Breaking Bad is an American movie series produced by Vince Gilligan, with the setting in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It is about a chemistry high school teacher Walter White who is dejected, overqualified, and suffering from stage-three lung cancer. White thinks that his illness is going to ruin his family’s finances, so he partners with a student, Jesse Pinkman, to make a meth laboratory on wheels from an old RV. This also navigates the criminal to him.
Those are some brief lines about the movie. But once you click on this article, you must be searching for some information related to the “coffee machine” which appears in the scene Walter first met Gale and Gale showed him the weird chem-lab coffee machine. This Breaking Bad coffee machine might stir your curiosity, right?
Here, the article will provide you with some facts about this coffee machine.
Is the coffee machine in Breaking Bad a real machine?
Though with a “scientific look” from the outside, a lot of people still want to know whether this coffee machine can make coffee or if it is just an unusable model used for filming. It looks like it is built up complicatedly because there are so many pieces of components.
However, do not let the design fool you. It makes people think that this machine is just a setup and non-functional. The working process is very simple as this coffee machine is a real machine that can work to make coffee.
All the components needed to make the machine are in fact, likely some tools you often see in the lab: a glass tubing, a glass cutter, a number six stopper with a hole, mineral oil, a Florence flask, coffee filters, a plastic tubing, a glass funnels, a heater. That’s why people wonder why such a scientific machine can be a simple coffee machine.
The machine is based on the vacuum siphon coffee brewing method, which consists of two competing models that have been put forward, one in which siphons are considered to operate through gravity and atmospheric pressure and another in which gravity and liquid cohesion are invoked.
How to make coffee like in Breaking Bad?
As mentioned above, the machine coffee in Breaking Bad was made based on the principle of the vacuum siphon coffee brewing method.
In the movie, the brewing process is conducted at a lower temperature and pressure. Some of the components of coffee are prevented from degrading by both the decreased oxygen partial pressure and the decreased temperature. The water can boil at a lower temperature due to the decreased pressure. For the water to boil at 92 °C, Gales carefully regulated the pressure. You can easily extract the proper amount of tannins and gallic acid by boiling.
There are ways to accomplish the same process at home with a much more practical tool: all you need is a multi-story pressure cooker, like those used frequently in South Asian cooking, where one story is used for the actual brewing of the coffee while the other story is filled with boiling water to saturate the environment and lower the partial pressure of oxygen.
If you can get all the tools mentioned, you can make a cup of coffee which is nearly the same as in the movie. First, you need the tube, then bend the tube and make 90-degree angles, and heat it. The tube should be bent into a U form. After that, use a glass cutter to cut the remaining tube. While cutting the tube, be careful to use gloves.
To prevent the glass from melting by heat and closing the hole, repeat this procedure for a brief period. Use a number six stopper with a hole at this point. The tube you previously prepared should now have some mineral oil added.
When you attach the tube, the stopper will glide on smoothly because of the mineral oil. Place the stopper-equipped tubing inside the Florence flask. Make sure there is a millimeter-sized space between the end of the tube and the bottom of the Florence flask.
The tubing’s too-small diameter might be the cause of your issue. Therefore, you are unable to attach it to the glass funnel. Glass tubing should be covered with plastic tubing. The plastic tubing’s end should then be heated to increase its diameter.
For this breaking bad coffee maker to work, remove the Florence Flask and fill it with water. Reattach the Florence Flask to the device. To boil the water, warm the Florence Flask’s bottom. The flask’s heated water will start to vaporize. As it gets hotter, the water will flow down a glass tube and into a glass funnel and it keeps flowing up till the coffee filter.
Once you notice water on the coffee filter, start adding coffee powder. The final step is using a spoon to combine the coffee and water. Make sure that the water and all of the grounds at the top are thoroughly incorporated.
Who makes the coffee machine in Breaking Bad?
Gale Boetticher, a genuine “nerd’s nerd” (as Hank Schrader called him), joined the Breaking Bad cast three seasons into its run as yet another outstanding character. Despite only appearing in seven episodes, the coffee-loving scientist had a significant influence on the direction of the program. He is also the one who makes the “ridiculous coffee machine”.
