Leveraging the Pause and Serve for Better Coffee

Although I’m partial to making coffee in a french press or a pour over cone dripper, many people still use regular old drip coffee brewers. And that’s OK. Maybe you don’t like the amount of sediment you get in your cup from using a french press (grind coarser, ::ahem::). Maybe the thought of brewing 1 cup at a time using a cone dripper seems like too much of a hassle, especially if you need to brew more than 1 cup of coffee at a time.

Perhaps you’re just not ready to move to the next level of your coffee journey just yet. Whatever the case may be, drip brewers are still one of the most common ways of brewing coffee in most people’s homes. I’m not a big fan, since optimal coffee extraction really happens around 195-205 degrees and drip brewers can typically only get up to about 190.

Still, there’s a simple hack you can use to make your drip brewed coffee taste better by leveraging the pause and serve feature (if your brewer has one… many do!).

The pause and serve is a feature introduced back in ’86 by Mr. Coffee drip coffee brewers where, while your coffee is brewing, it allows you to sneak a quick cup before the entire brewing process is complete by stopping the dripping of coffee for up to about a minute when the carafe is removed mid-brew. After pouring yourself a cup, and replacing the carafe back on top of the warming plate, the drip begins again.

The hack is simple… the filter basket, carrying the ground coffee, gets a continual showering of hot water, but never gets fully submerged with water such as in a french press. We’re going to change that. Wait about a minute after starting the brew process and pull the carafe out of the coffee maker, not to sneak a cup, but rather to allow that filter basket to fill up with hot water. Wait a good 45 seconds, then return the carafe to the warming plate… let the brewed coffee filter in to the carafe and give it about 30 seconds to “catch up”. Repeat 2-3 more times.

By doing this, you’re in effect making that filter basket fill up with hot water so the coffee grounds can steep, fully submerged, much like a french press. I think you’ll be really surprised by the results… you should notice a bigger body and richer flavor. Give it a shot and let me know in the comments if you tried this and how the resulting coffee tasted. -Ken

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