"vacuum" news and stories

Forget your percolator: this is siphon coffee.

The newfangled machine looks more like it belongs in a chemistry lab than your local cafe, but that seems to be half its appeal. It's a siphon bar, it costs $20,000, and it lives at Blue Bottle Cafe in San Francisco, California. And it's certainly is fun to watch:

Essentially, there are several burners, each with a glass or metal bulb suspended above. You put your coffee grounds into one, and your water into the other. You light the burner, and as the water heats, it is pushed through a pipe into the coffee grounds. The coffee brews, and when it is finished, it is sucked back through the pipe to the first canister, where it waits patiently until it is consumed. The bar allows baristas to do this process several times simultaneously, like in the photo above.

Now, just to reiterate: this machine doesn't make espresso, or froth your milk, or contain storage containers for cocoa and cinnamon. It just makes plain ol' coffee. But fans of the machine say the taste is extraordinary, because the process keeps the water at just the right temperature when it mixes with the grounds, creating a heavenly cup.

If this sounds appealing to you, luckily, there are cheaper siphons (also called 'vacuum coffeemakers') currently on the market, like the Bodum Santos Vacuum Maker (from $55 to $80, depending on where you look) or the Yama 8-cup Vac Pot Siphon Brewer (about $50).

But if you want to get the true experience of the siphon bar, you'll have to head over to the Blue Bottle Cafe.

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Sous vide is a cooking method that involves packing food, usually meat, in a vacuum-sealed bag and poaching it in water for a long time over low temperatures. It was first developed in France in the late 1960s and it is a popular technique with chefs at high end restaurants because the food prepared in this way is more tender, juicy and flavorful than as it is in some other methods of cooking.

The water temperatures used to cook the meat are often much lower than boiling, though, which raised concerns from the New York City Health Department. The department feels that the risk of bacteria breeding in sous vide food is very high, especially if the bag is improperly sealed. Though there have not, as yet, been any health problems tied to sous vide cooking, the health department has imposed fines on chefs using the method until a city health code that specifically governs the use of the technique has been drawn up. Chefs have been forced to dispose of thousands of dollars of vacuum packed food, both cooked and uncooked, by city inspectors and have complained that not only is the city's move unwarranted, but that they were not given any notice of the change in policy prior to their regular inspections.

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