On Thursday 16 December 2004 11:47 pm, Erylon Hines wrote: > On Thursday 16 December 2004 12:13 pm, Russ Kepler wrote: > | Sorry, but I have to call you on this one. Coffee makers make coffee by > | boiling water and putting the boiling water through the coffee grounds. > | The boiling point of water is pretty much fixed by the altitude (around > | here it boils at 202 degF) so the temperature of the coffee is going to > | be the same no matter what percolater it comes out of. > > This is actually not the way it is. Measure the temperature of your coffee > makers coffee sometime--mine is 160-165 degrees. That is set by a > thermostat inside the maker--and yes, I used to be a repairman for > commercial cooking equipment, including coffee makers--the type that > restaraunts use. The therm is not normally set at 180 degrees, much less > at boiling.
I've done that, and I get something very close to 180 degrees. So did a local reporter when he went around and tested some of the same places the plaintiff's attorney said that he'd tested. Like I said, water boils at 202 degF here so the coffee is going to come out at or very near that temperature, if it's coming out lower than that you're using very different equipment than the rest of us. The National Coffee Association suggests brewing with water at 195-205 and maintaining the brewed coffee at 185 (look for "Water Temperature During Brewing"): http://www.ncausa.org/public/pages/index.cfm?pageid=71 What you may be measuring is the temperature of the coffee after sitting on the thermostatically controlled plate element. I brew directly into a thermos bottle which maintains the brew temperature for some time after the brewing stops. > The way I remember the case (from a Slashdot discussion, I think), is that > local McDonald's managers had complained to upper management, in writing, > that the coffee was being brewed so hot that it was softening the take-out > cups. Upper management decreed (in writing, to their later sorrow) that > the machines would continue to be set at 180 degrees because more cups > could be brewed from a pound of ground with the hotter water. This > correspondence was submitted as evidence. I suggest that's anecdotal as even the plaintiff's lawyer doesn't put that out as part of his case on your cite. > | I think that McDonalds was being 'burned' by the bad publicity and didn't > | much defend the case, nor went with an appeal. The original judgement > | was reduced considerably in any event, but the final terms are private so > | we'll likely never know what they were. > > No, they got burned with their own correspondence. The amount of the > punitive damages award was a calculation of how much money they made from > brewing the coffee at a higher temperature. Without a copy of the trial's transscript and some mind reading we'll never know how much McDonalds's input affected the result of the trial. I'd suggest that the evidence was no where near as strong as you say, this because there were reductions in the penalty and finally a sealed settlement - if the plaintiff's case was as strong as you say none of those reductions would have happened, nor the settlement.
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