Tales From The Coffee Pot

My best coffee experience was at MCAS Rose Garden, Thailand. We had a 100 cup coffee maker in the shop. The junior troops were assigned to make coffee for each shift (12 hours). One night about 0200, I heard an animal sounding sound. Our hanger and work space bordered on the jungle at the time. I searched the shop for the critter and when I got close to the coffee maker it made that sound. I touched it and the maker was warm. As I opened the lid, coffee grounds came spitting out. I hollered who made the coffee? A L/Cpl said "I did", so I questioned him. Seems he had filled the percolator basket to the top with grounds. Now a 100 cup coffee maker has a three step basket. The lowest is for the grounds, the next is for the expansion of the wet grounds and the top level is for the hot water to drip back through making the coffee. We were issued coffee in 20 pound tins, so he figured it was to fill the basket. Once it finally started to percolate the water was like syrup and made a "urrup" sound. Taught him the right way to make the coffee and had him clean up the mess. He made the coffee nightly until I rotated back to the land of the big PX.
 
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Keurig machines don't do it for me. But we also have one of those on the counter, for a total of 3 coffee makers. My electric perk and coffee grinder go in the cupboard. There aren't many K Cups that are strong enough for me on medium size setting. I usually use a refillable pod for my afternoon coffee. I'll drink any brand of coffee. Although some are better than others. As long as it's hot strong and black I'm good.
 
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Bald1 said:
Keurig machines don't do it for me. But we also have one of those on the counter, for a total of 3 coffee makers. My electric perk and coffee grinder go in the cupboard. There aren't many K Cups that are strong enough for me on medium size setting. I usually use a refillable pod for my afternoon coffee. I'll drink any brand of coffee. Although some are better than others. As long as it's hot strong and black I'm good.
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You sound like the Chief's in the Chief's Mess when we were on USS Saratoga. They liked to drink No.2 Fuel Oil as it looked and tasted. We, Jarheads, would get to the Mess early and there would not be any coffee ready. The Chief's would call a Messman to make coffee for them. We, Marines, would make our own. Of course, our taste buds were a bit more refined than the Navy Chief's and our coffee was brewed a bit lighter. The Chief's would complain (read b*t*h) "Those D**N Marines made coffee again".
 
Narragansett said:
For years, I have prepared my morning coffee at night so that I can just push the button in the morning.

Well, as I get older, the chair grabs me at night, and when I wake up, I want to go right to bed. Besides being able to just push the button in the morning, I eliminated the catastrophe of screwing up the process. This can range from forgetting to add water or coffee, forgetting to put the pot back on the burner, forgetting you made the coffee the night before and adding double water.

Today it was forgetting to put the strainer back in before adding coffee. Coffee and grounds everywhere. 15 minute cleanup.

Anybody have horror stories to share? :eek::D
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Have you been peekin' at me??? I could have written that post word for word.

I now jus go by how I feel in the evening. If I don't feel like fooling with it I just leave it for the morning and hope for thr best. I usually get it wrong. :rolleyes:
 
Used to work in a warehouse at a glass company loading trucks at night. The coffee maker was a restaurant model, made for filling those pump hot pots. Every once in awhile the coffee would be just terrible. You'd have to pour it out and start again. turned out one of the truckers would come in in the morning, pour out what coffe was there and make a pot, take one cup and go trucking. Turns out he was filling the basket to above the top and scraping it off level when he slid the basket back in. Coffee was about 1/4 grounds and strong enough to strip paint. Once he was instructed on how to make coffee we had no more problems.
 
AJ said:
You sound like the Chief's in the Chief's Mess when we were on USS Saratoga. They liked to drink No.2 Fuel Oil as it looked and tasted. We, Jarheads, would get to the Mess early and there would not be any coffee ready. The Chief's would call a Messman to make coffee for them. We, Marines, would make our own. Of course, our taste buds were a bit more refined than the Navy Chief's and our coffee was brewed a bit lighter. The Chief's would complain (read b*t*h) "Those D**N Marines made coffee again".
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A place I've worked at suffered the same issue. Certain people wanted to make the coffee strong enough to fix cracks in the road. I asked one of them if his dad taught him to make coffee after doing the Murmansk run in Flower class corvette. Turned out the guy was not a naval historian and the joke went past his left ear and splat against the wall.
 
AJ said:
You sound like the Chief's in the Chief's Mess when we were on USS Saratoga.
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We had some contractors come into where I worked to install an electric tempering oven for glass. I watched one of the electricians spend 5 whole minutes crafting and mounting a cup holder for his coffee on the scissor lift. I do have to say, for cardboard and duct tape, it was an impressive cup holder.
I told him, "You must be a Navy Chief." "Used to be. How'd you guess?" I pointed at the cupholder and said, "Only people in the world that take coffee so seriously." He didn't seem too amused.:D
 
When I was working I had two separate assignments where I was a "Roving Patrol Guard".

