Coffee pot argument

Positive.

don't

Dear Jim, Sorry to be so late in repsonding....we went to another island for Thanksgiving and just got back. My carafe cost about $90 last year. It is just a Cuisinart. Again, you will get far better coffee from the carafe. Your wife is right:)! aloha, Thunder

immensely

Sorry to be late in answering -we just got back from a Thanksgiving trip. As I wrote to someone above, our Cuisinart cost about $90 last year, on sale from Macy's. I just checked and it doesn't have any numbers or anything on the coffee maker. It is a stainless steel looking carafe and the rest of the machine is black. I promise your coffee will be better.

My sister just told me that "Cook's Illustrated" - a lengthy esoteric cook book says do not use anything but a carafe type drip coffee maker to make your daily coffee. Agreed. aloha Thunder

According to Trent© :

You are confused between heat and temperature.

Yes, a heat element generates a fixed amount of heat. But the temperature it is at is also dependent on on how good a heat sink the load is. If the heat sink removes less heat, the temperature goes up. If the heat sink removes more heat, the temperature goes down. Yet, the heat production is still the same.

Of course it does. Because what is on the platform _is_ part of the heat sink. A pot of water on the platform is a better heat sink than an empty platform. The platform (and hence the heating element via heat conduction) will have a higher temperature if there's nothing on it. It will have a lower temperature if something is on it.

Of course the heat output doesn't change. But that says _nothing_ about the temperature of the platform.

As a much more obvious example, this is why water heater elements burn out when the tank is empty. When the tank is full, the elements _cannot_ have a higher temperature than the water. When the tank is empty, there's no heat sink, and the temperature rises very fast, well above the boiling point of water.

No, I'm not.

We're not talkin' about the platform, Chris. We're talkin' about the heating element...and whether it will burn out without a pot on the platform.

It won't.

We're talkin' about the heating element, Chris.

Really bad analogy....and not entirely true, either.

Stove elements don't burn out if you don't have a pan on the burner. Hot plate burners don't burn out if you don't have a pan on the burner.

And coffee pots don't burn out of you don't have a pot on the plate. Actually, an empty coffee pot might even be a poorer heat sink than just an empty platform.

Wishing you and yours a happy Thanksgiving season...

Trent