A couple of years ago a bought a Royal Balance Syphon brewer, and I made a video of how it works. It’s the oldest design for an automatic coffee machine, invented in the 1840’s by the Frenchman Louis Gabet. and basically does the all the same things as your modern Moccamaster, except heat the coffee after it has finished brewing. Sadly my machine’s tin coating of the copper boiler has eroded away over the years, rendering the coffee it makes undrinkable, but it’s still a nice piece of semi-functional art.
If you’re interested in how to actually use one, here’s a short instruction; the ratio of coffee to water is the same as for any other coffee maker, approximately 60 grams of coffee to every litre of water. I used half a litre of water in the video, and 30 grams of coffee. I’m not 100% sure of the optimal grind for it, but considering the short brewing time (which is suboptimal) you’d want something similar as to what you use in your drip brewer. As you can see in the video, I use preheated water from a kettle, and I urge you to do the same, the boiler takes around 10 minutes (which I cut out of the video) to build up enough steam to push water into the brewing vessel when you start with water just off the boil. Starting with cold water would probably take longer than you’d fancy waiting for coffee.
Categories: Coffee
Grumpy Techie 
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