Lack of power doesn't deter a determined coffee drinker

Considering the nor'easter that downed hundreds of trees and power lines in its destructive path, the coffeemakers in our latest Ratings all have one common weakness—they require AC power. But leave it to Bob Karpel, a Consumer Reports project leader and inventor, to come up with solutions for getting around the inconvenience of a power outage—at least to have that morning cup of coffee.

Of course this all depends on whether you have the means to boil the water—say a gas stove or a gas grill's side burner. Instant coffee, not for everyone, is a snap if you have boiling water. The next-easiest method? Products like Melitta's Ready Set Joe (under $5, in photo) or more elegant (and expensive) products in the Chemex line.

But if you don't have a Melitta or other manual drip machine on hand, you can use a little ingenuity. That's where Bob comes in. He suggests that you first put the (unplugged) drip coffeemaker close to where you're boiling the water, and load it with a filter and grounds the same way you would if you had electricity. Measure the water into your kettle, with perhaps a little bit more to allow for the usual absorption into the grounds.

With some coffeemakers, you can pour boiling water right onto the grounds; with models whose baskets swing out, you might have to hold the carafe beneath. (In such cases, you'll need to raise the carafe to trick the drip-stop feature and allow the flow of coffee.) But the real trick is to pour just a little bit of near-boiling water at a time—the way a drip coffeemaker does—and broadly enough to eventually wet all the grounds.

Each time you pour, return the kettle to the heat source to keep the water hot. Proper coffeemaking requires water heated to between 195 and 205 degrees F, which is close to how hot the water should be by the time you pour. And by pouring in dribs and drabs, you satisfy the requirement that the hot water sit in the grounds for about five minutes—this is no process for the impatient.

Of course, this workaround isn't for everyone. And if your morning java comes from a single-serve (pod) or espresso machine, which is tightly sealed, you're out of luck—there's no such thing as manual pouring. Having lost my own power for 70 hours, I regarded buying coffee outside a reward that I more than deserved after shivering through the night. If the time comes when the power is out and the roads are impassable, I'll rely on Bob's advice for that first cup of the morning.

—Ed Perratore