H2Oh my god there's a frog in my coffee.
May 3, 2010 4:46 AM Subscribe
Second full day of the Boston Waterpocalypse, and I have to go to work. I NEED to know: can I use a Steripen to sterilize the coffee from the contaminated coffee machines at the office?
I drink about 400 cups of coffee a day. At home, I'm using bottled water to make coffee, but we have plumbed Keurig machines at work and they're surely so filled with pond water by this point that they have snapping turtles living in them. The boil order in effect indicates that we should boil water for 1 minute before drinking, but the machines clearly do not reach the required temperatures for the required time. (I have no idea how, if ever, they're ever going to be decontaminated.)
Can I use my steripen to sterilize my coffee (or tea)? Will the fact that coffee transmits less light render the steripen ineffective? Will hot coffee/tea damage the steripen (I don't mind letting it cool, if I have to).
I drink about 400 cups of coffee a day. At home, I'm using bottled water to make coffee, but we have plumbed Keurig machines at work and they're surely so filled with pond water by this point that they have snapping turtles living in them. The boil order in effect indicates that we should boil water for 1 minute before drinking, but the machines clearly do not reach the required temperatures for the required time. (I have no idea how, if ever, they're ever going to be decontaminated.)
Can I use my steripen to sterilize my coffee (or tea)? Will the fact that coffee transmits less light render the steripen ineffective? Will hot coffee/tea damage the steripen (I don't mind letting it cool, if I have to).
Will the fact that coffee transmits less light render the steripen ineffective?
I don't know much about the specific technology, but keep in mind that coffee transmits less visible light: I have no idea what happens in the ultraviolet range this device operates at.
Also, if it can kill critters crawiling in the water, it might be able to change the flavor of your coffee.
posted by Dr Dracator at 4:54 AM on May 3, 2010
I don't know much about the specific technology, but keep in mind that coffee transmits less visible light: I have no idea what happens in the ultraviolet range this device operates at.
Also, if it can kill critters crawiling in the water, it might be able to change the flavor of your coffee.
posted by Dr Dracator at 4:54 AM on May 3, 2010
- Buy a coffee machine for ~20 dollars at target
- Put it at your desk
- Buy some gallon jugs of water
- Enjoy a lack of dysentery
- Make new friends by providing them with coffee! They will owe you a favor, I promise.
posted by CharlesV42 at 5:34 AM on May 3, 2010 [6 favorites]
- Put it at your desk
- Buy some gallon jugs of water
- Enjoy a lack of dysentery
- Make new friends by providing them with coffee! They will owe you a favor, I promise.
posted by CharlesV42 at 5:34 AM on May 3, 2010 [6 favorites]
Could you zap your cup of coffee in a microwave long enough to kill any unwanted fauna? I really don't know if this is enough, but it's what I would try, given no other options.
posted by SuperSquirrel at 5:52 AM on May 3, 2010
posted by SuperSquirrel at 5:52 AM on May 3, 2010
There's not some magic temperature where water becomes safe...it's purely a time-temperature relationship once you're over 140F or so. X percent of bacteria will be killed at Y temperature over Z minutes. Water above ~160F will kill most pathogens in 30 minutes. Over ~180-190 and it's down to a couple minutes. My office coffee maker puts out water around 200F and it definitely stays north of 180 for many minutes. I wouldn't worry about it at all.
posted by paanta at 6:04 AM on May 3, 2010
posted by paanta at 6:04 AM on May 3, 2010
Buy some gallon jugs of water
This is pretty impossible to do in Boston at the moment. SuperSquirrel's approach seems like the best one, but IANABacteriologist.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 6:15 AM on May 3, 2010
This is pretty impossible to do in Boston at the moment. SuperSquirrel's approach seems like the best one, but IANABacteriologist.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 6:15 AM on May 3, 2010
Can you go to a Dunkies or Starbucks in Cambridge and buy one of those big boxes of coffee they sell for meetings? That's what I'd do.
posted by oinopaponton at 6:17 AM on May 3, 2010
posted by oinopaponton at 6:17 AM on May 3, 2010
I own a steripen, and (expletive) loved it whilst mucking about in riskier corners of the world. It will not work effectively in coffee; you need an alternate solution.
posted by aramaic at 6:22 AM on May 3, 2010
posted by aramaic at 6:22 AM on May 3, 2010
You could use the steripen to sterilize coffee to then... make coffee!
posted by CharlesV42 at 6:35 AM on May 3, 2010
posted by CharlesV42 at 6:35 AM on May 3, 2010
Here's the FAQ on how hot the water gets:
At Keurig we have found that the optimal temperature for brewing coffee is 192° F. This is the internal temperature of the water in your brewer. However, once your coffee/tea is brewed, the dispensed temperature can vary greatly. In-cup temperature depends on the cup temperature and material. When brewing into an insulated container, such as a foam or paper cup, 180-185°F in-cup temperature is typically attained. In addition, dispensing into a cold ceramic mug will cool the coffee significantly.
posted by sbutler at 6:43 AM on May 3, 2010
At Keurig we have found that the optimal temperature for brewing coffee is 192° F. This is the internal temperature of the water in your brewer. However, once your coffee/tea is brewed, the dispensed temperature can vary greatly. In-cup temperature depends on the cup temperature and material. When brewing into an insulated container, such as a foam or paper cup, 180-185°F in-cup temperature is typically attained. In addition, dispensing into a cold ceramic mug will cool the coffee significantly.
posted by sbutler at 6:43 AM on May 3, 2010
Universal Hub is compiling a list of Boston coffee places that actually have coffee today.
posted by nonane at 7:05 AM on May 3, 2010
posted by nonane at 7:05 AM on May 3, 2010
Yeah, the coffee machines probably sterilise the water just fine by themselves.
