I picked this up at a Goodwill Thrift store about 6 months ago. Before that, I had usually made press-pot coffee with my Bodum press. For $5, I was ready to sell this on ebay, and make a cool $50-$60 or so. I even had it packed, and a couple of pictures taken. Then I looked around, and found the myriad of reviews of this coffee maker, and decided to give it a try. So, I put it on the counter, and my wife started yelling at me - what an ugly contraption that takes up so much space.
Well, I made the coffee, and we were both hooked from the start. The maker is quick (around 3-4 minutes - see below) and flavorful. I measured the water temperature at the spray nozzle to be 196F, and the thermal pot only loses 10F per hour (both measured with a digital thermometer). Heck - the water is still lukewarm after 24 hours (which is pretty impressive).
Another nice feature is the brew-pause. If you read around the internet enough about making coffee, you know that a nice feature is to pause the flow after the grounds have been initially wetted, to really infuse the grounds. With this brewer its really easy: you close the top for about 10 seconds to start the flow, open it again for about 30 seconds (pause), and then close the top again to let the process finish.
A couple of hints, though. You have to make the full 10-cup pot. I tried the restricted flow nozzle (free from Bunn), and you get some poor extraction (some bitterness not found with the original nozzle). Making a full pot with the original fast-flow nozzle keeps the brew time at a perfect 3 minutes (not counting the pause above). If you think the coffee is too weak with the fast flow nozzle, add more coffee (though see the hint below). Don't bother with the slow flow nozzle, and don't make less than a full 10 cups.
Another hint is to use Bunn filters - these are a little deeper than other similar filters which could let the grounds overflow. However, I have never had this problem with Bunn filters, regardless of how fine the grind or how much coffee I put in (within reason of course). On the plus side, Bunn filters are $1/100 at Target, so I am not wasting too much money on these.
After reading the bozo's reviews regarding the big messes and cold water, I figure they did not read the directions. This coffee maker is different than others - you keep the thing on all the time if you want hot water, and you only add a single full carafe of water at a time (don't add too much water). |
