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Steamed Coffee
Put coffee into the pot, pour the boiling water on it; place this pot (which is made to fit) into the top of the tea-kettle, and let cook from ten to twenty minutes, while water in kettle is kept boiling all the time. This makes a clear, delicious coffee. Some persons hold that by first wetting the coffee with cold water, bringing it to boiling point, and then pouring in water, more of the strength is extracted.
This is a double-boiler method: coffee steeps in water held just under a boil by steam from the kettle below. The book gives no measurements at all, so the proportions and the grind are up to you.
- ProportionsNo quantity is specified. About 2 tablespoons of coffee per 6 oz of water — roughly 60 g per litre — is a reasonable modern starting point; nineteenth-century books often call for a heaping spoonful per cup, though cup sizes varied.
- The vesselThe recipe says only that the pot is 'made to fit' the top of the tea-kettle; it does not describe the vessel further. A stainless bowl or small saucepan set over a pan of simmering water does the same job; the point is that the coffee is heated by steam and never sits on direct flame.
- GrindA coarse grind is what this method wants. A fine grind steeped for fifteen minutes over steam turns harsh and leaves silt in the cup. Period grinds varied with the mill and the method.
- The hinge: never let it boilIndirect heat -- The kettle supplies gentle, indirect heat rather than a direct flame. Coffee held at a rolling boil drives off aromatics and pulls bitter compounds from the grounds; a vessel set over boiling water will generally sit somewhat below 212F, though the book gives no temperature.
- TimingTen to twenty minutes is long by modern standards even at that temperature. Taste at eight minutes and again at twelve; most coarse grinds are fully extracted well before twenty and only grow more astringent after.
- ClearingThe "clear" coffee promised here comes from the grounds settling undisturbed. Do not stir at the end — let the pot stand a minute off the steam, then pour off gently, or strain through a fine sieve or filter paper.
- The cold-water variationWetting the grounds with cold water first and bringing them up to heat is a real technique, and the slower temperature rise lengthens contact time, which is presumably what the recipe means by extracting more of the strength. It also makes it easier to overshoot into boiling, so watch it.
- YieldScale to the vessel: a quart of water with about 2 oz of ground coffee, at the ratio above, gives four cups.
Steamed and filtered coffee methods appear with increasing frequency in American household books in the second half of the nineteenth century alongside boiled coffee, long the ordinary practice — grounds tipped into a pot, boiled, then settled with an eggshell, egg white or a dash of cold water. Writers of the period often complained that boiling made coffee bitter and "muddy." The Dixie Cook Book, compiled in the 1880s from contributed receipts, gives several coffee methods side by side, and this entry ends by reporting what "some persons hold" rather than settling the argument. That the recipe assumes a kettle kept boiling all the time suggests a range with a constant fire, where hot water was always at hand.