Lesson #2: Using vintage tech to warm up your coffee-making
So one of these days you're going to be faced with one of these:
Or even more intimidating, one of those big coffee urns from the church basement.
Well, don't worry - this is vintage tech, basically an electrified version of the fire-based original percolators. How it works is that the bottom of the inside gets hot... actually there's a very small heating area that gets really hot. Any water that gets close turns into boiling water if not steam very quickly. There just so happens to be a tube running from that area up to the very top of the pot, so the water "percolates" (is violently pushed by steam) up the tube to the top, where it spills over the coffee grounds and eventually drips back into the pot.
Here are the bits you'll have to deal with:
It's important to have all those parts! The tube and the basket are obvious enough, but the spreader bit on top is needed to keep the hot water dripping evenly onto the grounds. Don't start brewing until you've found all those bits.
Some percolators do use a filter, either a flat disc of paper with a hole punched in the middle, or a more elaborate origami type of sheet that folds over the top of the grounds. The big coffee urns generally don't use a filter; they have tiny precision holes to keep the grounds from getting out of the basket.
Speaking of tiny holes and grounds, percolators generally use a coarser grind of coffee than the usual drip coffee maker. Something to bear in mind if you're doing the grinding, or at the store sometimes you'll see the pre-ground cans labelled according to the grind.
So to actually use the beast, fill up the bottom with water. If there's a sight-glass on the side, use that. Otherwise maybe experiment with the tube & basket, since the main goal is to keep the basket above the water level in the pot. Once you've got the water sorted, put in the tube and basket and then load in the grounds. Top it off with the strainer and top, and then (and only then!) plug it in. You don't want to be around a half-assembled percolator that's been plugged in, because boiling water will come shooting out.
Once the percolator gets going, let it go. If you've got the kind with the cool hollow glass knob, you'll get to see the hot water bubbling up. When that stops happening then the coffee is done. You may hear a quiet click a few seconds before that, as the main heater switches off. Whatever you do, don't take the top off to peek at the process - see the preceding chapter about boiling water shooting out.
So that's how to work a vintage coffee maker. The taste is a bit different, and some old-timers like it that way. If you do country or blues sessions maybe have a percolator around (and in view) just as a social experiment. If you do that, make sure you have a working percolator with filters in case somebody calls your bluff.
