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How Can You Make Lots Of Coffee?
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?
We are in Australia. Dew doesn't come caffeinated here. :-(
Gorkman
I see suggestions for both scaling horizontally and vertically, and support contracts. I think what you really need is a load balanced cluster of coffee machines with a RAIC(Redunant Array of Inexpensive Coffee). Also look into a platnum support contract with 4 hour "spare in the air" service. You can justify all of this beacuse your coffee maker is _oviously_ mission critical to your compnay :-)
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*Not a Sermon, Just a Thought
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*Not a Sermon, Just a Thought
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As for decaf, etc... no one is interested, and they can do it all with instant anyway.
Outsourcing has 2 problems:
- More expensive in the long run. We'd rather just spend the money now.
- We are in Brisbane. ie. There are no such workplace coffee companies. (we miss out on a lot here. We can't even get Nerf ammo for goodness sake!)
A free vending machine has possibilities, but I'm skeptical of the quality of the brew.Exactly the kind of thing we want. Can you supply the details please?
The MSDS link you posted is interesting, as is the Toxicity Info.
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
now tell me why it takes you 10 mnutes to make an espresso.. and even if it took that long, aren't 10 minutes of relax (doing your OWN coffee) worthed?
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)
-- There are two kind of sysadmins: Paranoids and Losers. (adapted from D. Bach)
That way you easily update it's program should you need to tweak it's performance.
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 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
I'm sending the above link to my office manager!
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
I see these things around the local thrift stores pretty often. Cheap. Mass quantities. Passable quality of brew. Gotta love that.
Just buy several drip coffee machines and use those. I have one of those big restaurant style coffee machines at work and it makes terrible coffee (even when it starts with quality grounds). Get 2 or 3 10 cup machines, a good grinder, and let people make more coffee as they drink it. Or better yet, assign people "coffee days" where it is there job to make sure there is plenty of coffee and to wash the pots at the end of the work day.
I'm writing this with toungue half implanted in cheek.
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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Am I the only one who thinks Microsoft is a misnomer? Perhaps Macrosoft would be a better fit?
We have several three pot Bunn machines (eight or so) and a company of 200 people. Up until a year ago, we had good fresh coffee all the time. Pick the location nearest you, go to it. If the pot wasn't fresh and 3/4 full, it was a good sign you showed up for work two hours early. These days, you end up fighting with the machines over every cup, waiting for the pot to brew and then hot-swapping the pots to get some early.
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..
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Our office has a coffee maker with a permanantly attached waterline. You put a filter in, put the coffee grounds in, push a button, and it drips into this large-ish thing (NOT a coffee pot). It holds about 30 cups, and you can interchange the "thing" so if you have a meeting you can make several beforehand. Works quite well .. and .. since it has it's own water supply, you don't ever need to fill it. It can make 30 cups in about 10 minutes. I can get you the brand/model # if you're interested .. I'm just not at work right now. :)
Get them here.
Okay... I'll do the stupid things first, then you shy people follow.
Okay... I'll do the stupid things first, then you shy people follow.
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Cliff says: I know that this is under the "Java" topic, but it gets so underused these days that it was getting lonely. Lord knows the Java community has tried to get Java-related items here, but they seem to get rejected out of hand.
Actually, i would recommend brewing another pot of coffee with this.. (i.e., using this in place of the water.. )
/* Of course I'm real, but can you prove it? */
This is the Best! I have done this. Well-filtered, you end up with a nice syrup. Add a little (or a lot) of this to a mug of hot water and you've got the best damned tasting coffee you could imagine. And it lasts forever. The trick is to have two setups so you can keep 1/2 step ahead of the game, and never run out! I could rant forever about this - just try it!
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
The middle mind speaks!
Umm... Buy more coffee makers?! :)
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suwain_2
You can also get coffee makers that drip into carafes, so you can make a big pot, and it won't go bad sitting on the burner. Make two - when one's out, the other is full. National Vendors makes coffee machines, but I'm not sure if you can buy them direct or if you have to use a service. They also make espress machines for single serving. They make a decent beverage, but it isn't quite barista made espresso.
