Some interesting ideas. I've often looked at my kitchen "instant hot" and
thought "here's 3/4ths of an espresso machine". Just as you descripe, the
instant hot has a plumbed in boiler that is mounted in the cabinet below my
sink and all that is visible is the faucet that dispenses 190F water. This
could easily be replaced/supplemented by a grouphead - perhaps electrically
heated to supplement/stabilize the boiler water temperature. Add a pump and
mount an airswitch on the countertop to control it and you're done.


"Francis Vaughan" > wrote in message
om...
> (Amy Lynn Young-Leith) wrote in message
>...
> > Hey coffee fiends, I need your help! This should be fun.
> >
> > I'm working on a project (for a course in design) where the task is to
> > design an intelligent coffee machine of the future.
>
> Hmm, it rather depends upon where the intelligence lives - in the
> machine or in the designer :-)
>
> OK, I have been thinking about some ideas for a while, and put these
> forward as pretty much exactly what I would like to see on the market.
> Unless someone is going to be kind enough to send me the numbers for
> Saturday night's lottery draw I suspect I am going to have to wait for
> someone else to engineer this and put it into production.
>
> Clearly it is going to have to brew the best possible coffee. That
> goes without saying. So...
>
> It will boast very high precision in temperature profile and either
> pressure or volume profile. This is achievable now - one way to
> create what I envisage would be a pair of leadscrew driven pumps - one
> driving hot water, the other cold - a computer controlled feed-forward
> system would be able to create perfect profiles of all the brew
> parameters.
>
> OK, now some more mundane thoughts.
>
> My big beef about all domestic machines is that they are considered a
> standalone device. Make it a kitchen bench appliance - drill a huge
> hole in the bench-top and mount it over its own dedicated sink. You
> can put most of the mechanism under the bench-top - yielding almost
> arbitrary flexibility on the aesthetics of the visible component, and
> it suddenly becomes a very kitchen friendly device. The mess goes
> straight down the sink.
>
> The machine can pay for its use of bench-space by being multi-purpose.
> The hot water delivery is a real boon, and we could add a additional
> nozzles for filtered water, both room temperature and chilled. Many
> people already have special hot and cold water delivery systems in
> their kitchen, this would supersede them (and also justify part of
> the price.)
>
> Cleaning. We have a computer controlled machine with a source of high
> pressure hot water and steam. There is no reason why is cannot keep
> itself perfectly clean. Additional nozzles in strategic places and a
> "clean me" button. The machine simply blasts itself with hot water
> and steam, it would be possible to make a self cleaning steam want too
> (perhaps using a double walled wand to deliver the cleaning water to
> the end.) Since the machine is mounted over a sink there is no issue
> about where the mess goes.
>
> External body. It should be constructed like any other piece of high
> quality plumbing for long term use in a domestic situation. Solid
> polished metal. All the switch-gear should be flush with the surface
> and totally sealed - so it is possible to clean all external surfaces
> with ordinary kitchen cleaning materials in exactly the same way as
> you would keep a tap or sink clean.
>
> Grinder. This is an interesting issue. Clearly we will want a
> grinder. One possibility is to integrate a grinder into the machine.
> In a domestic low volume setting we don't need a clone of a commercial
> unit (except in durability and quality.) We don't want a doser, nor a
> large hopper. Indeed a true coffee geek will want to individually
> grind different beans from shot to shot - so we only need a hopper
> large enough to hold that - and add a weighted lid that will drive all
> the beans through the grinder and avoid any flying out. Use a conical
> burr grinder so that the grinds fall straight out of the bottom, and
> use a 90 degree gear set so that the motor can be mounted out of the
> way - deep inside the machine. The grinder can eject grinds right
> next to the group head, so it is very convenient - and any mess drops
> into the sink.
>
> Cutsie ideas.
> Put a peltier cell cooled plate somewhere so that the milk jug can be
> kept cold for the best milk steaming performance. Adjustable cup
> holder so for those that must, a large cup or mug can be placed under
> the portafilter. This holder should also rotate out of the way to
> provide full access to the sink.
>
> Clearly the device will be engineered to stay on permanently.
> Internally it should be very well insulated and the outside shell
> should not get hot. One could utilise aerogel insulation and achieve
> astounding thermal performance.
>
> So, anyone want to make me one?