Cool Coffee
January 11, 2005 7:56 PM   Subscribe

BasicCoffeeQuestionFilter: In the morning I usually brew too large a pot of coffee, and leave it on (and therefore hot) all day. Sometimes I'll drink some in the evening, many hours later. Clearly not gourmet behavior. What are supposed to be the effects of this kind of treatment on the coffee's flavor and caffeine punch? If I want to keep the coffee for the evening, would I be better off letting it get cool and then turning the coffee maker back on to reheat it later?
posted by rustcellar to Food & Drink (22 answers total)
 
I think you'd be better off getting a much, much smaller coffee-maker. Or alternatively, just drinking one a day.

Perhaps investigate a French Press.
posted by five fresh fish at 8:26 PM on January 11, 2005


Can't you just make half as much in the morning and make a new pot in the evening?

Coffee is best fresh. Leaving it on all day? Reheating it? Yuck. I don't like when the coffee's been sitting there for more than an hour. I don't know of any studies that can back me up here, but personal experience suggests that coffee that's sat out and been heated for too long tastes bad (or burnt). Can't speak as to the caffeine content.
posted by m0nm0n at 8:26 PM on January 11, 2005


reheated coffee from a coffeemaker heater? the caffeine amounts will likely remain the same, but you are missing out on coffee taste.

My strategy with my Mr. Coffee is to brew a fresh batch, pour the first cup, switch the unit off then help myself to a second cup while the coffee pot is still warm.

A few hours later, I'll pour myself a now-cold cup, put it in the microwave, and reheat for two minutes. Cream and sugar go in after.

Best alternative is to have a small Bodum (French Press) and do the following: grind beans, throw them into the Bodum, pour boiling water overtop, let it rest for a few minutes (say, the two microwave minutes) then press the plunger, pour and enjoy

There are one-litre Bodums (Bodi?) and half-litre ones too. They look nice, are not very expensive, and produce delicious coffee. If you can boil water, you can make coffee with a Bodum

And it does not lend itself to your questionable late-afternoon reheating schtick :)
posted by seawallrunner at 8:27 PM on January 11, 2005


making another pot in the afternoon makes for better coffee snobbery, and is probably less wasteful.

that said, i tend to drink my brew throughout the morning, and it gets burned in the pot if it sits there that long. i have a good vacuum thermos. right after brewing, i put the coffee in the thermos and have hot (and un-burned) coffee when i want it.

on preview: i used to love french press coffee, but now i find it muddy.
posted by mudpuppie at 8:30 PM on January 11, 2005


Response by poster: Yeah, I should just make it as I want it. Really I'm just curious about what happens to the coffee while it cooks all day.
posted by rustcellar at 8:31 PM on January 11, 2005


What about coffee makers that don't utilize old-fashoined "hot-place" technology? Our coffee maker heats the water before injecting it through the coffee, then this sits in a double-insulated carafe.

Is there something special about the basic concept of time that makes coffee taste worse? Providing you're not burning the coffee, what difference does it make how long it stays "made"?
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 8:39 PM on January 11, 2005


You could try a really good thermal carafe. Mark Prince over at has some reviews of such things. There are also consumer reviews.

I nuke coffee sometimes. It doesn't do wonderful things for the taste, but it is better than cooking coffee on a burner for more than 20 min. My partner swears that turning the burner off and turning it back on to reheat the coffee tastes better than nuking. It still isn't right.

My chemist friend once explained to me the temp necessary for caffeine to break down. All I remember is that it is above the typical burner temp.

A french press is good, or a SwissGold One Cup pour through thingie (you may need to scroll down a bit) makes a wonderful single cup of coffee. I own about 20 different ways to make coffee, and that little bugger makes it best (to my taste). Moka pots also make good small doses of coffee, especially if you like it on the strong side.
posted by QIbHom at 8:40 PM on January 11, 2005


I have been known to display exacting foodie behavor but I'll also fess up to drinking reheated coffee.

I think you're better off letting the coffee go cold and microwaving it to a drinkable temperature. If you keep it hot all day then the you're going to get some evaporation of the water which will increase the bitterness of the brew.