Get one of those coffee pots that they use in restaurants. Big drip filter things, with two burners on the bottom for making coffee and one more on top of the machine to keep a third pot of coffee warm. Those things take only a couple of minutes to make a pot of coffee, and make two pots at a time. Check with any restaurant equipment supply outfit (look in the yellow pages - there are tons of those guys around). BUNN is a common brand in that market, as I recall.
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
Penguin Peppermints, he!
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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You need: 1. An Olympic sized swimming pool filled with non-chlorinated water 2. One or more dump trucks loaded with coffee beans 3. Something to grind up the beans, such as a wood chipper 4. A Pons and Fleischmann device for starting a cold fusion reaction to heat the water 5. Fire hoses connected to water pumps to move the coffee to wherever you are
Might also want to take a look at the usenet coffee faqs over on faqs.org.
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A true OS solution....doesn't quite fit the problem, but everything needs a little modification....right? Coffee HOWTO
We have a 3 burner model at our place. It uses the regular 10-cup drip filters, but has its own water line attached to the plumbing, no need to fill the resevoir. We also get our coffee pre-packed (Maxwell House), in sealed containers, one potful per packet. Pretty damn easy: Place filter in drip-bowl, open and pour coffee into filter, put drip-bowl in maker, turn on burner and put pot on. Push a button, and in 3-4 minutes, a pot of coffee. Chimpanzee easy, and still the moronic chair-warmers in the front office can't be bothered with filling the fucking pots up. Of course, these are the same idiots who kept a half-empty jug of milk in the fridge for 3 monthes.
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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).
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Indeed there are services which provide coffee machines. Look in your local Yellow Pages (paper or online) for vending services. Those companies provide assorted beverage and food services, not only insert-the-coin vending machines. Some of them will install a coffee machine of the proper size and keep it supplied -- or if you prefer, a vending machine with or without coin slot.
Does your boss really want to increase productivity by dosing everybody with caffine? Seriously though, have you considered your options? You talk about "expected increase in demand" but will there really be this demand? Seven more people isn't too many. Why don't you do a survey and ask people what they want? My suggestion however would be to stay with the regular pots you are used to, and just add another machine or two. Also if your machine doesn't already have one built in (like a platform on the top), a warming plate or something.. that way you can keep one pot hot/warm while brewing another. Also, you need one machine to brew decaff (sanka packets suck.) and one for hot water for tea, cocoa, etc.. And when you set all this up... don't just think about the machines... make sure you have enough counter space.. you don't want any workplace accidents of people accidentally getting burnt. You might also want to look into outsourcing your coffee/beverage issue.. there are a lot of workplace coffee companies that can handle this stuff for you. And of course there are the traditional vending machines -- give people options if they want them... and by all means, make any vending machines reasonably priced! (Or just provide a refridgerator so people can bring in their own cold beverages.. not to mention lunch.. do you have a microwave, too?) ;)
Oh, and whatever your solution... don't forget to make a beowulf cluster out of all those coffee machines..
We overcame this very same problem by calling these folks. So long as you purchase your coffee from them, the equipment is free. Of course, this is only good if you live in the Twin Cities area, but maybe there's somebody like this in your neighborhood? (Trust me, their service sucks much less than their website.) .
Subject says it all.
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.
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Buy a second coffee machine.
When punk rock is outlawed, only outlaws will have punk rock.
Heh, I'm lucky enough to work in an office DIRECTLY across the street from Dunkin' Donuts. Anyone who's had Dunkin' Donuts knows that its some of the best coffee around. So when they closed for remodeling for SIX WEEKS, it wasn't fun. In the mean time, we tried to make our own coffee and found out that just because they grow coffee in Columbia does not mean that Columbians can make coffee. And I quote my coworker. "Columbian coffee isn't meant to taste good, its just very strong." Hrrmph. We're still working on a zip line from the Dunkin' Donuts to our office window.
"Nature doesn't care how smart you are. You can still be wrong." - Richard Feynman
I asked my dad who is in the coffee industry, he recomends going with one of the larger Bunn models--if you will be serving coffee to 30 people about 3 times daily. Also, you should try to get a service deal with one of your local coffee mongers, they usually provide a nice machine, coffee, and service plan. I think, *gasp*, Starbucks has similar deals as well. Good Luck!
That's the title I should have used for the above post!
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
Why upgrade your existing coffee maker when you could just add a second one (or more) ?
:)
Alternately you could convert everyone to Jolt Cola
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