The job was just what it sounds like. I drove around to different businesses or city facilities and did a security check of the site
then on to the next place.

Apparently finding Coffee Mugs in parking garages is my superpower.

I found three of those really nice Starbucks steel coffee mugs. I found a Stanley Thermos Mug and two Contigo vacuum containers that sat on the loading dock at FedEx for 6 months before I decided they'd been abandoned.

I use one of the Starbucks coffee mugs as my teacup and it will keep the tea hot until it's gone. I use another as a water glass and it will keep ice all day long. I use the Stanley for hot chocolate and it will keep it hot until it's gone. Just those four alone are worth over $100. I have no idea why the people that had them left them behind.

I had one guy that worked on a site where I was the supervisor who left his Stanley Thermos behind one day. I rinsed it out and I put it in my car so it wouldn't walk away. Then I sent him an email telling him I had it and would be returning it the next time he worked that site or he could pick it up at his convenience. He responded and told me he didn't want it and he wanted me to throw it away.

I sent him back another email and told him that it was no imposition I certainly didn't mind holding on to it for him and I told him I'd be more than happy to give it back to him when the next time he was on that site or he could come pick it up at his convenience. He responded again telling me that he did not want the thermos and that I was to dispose of it.

I saved the emails to cover my self then took it home and boiled it, my wife washed it and it's sitting in my closet. I used it to take hot tea to work until I retired.
 
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Mike, SC Hunter, get you one of those 4 cup coffee makers. They make about 2 good-sized cups of coffee and are really inexpensive. Some are a cheap as 10 bucks.
 
For many years I was the maker of coffee at the Quebec fishing camp. The camp was not heavily electrified, so instead of Mr. Coffee for quite a few years we had the old traditional perculator, with the perforated metal cylinder sitting on the post in the pot of water. You didn't plug it in, you set it on the stove and fired it up. You knew the coffee was ready when you saw brown liquid bouncing up and down in the glass knob in the lid. That no-tech apparatus made some pretty good coffee.
 
You know Balzac the French writer- died from the stuff 50 cups a day.

He was wired- he used to go into the nearest coffee shop after his night time adventures and holler.

"Girl! bring me my coffee! hot as hades! and black as sin"!! or so the story goes- the stuff finally did him in..

"On this subject Brillat-Savarin is far from complete. I can add something to what he has said because coffee is a great power in my life; I have observed its effects on an epic scale. Coffee roasts your insides. Many people claim coffee inspires them; but as everybody likewise knows, coffee only makes boring people even more boring. Some remarks about coffee- from the great sages."

Honor'e de Balzac: The Pleasures and Pains of Coffee

His essay on the Black Elixir above. I am a addict to the bean, the only type I have not or would not be willing to try is the notorious pole cat bean from Indonesia ye gads! the horror the horror!

I have twice filled the reservoir creating a flood. Not filling it at all- near creating a near catastrophe. Dropping the grounds pre and post brewed on the deck. Put cold water in a hot pot creating a deadly steam fog etc. In addition to being a coffee dipsomaniac, I am also as clumsy as Roosters son Horace who must of broke 40 cups- unclear if it was lack of coffee or jitters from to much coffee.

Not much chance the bean will release its grip on my soul. Perhaps some day I will break free and change to oolong or some such.

No way!

lol
 
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Golddollar said:
For many years I was the maker of coffee at the Quebec fishing camp. The camp was not heavily electrified, so instead of Mr. Coffee for quite a few years we had the old traditional perculator, with the perforated metal cylinder sitting on the post in the pot of water. You didn't plug it in, you set it on the stove and fired it up. You knew the coffee was ready when you saw brown liquid bouncing up and down in the glass knob in the lid. That no-tech apparatus made some pretty good coffee.
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If you are talking about the old aluminum percolators, they make great coffee. My mother has about 10 of them from like 2 cups to 30 cups.
 
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I am an early bird and always have been. That has always made me the official coffee maker at hunting camp. I have it ready when the guys get up at normal times. Old style metal pot perking through the little clear bubble on top of the lid. On cold frosty mornings in fall coffee sure braces a hunter for the morning.
I love it.
 
Golddollar said:
For many years I was the maker of coffee at the Quebec fishing camp. The camp was not heavily electrified, so instead of Mr. Coffee for quite a few years we had the old traditional perculator, with the perforated metal cylinder sitting on the post in the pot of water. You didn't plug it in, you set it on the stove and fired it up. You knew the coffee was ready when you saw brown liquid bouncing up and down in the glass knob in the lid. That no-tech apparatus made some pretty good coffee.
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Quebec fish camp and coffee. That sounds like paradise. Reminds me of standing on dock at daybreak sipping coffee as the fog rose up off water. Then heading out in old cedar strip boats to catch walleye and pike.
 
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