I agree that from a flavor POV brewing small pots that you drink as you go is best, but if what you're looking for is a caffeine blast when you get home from work, just pop the cold coffee in the Microwave for 90 sec or so.
posted by donovan at 8:40 PM on January 11, 2005


I have a $9 mr. coffee thermal carafe that keeps coffee fresh and hot for like 12 hours. Brew yer pot, throw it in one of those. Not a big deal.
posted by dong_resin at 8:48 PM on January 11, 2005


dong_resin is on to somethin'
posted by donovan at 8:50 PM on January 11, 2005


Thermos? Or a smaller French Freedom press.
posted by keswick at 8:51 PM on January 11, 2005


once coffee's lost its heat, it's a done deal--throw it out. i try not to be too much of a food/drink snob, but really, in this case it's warranted--reheated coffee is a flavor travesty.
posted by ifjuly at 8:52 PM on January 11, 2005


I buggered up the Coffeegeek link to his thermos and carafe reviews. Sorry about that.

Fresh is best, a good carafe or thermos is a close second, reheating is bad, leaving on heat very bad.

I do all of these (including the last, at work).
posted by QIbHom at 8:54 PM on January 11, 2005


Seriously, if you can't taste what leaving the pot on all day does to the coffee when you taste it late in the day, I wouldn't worry about it. Your buds are gone.
: )
posted by spock at 9:20 PM on January 11, 2005


I used to burn my coffee in a pot like that. A couple of months ago I switched to a french press after a coffee discussion here, and now I'm making the best coffee of my life. I strongly endorse it.
posted by coelecanth at 9:42 PM on January 11, 2005


French press makes tasty coffee. Its a pain to clean (coffee grounds everywhere). Further, studies have shown that a component of the coffee is left in with a French Press that is very bad for you. This component is filtered out with paper filters. Try searching New Scientist for the story, that's where I got it.

I find it simple to brew 1 or 2 mugs at a time in my ordinary automatic drip machine. For strong morning coffee, I use 4.75 'cups' (as measured on the scale in the machine) of water and 3 "international-coffee-measures" of grounds (what international? Never see these measures anywhere but America). For 1 mug, its 2.5 cups water and 1 scoop (varyingly level/heaping to taste).

I find it acceptable to brew a second 2 cups in the morning by adding 2 scoops of coffee to the existing used grounds/filter. My father-in-law claims this is superior to using a fresh filter, but I don't know about that. (What does he know, he drinks reheated coffee and brews his extremely weak.)
posted by Goofyy at 12:11 AM on January 12, 2005


Goofyy, most drip machines don't brew anything but a full load well. The water doesn't heat up enough to get a well-balanced extraction.

Adding a bit more coffee to existing grounds and rebrewing is not recommended. Once grounds have been used, there isn't anything more except for the bitter stuff to be extracted.
posted by QIbHom at 4:22 AM on January 12, 2005


"Norwegian espresso" is a Seattle term for coffee left on the stove all day! My suggestion: pour off and refrigerate what you don't drink in the morning, then enjoy it chilled in the afternoon.
posted by Carol Anne at 5:42 AM on January 12, 2005


What about coffee makers that don't utilize old-fashoined "hot-place" technology? Our coffee maker heats the water before injecting it through the coffee, then this sits in a double-insulated carafe.
I have one of those, specifically the Krupps model. I tend to make my coffee in the evening, and it's still warm by morning when I leave for work. (since it's a smaller window of time than while I'm out all day). Love it!


However, if the original poster isn't a massive pot and a half a day coffee drinker (like me), perhaps something along these lines would be a good option? I believe Mr Coffee or the like has a more affordable alternative. But, a cup in under 60 seconds? Seems like a better deal than old burnt coffee if you don't drink it by the gallon.
posted by Kellydamnit at 6:14 AM on January 12, 2005


As much as I love and require my coffee, I gotta say that it's probably very much in one's best health interest to limit one's intake to a cup a day. This conveniently resolves the issue of stale coffee at the same time. :-)
posted by five fresh fish at 9:19 AM on January 12, 2005


Senseo is evil, Kellydamnit. You must buy their expensive special coffee pods, made out of sub-standard coffee.

There are people working on subverting the pods, of course. Coffee-related hacking is great fun.
posted by QIbHom at 10:54 AM on January 12, 2005


I find that hours-hot coffee really does nasty things to my intestinal tract and gives me a wicked headache.

An old colleague of my brother's used to keep a mass spectrographic representation of coffee over his desk. Bro said that it peaked in some very seriously weird areas -- meaning that coffee is loaded with lots of weird and exotic stuff. I can only imaging what cooking it for hours does to it....

That said, I do this: I drink two to four cups out of the pot, and then turn off the burner and leave it covered; that way the oils don't evaporate as badly. Then I nuke it.

A good carafe would be a better solution, but I've yet to find one (even in glass) that kept coffee as hot as I require it. So I'd have to be nuking it anyway.
posted by lodurr at 11:31 AM on January 12, 2005


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