How does drip coffee maker work? Most coffee lovers like us can not start our day with a hot cup of freshly brewed coffee. Yet we take our humble drip coffee makers for granted.
They are probably our best friends as they always sit ready on the counters to serve a perfect cup to us. Every morning, we put our favorite coffee in the coffee filter and then in the coffee machine. After flipping the switch, we eagerly wait for that first energetic cup of goodness.
However, have you wondered what’s happening inside your gorgeous coffee machine? What process is involved in making that classic brew? How does drip coffee maker work?
We can bet most of you will answer ‘No’ to all these questions. Well, don’t feel bad about it as we will tell you each and everything about how a coffee maker works and what processes are involved in making that delicious cup of coffee.
Let’s starts with the basic components of a drip coffee maker before explaining the topics of how does a drip coffee maker work, we know what are the main components inside. Manufacturers of our drip coffee maker have been working for well over 30 years to develop this modern simple design.
A drip coffee maker is a simple device and it is a pretty straightforward machine when you take a look at them on the inside. When you remove the top of any drip coffee maker you will find the reservoir, the drip area, the showerhead, and heating elements, and many more.
What’s Inside Your Drip Coffee Machine?
There are a variety of components that make a drip coffee maker work and we’ve done an extensive research to show you the various components. The reason we wrote this post is that a lot of coffee lovers love a nice drink! However, some of us dig a little deeper to see how a coffee maker works and to be honest it is really fascinating. So here are 7 Interesting tips of the main units or components of a drip coffee machine
Important Components Of A Best Drip Coffee Maker
Reservoir: The reservoir is nothing but a container that holds the cold water you pour into the pot when you are going to make your coffee. The reservoir bucket has a hole at the bottom and a white tube connected from the reservoir base to the drip area. The absolute purpose of this white tube is to carry hot water to the coffee maker’s drip area. Additionally, this tube also helps you use cleaning solutions when cleaning your machine. For some coffee makers, you will find the option to remove it.
Shower Head: Drip coffee maker has a shower head that receives the hot water carried by the white tube. Its function is to spray water onto the coffee grounds when hot water reaches the showerhead.
Drip Area: Drip area has a perforated plastic disc where water flows from a white tube and flows through its holes to coffee grounds. The drip area is not available for all drip coffee makers.
Heating Element: The heating element is nothing but a simple wire made of aluminum that is coiled and is quite similar to a filament inside of a light bulb or even the heating element you might find in your toaster. The main purpose of this heating element is to transfer energy from electric energy to heat energy which means raise the temperature of the water using electricity.
When electricity starts to flow through the heating element, it starts getting hot. All coffee machines do not require an electric supply because some coffee makers like 12 Volt coffee makers are specially designed for outdoor use where the electric connection is not available.
This heating element has an extrusion of two sections, one is a tube that allows water to flow through and another is a resistive heating element connected to electricity. The heating element does two important jobs. The primary job is to heat up water after putting water in the water reservoir of the drip coffee maker and its second job is to keep warm the brewed coffee.
Plaster: Plaster is basically a pasty composition and plastering is one of the most useful techniques in order to make the coil of a drip coffee maker tougher.
Grease: The heating element is usually placed between the drip coffee makers warming plate and water tube. Heat-Conducting greases are used for proper electrical insulation that ensures the transfer of heat is done efficiently.
Switch: Modern coffee maker has a switch that turns on and off the power that provides electricity to the heating element. When you turn on the switch the heating element will immediately start to heat the aluminum tube, the water in the tube will begin to boil, and bubbles will rise up into the white tube of the drip coffee maker.
One-way valve: After that, the water will flow through a one-way valve and into an aluminum tube that is found in the drip coffee maker heating element. Then it goes partially up through a white tube. This all is happening with the help of natural gravity.
Sensor: The temperature sensor, which turns on and on the basis of set temperature, is used in the best drip coffee maker to maintain a steady temperature profile of heating elements. To prevent overheating beyond the design temperature at the heating element, the switch is connected to electrical fuses so that it can cut the power off completely when it detects very high temperatures. Fuses work as a safety feature in the drip coffee maker.
Final Thoughts
A drip coffee machine is also called by the name dripolator. It usually works by adding the fresh cold water into the reservoir that has a thin hole at its base which is connected by a tube. The tube takes the water to the heating chamber which consists of heating elements that boil the water which is again carried to the showerhead using tubing to the coffee grounds. This is how you become a proud owner of your freshly brewed coffee. That’s all about it. We hope that now you have the answer to “how a coffee maker works”“!
