Whack-A-Mole with the Obsessions: Radios, Watches . . . and Now Vintage Coffee Percolators

 

When it comes to my obsessive personality, I can be a little scared, but I can also stand back and laugh. I love really good radios, watches . . . and now vintage coffee percolators, the all stainless steel kind with pot bellies, swan neck spouts. Old school. The brands that have caught my attention are Universal, GE, Sears, and Sunbeam. I bought two, a GE Immersible and a Sunbeam, on eBay.

I love this blog post about cleaning your coffee percolator. 

Here's a Coffee Detective post venerating the vintage percolator. The writer claims that the new Made in China ones are junk. Reminds me of my vintage radio love. 

Here's a rhapsody to the GE coffee percolator. 

Currently, I have a Bodum French Press, nice but I'm not wild about the coffee flavor. I also have a Bonavita 1900 drip coffee maker. It makes good tasting coffee, but I don't like all the plastic parts. 

I'm eager to try going vintage. Also, I love the classic look of an all stainless vintage coffee percolator. 

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Comments

[kr]

Jeff, try vintage toasters out too!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgS7mjemduM

[herculodge]

KR, my grandparents had one of those in the 1970s. Very cool.

[SoCalWill]

I'd agree that there are some classic-looking percolators out there, but for the record, percolators are universally regarded as the worst possible way to make coffee, you're literally better off putting grounds into a pan of water over a campfire (known as a "cowboy dip".) Are you using a scale/thermometer/timer/filtered water with your french press?

[herculodge]

SoCalWill,

I should have done an update. I do indeed find the coffee from the Bonavita 1900 superior in taste, richer, less acidic, smoother, more complex, so I'm not using my cheap percolator anymore. It's more of an "emergency" coffee maker. I do use filtered water for my French Press. I like my French Press coffee but with borderline cholesterol, I want to avoid the French Press method's exposure to cholesterol acids mentioned in this Harvard Study: http://www.eater.com/2016/5/20/11723692/french-press-coffee-unhealthy-cholesterol

[SoCalWill]

Jeff, yeah, my last blood panel came back perfect except for borderline bad cholesterol due to my daily use of the french press. I will eventually have to get something along the lines of the Bonavita 1900 or Oxo 9 for weekday use and restrict press use for the weekends; these kinds of full-auto certified makers are your best bet if you want competition-level coffee without the laboratory equipment. If you've come this far with your coffee hardware, hope you're using fresh roast beans from a local roaster and not store shelf junk, fresh roast beans in a dollar store coffeemaker makes better coffee than commercial grounds in a thousand dollar machine..

[herculodge]

I'd get the OXO 9 if I had to do it over all over again. The Bonavita's carafe doesn't pour well and it spills too easily. This is a common complaint made by people who like the Bonavita otherwise. I'm among them. So you would probably be better off getting the OXO9.

I use whole beans, which I grind in a burr grinder. But I don't go to a local place to get fresh roast. Sounds good though. I'll look around here in Torrance.

[SoCalWill]

The beans are orders of magnitude more important than the machine; I personally guarantee that if you try fresh roast, the difference in taste will be a giant leap greater than the difference you experienced between your common drip coffeemaker and the Bonavita. Your coffee label should list *only the date when they were roasted, not an expiration date*, and note the origin of the beans, not merely the roast. Lots of fresh-roasters gladly mail their product, I recommend Klatch: http://www.klatchroasting.com/Coffees_s/1.htm . I know it may seem like a lot of work for a bag of beans, but it'll make sense the moment you try it..

[herculodge]

Thanks for the link. It turns out that I have a good half dozen coffee roasters in Torrance and especially nearby Redondo Beach to give the fresh roasted beans a try.

[SoCalWill]

Make sure your local places have an actual roaster on site and are selling the fresh beans; most places listed as "roasters" are just coffee retailers who have a brick & mortar store to sell their canned stuff. Look for that "roasted on" date, only the fresh roast places will have it.

[herculodge]

I'll be sure to check the date. Thanks for the heads up.