How Can You Make Lots Of Coffee? 51
quoll asks: "I work for a software development company which is entirely Linux based, and tries to release all of its code as Open Source. It's a great place to work, and I've just been asked to help make it better.
After going from 12 people to 19 we suddenly don't have enough coffee making capacity, and I've been asked to research a coffee machine which can keep up with the expected increase in demand. Unfortunately I'm only familiar with feeding coffee to small groups, using drip-filters and the like. I suspect that we could use an espresso machine, but I'm concerned about the need to spend 10 minutes to make a single serving. How do other companies provide large quantities of nice (ie. non-instant) coffee? What sort of machines do people recommend?" Yes, I know that this is under the "Java" topic, but it gets so underused these days that it was getting lonely, and the icon is rather appropriate, yes?
Re:Why drink coffee? (Score:1)
Re:a simple solution... (Score:2)
Reading this thread... (Score:1)
*Not a Sermon, Just a Thought
*/
Re:Open Source Options (Score:1)
As for decaf, etc... no one is interested, and they can do it all with instant anyway.
Outsourcing has 2 problems:
Re:Forget the burner things (Score:1)
How much caffeine is that? (Score:1)
The MSDS link [jtbaker.com] you posted is interesting, as is the Toxicity Info [jtbaker.com].
But I'm not a bio major. Can you tell me what the numbers translate to? How much caffeine in a cup of coffee? A penguin mint? Thanks.
Michael
espresso machines (Score:1)
Just jumping out of a hard task for a while.. productivity can improve because of that.
Ok, I tried it (I live on espresso, I'm Italian)
Re:Low budget alternative (Score:1)
Make sure it has a Java based OS. (Score:1)
Re:Forget the burner things (Score:1)
As a consultant I see a lot of different coffee makers.
My favorite style is the one at http://www.bunnomatic.com/pages/commpage/apcoffee/ cofapsts.htm
- anchor480867 [bunnomatic.com] with an attached water line.
Very nice set up. Easy to pour, easy to make. I suppose you could even get an extra carafe to take into meetings, though I have never seen anyone do it in the real world.Brisbane, CA? Should be plenty of vendors.
Just make sure you get Peet's ;-)
Dan
Reasonable machines (Score:1)
I'm sending the above link to my office manager!
Low budget alternative (Score:2)
I see these things around the local thrift stores pretty often. Cheap. Mass quantities. Passable quality of brew. Gotta love that.
Get several regular coffee pots (Score:2)
Lutherans (Score:3)
You need to find Lutheran Church Ladies, preferrably from North Dakota, Minnesota, or Wisconson. They are wholly accustomed to making vast quantities of coffee for large gatherings of people. 20 people would be hardly a challenge for them and, as an added bonus, you'll get fed *really* well late at night. They work best in basements.
That being said, see if you can find a restaraunt supply store. Buy an industrial size/strength coffee maker. a friend of a friend is a co-owner of a farmer-cafe around these parts and they've got this massive Bunn, drip machine which can brew three pots simultaneously and keep a fourth warm. Cool, huh?
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Re:How much caffeine is that? (Score:1)
Bigger, badder, blah blah blah.. (Score:2)
What changed? Well, they decided that departmental secretaries and assistants were a waste of funds. Everyone was forced to take their own calls, busy or not, or let voice mail deal with it. We lost quite a bit of timelyness to the prodding recieved from the secretaries, now that we were all managing our own appointments, meetings, and calls.
Screw spending money on new restaraunt machines, the coffee service, the bullshit. Hire one half-competant secretary/assistant for the lot of you. She/he'll come cheap. Shit, grab a college kid from the local liberal arts college. Either way, you're not going to shell out more than say $13/hour. Not only will you have fresh coffee when you need it, you'll get the bonus of having someone who's only job is to make life for everyone else easier. Think of it as grease for the corporate wheels..
Re:How much caffeine is that? (Score:1)
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Forget the burner things (Score:2)
Re:Low budget alternative (Score:1)
Instead, look into getting some of those glass lined vacuum bottles with the push down dispenser on top (the kind you see at some coffee stands). If you fill two or three of those you should have enough coffee, and it will stay fresh a long time since it's not in constant contact with the air.
High Speed Coffee brewing machines... (Score:2)
Get them here [cafitesse.com].
Okay... I'll do the stupid things first, then you shy people follow.
Not from lack of trying (Score:1)
Re:Forget the burner things (Score:1)
anacron
Re:Cold Soak Concentrate (Score:1)
Re:Cold Soak Concentrate (Score:1)
Good coffee in large quantities? (Score:1)
With smaller quantities you have more control over the bean grind, the temperature of the water, and how long the coffee sits on the burners.
If the water is too hot, you burn your coffee, and it won't taste very good.
If you make a lot of coffee, and leave it on continuous heating, you burn the coffee and it won't taste very good.
If you have a big tray of ground, with lots of water gushing over it, you burn the coffee and it won't taste very good.
I'm probably just an effete coffee snob, but I find that any coffee made at work doesn't come close to what I can make at home and throw in a Nissan steel vaccuum thermos.
Useful information here! If you do brew a large quantity of coffee, put it in termal carafes rather than glass carafes over burners. It makes a huge difference. Wash your equipment regularly. Clean pots and filter trays make better coffee.
