Coffee makers, #4 cone, large insulated carafe?

[Mike]

Hi all,
Looking for a suggestion for a good (energy efficient?) drip coffee maker for road trips.
We've decided that the "purchasing morning coffee" route isn't as reliable as it was the first few times out.
Especially at State/National Parks and places like Grand Canyon and Bryce Canyon. We would have killed
for a Tim Hortons/Starbucks out there back in October. It just seems that the places we like to visit have little
or no good coffee available (just our opinion, mind ).

I figure we can run fire up the genny for 10-15 minutes to power it long enough to brew a carafe
of our own preferred grind. I'm guessing we'll either use pint sized cream, or see if we can buy those
little non-dairy creamers that don't need refrigeration. I take sugar, but that's no problem.
Has anyone ever seen one that uses #4 cone filters, and had a large capacity 10-12 cup insulated
resealable carafe, and preferably no warming plate.

So, to any of you who make your own java, what type of coffee makers do you use, or would you recommend?

Thanks for your thoughts in advance,
Mike.

[Mike]

How about a Hamilton Beach 45237C Stay or Go?
We saw it and bought it. It's simple (perfect for us) with one touch on/off for brewing,
draws 900W according to the spec sheet, shuts off when brewing is done, has 2 travel mugs
and an insulated carafe and no warming plate, and holds 10 X 5 oz. cups which is about
what we normally consume in the morning. It uses basket type filters, so that's the only
thing we didn't like, but we can live with that.

So, tomorrow, we test - coffee, somewhere local, brewed on generator power, in the van.
Stay tuned.

[markopolo]

I have a single mug coffee maker that uses a nylon mesh filter basket. I trim a paper filter to fit in the filter basket when I use it my RV. It makes cleanup much easier.

[Mike]

Thanks Mark. We looked at some single cup models, but decided to go big.
There was one that brewed and held the coffee inside the maker, and I believe
had a "tap" or spigot which opened when you put your cup under and hit the
button. But, it required a constant power source after brewing to keep it working
and the coffee hot, so we passed on it, and went with the insulated carafe design.

We were too busy to field test our setup in the van today, so tomorrow maybe.

PROS:
Setup and adding water is easy. It makes about the same volume of coffee as
our Procter Silex, so there's no visual or mental recalibration (for me) required.
It did make a decent pot of morning coffee, and we got 5 hefty mugs out of one
carafe. I know it's a small thing, but the carafe poured drip free. No mess.
The write ups I read were right about it keeping the coffee hot in the insulated
carafe. I poured the last cup about 90 minutes after it finished brewing and it
was still steaming. The auto shut off is nice too, when our power source is going
to be the generator. Maybe I can connect it to the genny shutoff switch?
No warming plate is also nice. It doesn't need one, and we didn't want one.
CONS:
The basket filter came close to collapsing into the basket and allowing grounds to
make it to the carafe. Not sure how to prevent that. I'd love to find a combo
conical inside, basket outside filter holder, to retrofit. We'll have to just make
sure the filter is centered and the coffee is evenly spread inside it. Or, maybe
I'll figure out a work around with nylon mesh or something similar.

Do you use regular mugs or disposables? We're not big on using the fresh water
for anything but flushing the toilet, so we're thinking about disposable paper
coffee cups. We've seen large bags of them at Costco. No idea how expensive
they are, but we don't want to have to do anything after coffee except rinse the
plastic basket and carafe. And throw out or recycle the empty cups.

I forgot just how bad no name coffeemate can be, when you're used to cream.
I'm looking for Land O Lakes Mini-Moos. They're those baby creamers and are
touted as not requiring refrigeration even though they're also real cream.
MSG laced, perhaps? Still something like that would be better than powder.
I've seen them on the internet selling 188 for anywhere from around $8-16.
They are available at Sam's Club apparently, but I have yet to find them for sale
in Canada online or in a store.
If anyone knows where I might obtain a quantity up here for testing, I'd be much obliged.

So, that's it for the coffee maker thread, except I'll post up the result of the generator
powered coffee experiment. Hopefully tomorrow.

Mike.

[Mike]

Works like a charm. We now have the technology for coffee where none existed before.
Down side is that Land O Lakes Mini-Moos creamers aren't available in Canada yet
(per LOL customer service email).

[Lou]

We often camp with no electrical hookups and I have tried numerous ways to make coffee without what my Grandmother called "a huge skiddle". The best thing we have found is the insulated French press carafe that we now use. It is stainless steel and keeps the coffee hot even if one of us gets up an hour later. You just swish it with a tiny bit of hot water to warm it, next you add the coffee grounds then the boiling water, give a quick stir put on the lid (with built in plunger), let it stand for about 6 minutes and lastly push down the plunger and pour. A friend's brother owns a coffee roasting business and he suggested this method. It makes good coffee.
As a retired teacher I still need my recess coffee but don't want to stop and turn on the gas to make it. If it is cold out I make extra at breakfast and put it in a thermos. However for warm weather I make coffee concentrate. You can look up instructions but basically you soak regular grind coffee grounds in cold water for 12 hours then strain it through cheesecloth (or buy a Toddy coffeemaker). Apparently in Europe they add 1/4 cup concentrate to a cup of boiling water or hot milk but I turn my concentrate into ice cubes. In the morning I add two frozen coffee cubes to my thermos and fill it up with cold milk. By coffee break time they are thawed and the coffee tastes a lot like a cold latte. Sometimes when it is very hot I just take a jar of liquid concentrate and we add 1/4 cup to each mug of milk for our dinner coffee. Two interesting things about this process is that it filters out bitter oils so if coffee often upsets your stomach this is unlikely to do so and it doesn't matter if you use inexpensive coffee.
I don't much like canned milk and wouldn't drink whitener so when we were going on the Alaska highway and I was worried about running out of milk I froze some milk cubes for when we didn't have fresh. In the evening I dropped two in a container in the fridge and they were thawed for milk in our morning coffee.

[Mike]

We just got back from a 2 week roadtrip, and to make a long story short, we wound up at
one of our favorite canyons, with the usual lack of quality a.m. coffee. We used our Hamilton
Beach "Stay or Go" coffee maker to brew a pot of French roast, freshly ground coffee from beans.
We got/ground the coffee at a Walmart in Grants, NM, and as luck would have it, we also found
the Land O Lakes Mini-Moos, half and half, non-refrigerated, creamers we've been looking for since
last year. They came in a box of 24 for around $3.50 I think. They don't require refrigeration,
according to the usage instructions, but they do have a shelf life of around 2 months. We had
to go to the parking lot near the Trading Post/Restaurant to run the generator for the 17
minutes it took to brew the coffee, as it was too early to run gensets in the campground.
The Stay or Go system only requires electricity while brewing, then the insulated carafe keeps
the brewed coffee hot for at least an hour or two. Perfect timing for the two of us.
It was a very successful test, and an enjoyable morning.