Using a percolator

I have a Corning wear perc that I use when feeling nostalgic.
There should be a water level mark on the side of the base. For every 2 cups of water (2 cups equals one coffee mug at my house), I add a heaping soup spoonful of coffee to the top basket. Put it on the stove and start timing it when it begins to bubble through the glass at the top. It will bubble till it runs dry if you leave it on the stove, unlike an espresso pot. Depending on how strong you like you coffee, turn it off when done.

A espresso pot is a percolator. It was the original "espresso" maker before they started making high pressure machines as big as a Vespa in Italy. Just set it on your burner and let it come to a boil. There should be a steam release valve on the top. So just keep an eye on that.

I could be wrong, but doesn't it stop percolating when all the water has percolated up and over the grounds?

That's how I remember it- the espresso maker just boils the water, not the coffee.

I guess I'm a geezer then. I have a Biaggi that still works fine if you use good coffee. Yes eater in the bottom and grounds in the top.

Somewhere in the world (probably in England) there are no doubt collectors who would pay big bucks for a working percolator. Nero Wolf had one in his basement, which he ended up using to test a small bomb, nearly decapitating himself in the process- a fine use, I thought. I wonder if anyone else still has a good old Rockwell coffee cone.

I am very late but I have to protest the notion that perk coffee was the only choice available pre automatic drip machines. My parents had from their 1945 wedding a coffee maker that made excellent coffee for about 40 years. The only differences from an automatic drip machine and this trusty devise was you had to boil the water first and then all the water was poured at once over the compartment where the grounds were trapped. Water travelled once and only once thru the grounds avoiding the common deficits of perked coffee. We always referred to this as drip but maybe not accurate, the water dripped thru but it did not arrive to the top of the coffee in anything resembling a drip.

Sure, drip coffee predated the percolator, as, no doubt, did cowboy coffee, and in my opinion is still the best way to go. The percolator, however, was really in tune with 50's sensibilities- it was somewhat high tech at the time and was kind of neat to watch, and they became pretty ubiquitous at the time. But drip was always there, as I would guess was the French press and tea-like methods of brewing it.