coffee makers not so bad?

Johann

SolarPowered said:

Yeah the kuerig is cheap on wattage, but man, oh man, those kuerig cups are expensive compared to buying whole beans and grinding them yourself with good old Mr.Coffee.

Or you just buy a refillable cup for the kuerig coffee maker and use/fill with the choice of coffee you want.

jonr

My guess for most efficient hot coffee or tea with electricity is a cartridge heater dropped into a thermos.

solarvic

I am new to keureg coffee brewers. and only turn it on when I want to make a cup of coffee. My users manual says if you leave it on all the time it uses about the same amount of electric as a 60 watt bulb on 24/7. I bought some plastic caps called  MY CAPS from Amazon. They have the address stamped on them with the address www.my-kaps .com and I think you might be able to buy them directly from the seller. You save the k-cups after you use them then clean out the used coffee keeping the filter intact. You can refill them with your own coffee and press the plastic my k-cap into the top. I like mine and it makes the coffee a lot cheaper to use. Also I got a Icoffee brewer that I feel makes a better cup of coffee than the Keurig brewer 

kc8adu

as for the 12v coffeemakers dont bother.
they take forever and dont work very well.
a $5 on sale proctor silex we have at the shop beats it in every way.
i ran it on an inverter at hamvention and was making 4 pots a morning for our group and the vendors either side of us.
no impact on battery life.
but i have 4 8d agm under the bed/rear seat of the van.
that setup can support a lot of stuff for a day.
and we ran a pot then shut it off.the warmer is a big load if you leave it on all day.
the thermal carafe is a winner.best thing you can do for efficiency if you must run a coffeemaker.

kc8adu

Johann said:

SolarPowered said:

Yeah the kuerig is cheap on wattage, but man, oh man, those kuerig cups are expensive compared to buying whole beans and grinding them yourself with good old Mr.Coffee.

Or you just buy a refillable cup for the kuerig coffee maker and use/fill with the choice of coffee you want.

dont forget to hack it first!
http://www.keurighack.com/

solarvic

There are lots of different ways to hack them. I did the one where you cut the wire to the reader and took the head apart and took the magnet out. Saw that on you tube. Another one that works well is to buy a pack ofstickers from wal mart or big lots. You can take any kind of cup and paste a sticker on the top of the cup about the 9 oclock position. The freedomcup thing doesn,t work on the new ones as they changed the shape where you can,t mount it.  I got tired of all that crap and bought an icoffee that I feel makes a better cup of coffee with no hacking needed. I saw them at KMart for $52.00  because the store is closing. The regular price is at least $100.00.

Lumisol

Better yet, just brew Sun Coffee.

solarvic

Yes sir, I already had one. It wore out the same as anything else. I used on gas stove range and it said in directions not recommended to use on gas range top. It will make a good cup of coffee though. 

Lumisol

Personally I like cowboy coffee brewed in an old ceramic pot over the fire. It doesn't get any better than that in my opinion.

MarkP

Almost everyone would benefit from adding a couple of panels and buying regular (but efficient) 120 volt appliances.  On those cloudy days you can forgo the coffee while the extra panels help charge your batteries.  Can't do that with propane.

706jim

Maybe this is a bit off topic (and then again perhaps not) but I've used this comparison regarding what energy can and can't do: 
My coffee maker uses about 1000 watts for about 10 minutes to make 10 cups of coffee.
One afternoon, I used my Skil saw to cut 32 2 x 6 boards on an old deck. Saw is rated at 1500 watts (max) and cut those boards in about 3 minutes. So, 32 boards cut = equals approximate amount of energy to brew maybe 3-4 cups of coffee.
That would be a LOT of work with a handsaw and I for one am grateful for the reduction in manual labour required to cut those boards. But how many would ever equate this to brewing coffee?

mike95490

You can't power a saw with propane, but you can make coffee with it.
The once in a while saw usage, compared to the daily hit that coffee makes, over even just a weeks worth of time, adds up to a big difference.  And the coffee hits the batteries when the solar isn't. By the time the saw is out, so is the sun

Pine

We just put a kettle (or Turkish style coffee maker) on the wood cook stove or the wood heat stove. In the few months of summer it's the same on the propane stove. We have an electric on a shelf and haven't touched it in years. 

jonr

If there were no losses, it would only take 84 watt-hours to heat 4 cups of water/coffee.   Personally, I don't like coffee that isn't brewed at an accurate, below boiling temperature (easier to do with electricity).

kc8adu

i found a western auto 5 cup 12v at a yardsale for $1.
tested it to see how it would do.
starting full with cold water to strong took 36 minutes directly to a 8d gel with no assistance from solar.
its passable in a pinch.
the lighter cord was junk.
ended up putting an anderson powerpole on it.
on ac it took 17 minutes.
a cheap 800w 4 cup drip pot does it in 7.
reinforces past findings that 12v coffeemakers are barely usable and only if you are patent.