Vacuum pot produces a deep, richer cup of brew

Krankies Coffee held its first monthly coffee tasting on Friday.

As much as I enjoy trying new coffees, I went to see a demonstration of an interesting brewing method.

For $20, participants got a Krankies mug, two half-pound bags of coffee, and a lot of information. Krankies' head roaster, Chris Leiser, even gave people a roasting demonstration.

Coffee connoisseurs may be familiar with the vacuum pot, but this was new to me. And though it's not for everybody, it makes a great cup of java. It's also fun to watch.

The vacuum pot has a long history. A handout for the tasting included an essay by Brian Harris in which he traces the earliest vacuum coffee pots to Germany in the 1830s. It has gone through a number of improvements since then, notably in the glass, which used to crack and even explode.

The vacuum pot eventually made its way to the United States in the late 1800s, Harris said. Corning helped popularize the pot here after it started marketing one in 1915 with its new heatproof glass, Pyrex.

Vacuum pots continued to be popular until the 1950s, but faded out with the advent of percolators and drip coffee makers.

How it works

The vacuum pot consists of two glass chambers that sit on top of one another and are connected by a tube with a tight seal. In the middle is a fine-mesh cloth filter. A small burner goes underneath. Some models are also designed for use on a stove.

Water is heated in the bottom sealed chamber. Coffee is placed in the upper chamber, which is open at the top.

When the water is near boiling, the heat forces it to expand into the upper chamber, where it infuses the coffee. As the bottom chamber cools, it creates a vacuum that pulls the coffee down into the bottom chamber, leaving the grinds above.

To show how the coffee turns out differently, Leiser and Mitchell Britt, Krankies' manager, made batches of each of the featured African coffees using a drip method and the vacuum method.

The first was Kenya Thika Chania estate coffee. This is a high-acid coffee. To me, the aroma was slightly vegetal. The taste is quite citrusy, reminiscent of lemon and grapefruit.

The second was a fair-trade organic coffee called Sidamo, named after a region of Ethiopia. The aroma of this one reminded me of some strong teas, and it had some citrus taste, too, in the lemony finish.

These are both very good coffees. Even more fascinating was to see how different they were when made by different methods.

In both cases, the vacuum method produced coffee that had a deeper flavor. Some might call it richer. "To me, it's cleaner. It's brighter. You can pick up more flavors," Britt said.

Whereas drip coffee just relies on gravity, Britt said, the pull of the vacuum method extracts more of the flavor from the coffee grounds. And the vacuum pot has an advantage over the French press, another popular method in which the grounds are pressed to the bottom of a pot after the coffee brews. Unlike the French press, the vacuum pot doesn't allow any coffee grounds to get into the cup.

The vacuum pot takes some work, though. It's very hands-on -- the opposite of the automatic drip coffee makers that most people use. "That's kind of what's fun about it," Leiser said.

Britt warned that the glass can crack if the outside gets wet. I was thinking that I'd want to have a cup of coffee before I fooled around with the glass equipment first thing in the morning.

Still, watching the pot work has a certain theatricality to it. As Britt said, "This would be great if you have a dinner party."

People can learn more about vacuum pots at www.sweetmarias.com. The site also sells the pots, which can range from about $30 to $260, depending on the brand. They also come in different sizes. Britt said he expects to start carrying a stovetop model at Krankies in the near future. (Krankies doesn't sell cups of vacuum-pot coffee, simply because it's not practical for customers in a hurry.)

Britt also said that Krankies, 211 E. Third St., will hold a different coffee tasting at 10 a.m. the first Friday of every month.

For more information, visit www.krankies.com or call 336-722-3016.

Last Wednesday's story on The Stocked Pot and Easy Meals to Go omitted the contact information. They are at 381 Jonestown Road in the Centre Stage Shopping Center.

The Stocked Pot has a complete calendar of classes, including prices and detailed descriptions, at www.thestockedpot.com. Registration for classes can be done online. Easy Meals to Go has its full menu of "take and bake" foods on its Web site, www.easymealstogo.com.

For more information, call 336-499-5844.

■ Michael Hastings, the Journal's Food editor, can be contacted by phone at 727-7394, e-mail at mhastings@wsjournal.com, or mail at c/o Winston-Salem Journal, P.O. 3159, Winston-Salem, NC 27102. His most recent columns can be read on our Web site at www.journalnow.com.