By: Alison Cole
You often see them in countless homes, offices, coffee shops and so many other places where people convene to sip good coffee. You guessed right! It is the old and trustworthy coffeemaker. What is the process involved in concocting those wonderful brews?
A coffeemaker is an electric appliance that makes brewed coffee automatically, consisting of a hotplate, a glass coffee pot, filter basket, and water reservoir. It is a low-maintenance, simple- to-operate and yet efficient piece of equipment.
The hotplate at the bottom of the coffeemaker is heated in a circular motion. The heating element is a hollow aluminum tube. Upon adding water in the reservoir, a small hole in the container’s bottom feeds a plastic hose attached to one end of the aluminum tube. When the coffeemaker is turned on, the heating element quickly gets hot.
The heat sensors make sure that the temperature is kept at 195 to 205 degrees Fahrenheit (90-96 Celsius). This causes the water in the aluminum tube to boil, creating bubbles that go up the other side of the tube and travel upward to the exit hose so more water can enter the heating element.
Hot water inside these bubbles lifts a small stream of boiling water to the coffeemaker’s top, while the exit hose ends up on the drip plate, which in turn places the boiling water in an even amount. The water then exits to the coffee grounds below in the filter basket. The drip coffeemaker then fills the carafe with freshly-brewed coffee.
When buying whole coffee beans, you may use a coffee grinder for preparation prior to actual boiling. For coffee to taste better, it is advisable to grind the beans before brewing them. Finely ground coffee results in a refreshing espresso, which is made with an espresso machine and cannot be brewed in a coffeemaker.
A lot of coffeemakers allow for an automatic start through built-in timers. If you want freshly brewed coffee in the morning, you may turn on the timer at night. Coffee connoisseurs, however, frown on this practice since they do not want coffee beans to be ground in advance as they tend to lose freshness in the process. They believe that immediately after brewing, the coffeemaker should be detached from its hot plate since prolonged exposure to heat will make the coffee bitter.
A number of coffeemakers use either steel or paper filters. Steel filters allow more oils to pass through, creating a coffee that is headier and with more body. On the other hand, paper filters result in a lighter and cleaner coffee.
There are many ways to brew your coffee using the ever-reliable coffeemaker.
