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Definitely an "other" brewing method

PostPosted: Wed May 16, 2018 8:58 pm
by Ed
We have just had a new kitchen fitted. While clearing out the room ready I found the Sona PJ30 electric percolator that my friend gave us for a wedding present. That makes it nearly 41 years old. More importantly, I found the power lead which is a bit special and not readily available these days.

I couldn't resist. Yesterday I ground up some Kenya Blue Mountain beans from Adams and Russell in Birkenhead that I was given for Christmas (coarse-ish grind, medium roast) and I set it all up and let it do what it was made to do. I used 60 grammes of coffee per litre of water (or thereabouts) and let it run for 8 minutes.

Frankly I was fearing the worst but I was pleasantly surprised by the resulting brew which, for me, turned out as well as anything I might have made in, for instance, a French press or automatic drip machine. While I will not be giving up using the Gaggia Classic in the near future, the percolator may well be an option for making bulk brews when a number of (not too discerning) people need a coffee.

Does anybody here use a percolator and who has any tips for getting the best results from one?

Re: Definitely an "other" brewing method

PostPosted: Sat May 19, 2018 5:50 am
by CakeBoy
What an exciting find after all these years. We have a very old 1960s or 70s John Lewis percolator branded Jonelle with an old fashioned braided power cord that was picked up for pennies at a car boot sale many years ago. It rarely gets used these days but produces reasonable coffee.

I think the thing with all percolators is the method intrinsically requires the water to become hotter than optimum for coffee flavours and tends to rebrew the beans to an extent. I may be wrong. From memory, I think we settled on a fairly coarse grind somewhere between filter and French press, and had the intensity lever just on the weaker side of middle. Perhaps we will pull it out today and have a pot, it's been ages. Sorry, I can't remember more detail for certain.

Re: Definitely an "other" brewing method

PostPosted: Sun May 20, 2018 6:04 pm
by Ed
I was wrong about the quality of the brew from the percolator because I later took some of the same coffee and and brewed it in a cafetiere (my friend used to call it a coffee squasher) and the result was far more enjoyable.

Did you try out your percolator Cakeboy?

Re: Definitely an "other" brewing method

PostPosted: Thu Nov 22, 2018 10:56 pm
by CakeBoy
Sorry for the delay Ed, I've been somewhat incapacitated over the summer. Yes, we used to use it and I'm tempted to do so again but I just know the result will not be as good as the coffee could be.