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Sunday, March 05, 2006

Can you help a brutha out?

I need your help.  Yes, I know I've stated several times on this site that I hate when bloggers and journalers busk their audience for free tech tips and various and sundry advice. 

But this is totally different.    I'm the one who needs the help!

Here's the deal.  I love coffee.  It's actually way beyond love and deep into the realm of chemical dependence... but we'll leave that aside for the moment.

I drink a nice big cup of dark Sumatra (coarsely ground in my lovingly restored hand grinder moments before brewing in my trusty press pot), and perhaps another cup just before lunch. 

This ritual has become the axis upon which my world turns.

But each week my world teeters on this axis because of a little thing called Shabbat.  I won't go into the excruciating details of why, as an orthodox Jew, I can't brew coffee on Shabbat.  If you know, you understand... and if you don't it will take way to much time/effort to explain. 

But not to worry... I have questions for those who 'get it', and those who don't.

Up 'til now what I've been doing to get my Shabbat morning fix cup is to brew a large press-pot full of coffee a few minutes before Shabbat begins, and then pour it into a thermal carafe.  This way, come Shabbat morning my lovely wife and I have luke-to-medium warm coffee to enjoy.  But while this is infinitely better than instant coffee [~shudder~] taste-wise... it lacks that 'wack me in the head with a cast-iron skillet' quality of a fresh, hot cuppajoe!

So here are my questions (feel free to answer one or both as your knowledge and/or experience allows):

1)  What is the very best thermal carafe/thermos-type vessel on the planet?  I'm talking about something that will keep liquids piping hot for 15 hours or more.  Most of the thermoses and thermal carafes out there are designed to keep stuff really hot for only 3 or 4 hours.  I am also not interested in anything with any sort of heating element to keep the coffee hot.  Anyone who has ever gone to an all-night diner and been served a cup of brown battery acid coffee that has been sitting for hours on the Bunn-0-Matic heating element already understands why this is not an option.

Or failing that...

2)  Is there a halachic (Jewish Law) loophole or leniency that will allow me to make fresh coffee on Shabbat that won't violate the prohibitions against 'bishul', 'borer'' etc.?  Just to anticipate some of your responses, please don't suggest preparing 'sense' or pre-brewed concentrate in advance as this is actually several orders of magnitude of wretchedness   below instant coffee on the taste scale.

Thank you for indulging me this rare request for help.  I will try not to make a habit of it (unlike, say, my coffee consumption).

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Posted by David Bogner on March 5, 2006 | Permalink

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Comments

Well, we do what we can in the service of the caffeine god.

Posted by: Jordan Hirsch | Mar 7, 2006 5:47:56 PM

Btw, when you are making coffee from a toddy on shabbat you have to remember the correct order. You don't want to heat up something that was cold to above 114 degrees (F), but you can cool something down, so add the toddy to the hot water.

Posted by: Israel Rosencrantz | Mar 8, 2006 10:32:19 PM

Ok, as another coffee addict here I am very happy to see opinions that allow Melita or French press.....

I very enthusiastically got the Toddy when I read about it in some magazine - but you do not get the caffeine kick - in fact there own literature talks about reduced acid and reduced caffeine....

So for me that has been a bust. I have done the make a strong pot and let it be at room temp, strong pot in a thermos (even without the air contact and without the continued heating it still seems to degrade the taste) - basically tried it all! I like the idea of either melita or french press..... who has ruled that either of these is ok???

Posted by: Chaya London | Apr 23, 2006 4:47:21 AM

This is an old discussion, but it still shows up as a leading reference if you look for the halacha of using a French press on Shabbat. I pulled together some of the different issues and posted my psak at http://tinyurl.com/y6yjquc


Reb Barry

Posted by: Reb Barry | Apr 20, 2010 10:25:07 AM

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