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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?
Gorkman
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. :)
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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.
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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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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.
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.
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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!
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