I've heard of services that bring in a fresh pile of pots in filters in the morning, and take the dirty ones away to be cleaned in industrial dishwashers. They also leave beans and filters. This gives a company an almost endless supply of coffee, without having to worry about the mess left behind.
Good Luck!
Laplace
Simple Solution (Score:1)
Coffee makers with carafes (Score:1)
Restaurant coffee pots (Score:2)
a simple solution... (Score:1)
Penguin Peppermints, he!
Re:Restaurant coffee pots (Score:2)
with one LARGE capacity drip machine
(to fit the carafes)
(and prevents the pot from burning coffee to a nasty crust, no burners on the drip machine)
and
a grinder into which the drip basket is inserted.
This is sufficient for our 250 person building, and is refilled often each day.
We hire a service to supply all these machines and the coffee
expensive, but very nice!
Cold Soak Concentrate (Score:4)
Heh, well before I tell you this "recipe" you need to wonder what your risk tolerance is, becuase it is possible to make this stuff so strong that it'll cause "negative physical manifestations", just like drinking 50 or so cups of regular coffee will. No I'm not kidding.
Get regular ground coffee. Good stuff, cheap stuff, whatever. Just get a lot of it, like at a warehouse store or something.
Place coffee in a container, like a pitcher. Fill the container about 3/4 full. Add cold water to ~fill the container. Place container in refridgerator for at least five days, a week would be better. During this step the organic components (incl. the caffeine) are leeched out into the water just like any other organic chem extraction at low temp). The relatively long extraction time causes effective removal of most of the organics. If you wanted to be really maniacal about it you could remove the first concentrate and resoak the grounds for another week, maybe do a double 4 day soak, something like that (sort of the chemEng approach to coffee production).
OK. Now you're set. You can either drink it straight (like REALLY FUCKING STRONG cold espresso), or dilute it to taste with hot water (1conc:1water to 1conc:3water were common). You can also use the concentrate to etch optical glass. (j/k)
Seriously, depending on how strong you make the concentrate you can start seeing physical manifestations of caffeine overdose like heart beat abnormalities, eyes losing focus, tremors, etc. Watch your intake carefully at first until you have the procedure tuned to your satisfaction. I can imagine you hitting the LD50 with this stuff if you make it too strong and drink a lot of it.
The advantage to this is you can make up gallons and gallons and gallons ahead of time of the concentrate and the stuff goes a LONG way.
If the concentrate just isn't strong enough for you (good lord), you can add a crushed package of NODOZ or the like (over the counter caffeine pills) to the initial grounds before soaking. *If you do this make sure you don't drink the concentrate straight!*
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Re: How Can You Make Lots Of Coffee? (Score:2)
A *good* vending machine (Score:2)
Might also want to take a look at the usenet coffee faqs over on faqs.org.
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Howbout this.... (Score:1)
Re:Cold Soak Concentrate (Score:1)
Actually there is a head-shop nearby where I live where you can buy powdered-crystal caffiene... you can snort this stuff or whatever you want (I am NOT recommending this!) but NODOZ, Vivran and those other pills have additives that make you sick if you take too much.
Multi-pot machine (Score:1)
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I will *not* say beowulf cluster... (Score:2)
My company was free coffee, but it is up on the 13th floor (6 floors and an elevator change above us) in the cafeteria, which has limited hours. Most people go downstairs to the lobby where they have to pay in order to get the good stuff. The people on the floor would prefer cheap soda (or tonic, for those of us in New England).
Re:Cold Soak Concentrate (Score:1)
Oh, and FYI:
Caffeine MSDS [jtbaker.com]
Caffeine Toxicity Info [hazard.com]
I knew the bio major in me would be useful someday
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"Vending" service (Score:2)
Open Source Options (Score:1)
Oh, and whatever your solution... don't forget to make a beowulf cluster out of all those coffee machines..
Re:Cold Soak Concentrate (Score:2)
Yes. However in theory you use the absolute minimum required amount of water. If you fuck up and add too much, just pop it on the stove for a little while (all the organics have a higher boiling point that water AFAIK). Of course if you wanted to get some _really_ wierd looks, just buy an industrial strength rotavap for your cube... ;-)
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Big Brewers From Hell (Score:1)
Re:Cold Soak Concentrate (Score:2)
Nope. The water would boil off first, leaving all the organic crud (to use a technical term ;-)) in the water vessel. The organics AFAIK all have boiling points about 100 C. Anyway, why bother? If the extraction goes ideally well 100 % of the caffeine has been removed. If that isn't good enough for you, you need to look into crystal meth for your awakeness needs... ;-)
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Re:Restaurant coffee pots (Score:1)
Relocate next door to a Starbucks. (Score:2)
But if you really want to make people, uh, productive, buy a 10 cup coffee maker per employee and a microwave to reheat the coffee. Do NOT leave the coffee maker turned on after if has perked the coffee 'cause the coffee will get a burnt flavor. (When I work at home, that's what I do.)
My employer has a couple of "Flavia" coffee brewing machines which can churn out hundreds of cups a day but the coffee is not the most flavorful.
I still go to the Starbucks up the street.
Re:Cold Soak Concentrate (Score:1)
ooooh...good idea...i had forgotten about that...
also, you could add other stimulants to the mixture...does nicotine have a flavor?
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more coffee (Score:2)
Dunkin' Donuts (Score:1)
Try Bunn Coffee makers (Score:2)
Big Bunns (Score:2)
Think simple. (Score:1)
Alternately you could convert everyone to Jolt Cola