But you could also pre-boil the water you pour into the coffee machine. Presuming the Great Contamination (we had something like that here in NSW, Australia a few years ago; the actual contamination level was quite low, but everybody freaked out anyway) hasn't resulted in all the cheap electric jugs being stripped out of local discount stores, just get one of those, fill it, let it boil and stop, give the water a few minutes to cool enough that nothing will get cooked or warped when you pour it into the coffee machine, and proceed.
(You probably won't need to let it cool a great deal, but there are a million different coffee devices out there and some may be weird about hot input water.)
You could even get a few jugs, if you need more boiled plain water to slake your office's thirst for non-caffeinated fluid. You'd probably need at least a couple for reasonable throughput for an office of more than a few people, since you're in a 110V country where the jugs work roughly half as fast as they do for those of us in 220-240V countries.
Give me a moment, and I'll find a way to make this even MORE complicated :-).
posted by dansdata at 7:05 AM on May 3, 2010
But you could also pre-boil the water you pour into the coffee machine. Presuming the Great Contamination (we had something like that here in NSW, Australia a few years ago; the actual contamination level was quite low, but everybody freaked out anyway) hasn't resulted in all the cheap electric jugs being stripped out of local discount stores, just get one of those, fill it, let it boil and stop, give the water a few minutes to cool enough that nothing will get cooked or warped when you pour it into the coffee machine, and proceed.
(You probably won't need to let it cool a great deal, but there are a million different coffee devices out there and some may be weird about hot input water.)
You could even get a few jugs, if you need more boiled plain water to slake your office's thirst for non-caffeinated fluid. You'd probably need at least a couple for reasonable throughput for an office of more than a few people, since you're in a 110V country where the jugs work roughly half as fast as they do for those of us in 220-240V countries.
Give me a moment, and I'll find a way to make this even MORE complicated :-).
posted by dansdata at 7:05 AM on May 3, 2010
But you could also pre-boil the water you pour into the coffee machine.
The poster states the machine is "plumbed", which means they don't pour water into it at all.
posted by sbutler at 7:11 AM on May 3, 2010
The poster states the machine is "plumbed", which means they don't pour water into it at all.
posted by sbutler at 7:11 AM on May 3, 2010
Well, if you want to be nitpicky about it... :-)
You're a tool-using animal! Un-plumb it!
Or just use a couple of $10 electric jugs for drinking water. Including water for ice cubes, if necessary, since freezing by itself will not kill all bugs.
(Prison-improvisation solution: Make coffee, pour coffee into electric jug, boil it there! Yum! Or just top it up with productivity-enhancing brandy; a surprisingly small concentration of alcohol will kill a wide range of bugs quite quickly, which is why watered wine, even though it was sour and horrible, was a common drink in the ancient world.)
posted by dansdata at 7:30 AM on May 3, 2010
You're a tool-using animal! Un-plumb it!
Or just use a couple of $10 electric jugs for drinking water. Including water for ice cubes, if necessary, since freezing by itself will not kill all bugs.
(Prison-improvisation solution: Make coffee, pour coffee into electric jug, boil it there! Yum! Or just top it up with productivity-enhancing brandy; a surprisingly small concentration of alcohol will kill a wide range of bugs quite quickly, which is why watered wine, even though it was sour and horrible, was a common drink in the ancient world.)
posted by dansdata at 7:30 AM on May 3, 2010
My friend, the plan is to go with cold brew coffee concentrate. You can sterilize the water any way you choose and then make coffee concentrate with this. After making the concentrate you just add either more clean water or have concentrated iced coffee. It is a concentrate you will have fun making it as strong as you please.
Heck, make Vietnamese filtered coffee or use a simple French press.
The main benefit of cold brewed coffee is that it is storable with no decline in flavor BUT you will not get that hot coffee smell. It is lower acid so you stomach may not hurt as much either.
posted by jadepearl at 7:50 AM on May 3, 2010 [1 favorite]
Heck, make Vietnamese filtered coffee or use a simple French press.
