Thread: Coffee!

Hi folks,

I'm not sure if this is a good place to ask - but I was hoping to find information on how one might build a coffee percolator out of lab equipment. I know how a percolator functions, but not sure how to mimic the process using glass/lab stuff. I thought it'd be cool to make my morning coffee ritual a little more interesting.

can anyone help with what lab equipment I might use?

basically, the water would boil in a bottom container (beaker?), get pushed up through a tube and forced through a chamber that holds the grounds, then the water would get pushed up and into a reservoir, through a screen (I can make this out of metal if need be). any thoughts?

I'm not a chemist so I'm not familiar with the lab equipment, but I'm a coffee-lover, so if you do this, would you please, please post a video here? I'd love to see it!

Cool site, I happened to catch that episode of Bad Universe... pretty rad.

I'm still trying to find an answer to this - if I figure it out, I'll post here. In the meantime, you may find this of interest. Not what I was looking for, but kind of cool:

http://www.chemexcoffeemaker.com/Coffeemakers.htm

any lab geeks have an answer?

Someone responded in another forum (labwrench.com)... and the info they gave me allowed me to find that other people have done this already, which isn't surprising.

The device you would use is a soxhlet extractor. It was recommended to use a reflux condenser and reaction flask as well, but the extractor is the main part. If you google "soxhlet extractor coffee", you'll find a bunch of info...

good luck

the water would boil in a bottom container (beaker?), get pushed up through a tube and forced through a chamber that holds the grounds, then the water would get pushed up and into a reservoir, through a screen (I can make this out of metal if need be). any thoughts?