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Keeping coffee hot

How good or bad an idea do you think it would be to just have a coffee machine right next to me and, once the coffee has all dripped into the pot, add in the milk and sugar right there, just pull the pot out and sip from it when I need some, and replace the pot to so it gets kept hot by the heater plate thingy on the coffee maker?

Tags: caffeine addiction, cofee maker, coffee, coffee machine, severe burns

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Permalink Reply by Jason Spicer on January 4, 2010 at 3:44pm

I'm not really that much of a coffee snob, but warming plates under coffee pots are a bad way to go. They continually cook the coffee, making it turn bitter faster. A thermal carafe is preferable (that's what I do), but it's probably best to brew each cup on demand, like the Keurig machines, or if you really want to get fancy, a grind-and-brew-cup-at-a-time system. But those get spendy. Coffee really shouldn't sit around, though, even if it's full of milk and sugar, and by that I mean Bailey's.

Of course, if you're planning to drink the whole pot in less than 20 minutes or so, your plan is fine. In that case, it's probably more important to be located nearer the bathroom than the coffee pot.

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Permalink Reply by FreeThinker on January 4, 2010 at 8:44pm

This is completely unrelated to your question, but the other day I was at my aunt's house and she asked if I would like a cup of coffee. I said "yes" and she asked if I wanted cream or sugar and I said "no". She then said "I can't drink it without cream and sugar...it's too much caffeine". Apparently, she thinks that adding cream and sugar to the coffee somehow magically negates the caffeine content. lol

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Permalink Reply by Johnsky on January 5, 2010 at 12:17am

I do believe you hate the clothes you're wearing.

Or you prefer to wear coffee.

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Permalink Reply by Richard Healy on January 5, 2010 at 12:29am

Had an illuminating conversation with an owner of a tea and coffee shop/importer/emporium last year, who pointed out that the heating plates of all non-commercial electric coffee pots lack the wattage to heat coffee to either it's ideal temperature or to sustain it.

The commercial equivalents he said were orders of magnitude greater and could be supported by the electrical usage afforded to commercial properties. Ordinary households don't have the electrical capacity for it, so the units with the hotter plates aren't sold to the public.

Try a lateral thinking approach. Temperature perception is relative. Take off your clothes. Drink the coffee naked.

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Permalink Reply by Jason Spicer on January 5, 2010 at 2:46am

That sounds fishy to me, Richard. I think the coffee shop owner was trying to convince you to buy commercially made coffee. A home coffee maker boils water. If there's enough wattage to do that, there's no reason the warmer couldn't be hot enough to keep coffee warm (less than boiling). I mean, it's possible that the warming plates are typically made so wimpy in a household coffee maker that they don't do much more than keep the coffee from cooling as fast, but it's not for lack of available wattage. Maybe to prevent burns? Anyway, you don't want a warmer to actually raise the temperature of the coffee after it's been brewed. That just makes the coffee break down faster.

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Permalink Reply by Johnsky on January 5, 2010 at 9:05pm

That's over 15 amps!

You running that thing off your washer and dryers breaker or something?! Wow.

I don't think even I own anything that sucks that much current.
Except for a straight wire, lol.

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Permalink Reply by Jason Spicer on January 5, 2010 at 10:10pm

P = I * E (that's pretty much all I remember from high school electronics), so 1875W / 125V = 15 amps. Yeah, that's right at the limit, but looking on amazon.com, there are a lot of 1875W hair dryers for sale. If you have it running on the highest setting and turn on any other device plugged into that circuit, like even a toothbrush charger, you'll pop the breaker for sure.

But some 125V circuits are 20 amps. In the US, outlets on a 20 amp circuit are supposed to have a different shaped hole. It's kind of a t-shape where one of the plug blades goes in, but it's made so that low-wattage plugs fit too. A high-wattage device is supposed to have a plug that only fits a 20 amp outlet. See the photos here. I don't think 20 amp circuits are common in bathrooms, though.