How do Vacuum Coffee Makers Work?

A vacuum coffee maker is a fantastic way to make your coffee in an old fashioned and effective manner. Plus vintage models make for elegant room décor and can spice up your style a bit. What many people don't understand is how one of these vacuum coffee machines works and whether or not they actually make great coffee.

The start with the latter, yes, a vacuum coffee maker is going to produce extremely high quality, strong coffee. Plus you're going to get very consistent results, that aren't distorted by lots of machine and moving part imperfections.

The way one of these works is that you have two pots which sit on top of one another and are connected with a tube on the inside, as well a tube on the outside. In the top pot you place your ground coffee, and in the bottom pot you place your water. You use a heating supply to get the water to boil.

As we know, when water boils, it evaporates as steam. This steam rises up through the external tube and into the upper chamber. The steam cools off slightly and mixes with the grounds to brew your coffee. As the water cools down even more, your freshly brewed coffee now automatically lowers back into the bottom chamber through the inner tube by the process of vacuum pressure, hence the name of the vacuum coffee machine.

And viola, you have authentic, fresh brewed coffee which you can now pour from the bottom chamber directly into your mug. Modern machines commonly do not include an external tube as described above and are only connected through the inner mechanism.

What's true with all styles of vacuum coffee makers is that you can choose how strong you want your coffee to be by allowing it to brew in the upper chamber for a longer period of time. In this way you have hands on control over the kind of coffee you want to drink and can guarantee that it's too your liking each and every time.

Additionally, there are actually several different types of vacuum coffee machines. The first are the stovetop coffee makers are those in which you rest the bottom pot directly on your stove, using that as the heating source. The benefit of this is that you don't have to bother with any extra heating sources.

The second broad group is the tabletop coffee makers, which use an alternative heating supply such as a Bunsen burner or an included heat source. The benefit to these is that you are not reliant on the stove, which means you can make your coffee from anywhere at anytime.