a little gap between them). Escaping
vapor keeps the water in the upper
container at the necessary temperature
(it may look like it?s boiling, but it?s
actually not). The process continues for
1 to 3 minutes, then you remove the heat
source. That basically creates the
reverse reaction, where the vapor in
lower chamber cools down and contracts
(some of it converts back to water),
creating vacuum and therefore the
suction that pulls the liquid from the
upper chamber down to the bottom
container. The effect is so strong that
the coffee grounds are practically
sucked dry in the process.
Originally the vac pots used simple wick
burner to heat up the water and some
still do. Nowadays there is a bit more
variety of heating sources available. In
principle they pretty much fall into two
categories – the stovetop (gas or
electric) use and self-contained heating
devices like alcohol wick burners and
butune burners. Of all these sources,
wick burners are the slowest and butune
burners the fastest. If you want to go
for the latter option, look for the
burners that have easily controllable
flame – it?s essential for the great
siphon coffee.
Siphon coffee makers come in many
different sizes, most common ones being
12 ounces (3 cups), 20 ounces (5 cups)
and 32 ounces (8 cups), but there are
also brewers for as little as 4 ounces
and as much as 48 ounces.
There are different types of siphon
brewers available, most common being two
globe type (the one in the picture).
Here one vessel is sitting on top of
another and siphon tube is in between
them. Another more common type is a
balance brewer, which works in the same
principal, however the liquid moves side
to side instead of up and down.
When vac pots fell out of favour, only
handful of manufacturers kept producing
them. With the recent rising popularity
of these coffee makers more companies
are considering in bringing them back to
production. In Japan vacuum coffee is
even more popular than drip coffee,
which is probably also the reason why
many siphon coffee makers are produced
by asian companies including Tayli,
Hario and Yama. A well known vac pot
manufacturing company in Europe is Bodum
with its coffeemaker called Santos.
Siphon coffee makers might take some
trial and error to get used to it, but
they are interesting and entertaining
way to make coffee (and they make good
coffee, I must say). Let’s face it,
there are not that many coffee makers
that look as if they were lifted right
out of science lab.
Albert T. Wolf has found his fascination
in coffee and everything related to it.
There is lot more to the world of coffee
than drip coffee machines. Go to his
blog at http://blog.wakeupvibes.com to
find out more!
Article Directory: Article Dashboard
What is a vacuum brewed coffee? What are siphon coffee
makers? I can assure you, this has nothing to do with vacuum
cleaner, but has everything to do with good coffee and with
interesting, entertaining way of making it. Read an article
to find out more …
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