The main benefit of cold brewed coffee is that it is storable with no decline in flavor BUT you will not get that hot coffee smell. It is lower acid so you stomach may not hurt as much either.
posted by jadepearl at 7:50 AM on May 3, 2010 [1 favorite]
If they've plumbed the brewers in, there's also a good chance that they've plumbed in some filtration along the way (to eliminate chlorine, if nothing else) -- you might try tracking the plumb-in line back a few feet if you can to see if there aren't some filter canisters on the line (probably mounted under a counter or in a cabinet somewhere close). If there are, that plus the brew temp should greatly reduce the risk.
posted by nonliteral at 7:55 AM on May 3, 2010
posted by nonliteral at 7:55 AM on May 3, 2010
paanta writes "There's not some magic temperature where water becomes safe...it's purely a time-temperature relationship once you're over 140F or so. X percent of bacteria will be killed at Y temperature over Z minutes. Water above ~160F will kill most pathogens in 30 minutes. Over ~180-190 and it's down to a couple minutes. My office coffee maker puts out water around 200F and it definitely stays north of 180 for many minutes. "
Seconding that water pasteurization doesn't actually require boiling. If your coffee maker is putting out at least 150F water then letting the coffee sit for a few minutes in a thermos, to keep the temperature up, will kill any nasties that boiling would.
PS: the reason why health advisories always say boil for X minutes rather than raise the temperature to 160F for X minutes is boiling provides an easily trainable, visual indicator that the water is hot enough.
posted by Mitheral at 9:31 AM on May 3, 2010 [1 favorite]
Seconding that water pasteurization doesn't actually require boiling. If your coffee maker is putting out at least 150F water then letting the coffee sit for a few minutes in a thermos, to keep the temperature up, will kill any nasties that boiling would.
PS: the reason why health advisories always say boil for X minutes rather than raise the temperature to 160F for X minutes is boiling provides an easily trainable, visual indicator that the water is hot enough.
posted by Mitheral at 9:31 AM on May 3, 2010 [1 favorite]
CharlesV42: "- Buy a coffee machine for ~20 dollars at target
- Put it at your desk
- Buy some gallon jugs of water
- Enjoy a lack of dysentery
- Make new friends by providing them with coffee! They will owe you a favor, I promise."
With the lack of bottled water, surely it's easier to just buy a kettle and make the coffee yourself.
posted by turkeyphant at 10:12 AM on May 3, 2010
- Put it at your desk
- Buy some gallon jugs of water
- Enjoy a lack of dysentery
- Make new friends by providing them with coffee! They will owe you a favor, I promise."
With the lack of bottled water, surely it's easier to just buy a kettle and make the coffee yourself.
posted by turkeyphant at 10:12 AM on May 3, 2010
I've always been under the impression that (in addition to the high temperatures of brewing) the coffee beverage itself is acidic enough to kill any bacteria.
Can any bacteria-ologists weigh in on this? Because I just use straight tapwater to make coffee, and our well is... not good. But I don't want to waste my Pur Stage 3 filter on making all that coffee unless I have to!
posted by ErikaB at 10:57 AM on May 3, 2010
Can any bacteria-ologists weigh in on this? Because I just use straight tapwater to make coffee, and our well is... not good. But I don't want to waste my Pur Stage 3 filter on making all that coffee unless I have to!
posted by ErikaB at 10:57 AM on May 3, 2010
Response by poster: Thanks, all--an interesting conversation!
I cannot change the water lines--as someone noted above, the machine is plumbed in, and there's no way to introduce clean water.
For those not familiar with the Keurig machines, they have an internal boiler that, as someone posted above, runs to 192 degrees or so (assuming ours is set to spec). The issue is, the reservoir/boiler is not particularly big, and it does not seem to store water at that temperature for any reliable amount of time. So if I get a cup of coffee and there is a person behind me waiting for another cup, that person has to wait some (interminable) amount of time for the water to get to the right temperature. If boiling for 1 minute = 100%, heating for 30 seconds at 192 degrees = ?
Sadly, they took away our microwaves, so I can't heat the water without buying either a kettle or a coffee maker.
I can just switch to tea (or instant coffee)--but does anyone know whether the Steripen can be used in hot water dispensed from the Keurig?
posted by Admiral Haddock at 11:26 AM on May 3, 2010
I cannot change the water lines--as someone noted above, the machine is plumbed in, and there's no way to introduce clean water.
For those not familiar with the Keurig machines, they have an internal boiler that, as someone posted above, runs to 192 degrees or so (assuming ours is set to spec). The issue is, the reservoir/boiler is not particularly big, and it does not seem to store water at that temperature for any reliable amount of time. So if I get a cup of coffee and there is a person behind me waiting for another cup, that person has to wait some (interminable) amount of time for the water to get to the right temperature. If boiling for 1 minute = 100%, heating for 30 seconds at 192 degrees = ?
Sadly, they took away our microwaves, so I can't heat the water without buying either a kettle or a coffee maker.
I can just switch to tea (or instant coffee)--but does anyone know whether the Steripen can be used in hot water dispensed from the Keurig?
posted by Admiral Haddock at 11:26 AM on May 3, 2010
You could get an electric tea kettle. They just boil water. Use that to make tea, instant coffee, or embrace you inner hipster and get a chemex.
posted by chairface at 2:06 PM on May 3, 2010
posted by chairface at 2:06 PM on May 3, 2010
This thread is closed to new comments.
Yes. It only works with clear water. Steripen instructions for sterilizing water in the wild include filtering out sediment for this reason.
posted by hydrophonic at 4:52 AM on May 3, 2010