Coffee maker ?

[Beeman]

What brand of coffee maker do you use. We give ours a work out and our Bunn just quit. I am going to try and fix it but I've never been thrilled with it. I don't like leaving it on all the time so it can keep hot water.

[countrygrrrl]

I got a porcelein drip Melitta and a gold filter, and haven't looked back since.



I use an electric teapot which heats the water in no time and for much less cost than a stove OR an electric coffee maker. And the taste of the coffee is a million times better than anything out of an electric.

[countrygrrrl]

BTW, if you're using the coffee maker for hot water, try one of the new electric kettles. Mine is a Bodum. It takes only a moment to heat an entire pot of hot water with it --- and it's insulated so it stays pretty hot. Also automatically switches off the minute the water's heated.

We did have a Bunn, but when it quit working we replaced it with a Hamilton Beach. We liked the instant availibity of coffee, but it seemed that the constant heating of the water caused rapid lime build up and continous cleaning of the maker.

[HermitJohn]

Originally Posted by Beeman

What brand of coffee maker do you use. We give ours a work out and our Bunn just quit. I am going to try and fix it but I've never been thrilled with it. I don't like leaving it on all the time so it can keep hot water.

Never thrilled with electric drip pots although some friends have old Braun at their vacation house here in ozarks that is ok. I bought an old fashion manual dripolator off ebay when my electric drip went to appliance heaven. Well 2 actually. A small cheap aluminum one and when I found one at good price, a larger stainless steel Revereware one. I still tend to use the aluminum one cause it makes 3 cups and thats all I want at a time. Have little $4 stainless pint thermos that I use to keep the spare two cups warm.(my bigger expensive thermos doesnt do well to keep only two cups warm..) Cooked coffee either left on stove in dripolator/percolator or on burner of one of those electrics gets pretty nasty tasting.

[januaries]

I have a small Melita drip coffee maker for convenience; I just make one cup and drink it right away so there's no worry about it standing on the heating element and tasting funny. For taste I prefer a press pot. Had a good one by Bodum, but gave it to a friend and am really missing it.

[Cabin Fever]

I use an egg as my coffee filter. Actually, what we do is mix a whole egg, shell and all, very little water (about 1T), and expensive French Roast coffee from a coffee shop.

Bring water to a boil in the old, unwashed (we only rinse it) enamelware coffee pot. Once the water is boiling rapidly, we dump the egg/coffee mixture into the pot and allow it to return to boiling again....don't let it froth up and boil over! Remove the pot from the heat and dump a cup of cold water into the coffee (this will help settle the grounds).

This is the best coffee that you'll ever drink! And guess what, you don't need electricity to make it. It helps use up the numerous eggs on the ol homestead. And, you don't have to buy coffee filters!

[agmantoo]

Beeman,
If you work on the coffee maker there is a component in there that I was not familiar with. It appears to be a diode but actually it is a thermal fuse. Once it blows you have to replace the device. You can buy one at Radio Shack cheap if that happens to be the problem. It will be open if it is defective.

[cloverfarm]

DB got us a really nice Krups coffee maker for Christmas but our water is so hard it got limed up to the point of no return in 2 or 3 years. Even with regular rinses (or wrenches depending on where you grew up ...) with vinegar water.

My folks had given us a West Bend party-size percolater from about 1965. There are only a few parts to clean lime out of. It works slow.

Does a percolater need more coarsely ground coffee?

Ann

[mightybooboo]

Im using a mid 1970s corning ware electric percolator right now,best coffee Ive ever made,just plug it in and away it goes.
BooBoo

[boxwoods]

If you get the chance, try a Corey Vacume pot with the glass rod filter from the 40's and 50's. Best coffee ever

[MaKettle]

Cabin Fever, that is how my Gramma made coffee, and it smelled wonderful. My Dad raved about it. I was too little to drink it, but loved to watch her moosh the egg and grounds together. We use the old glass Pyrex percolator when the electric goes out, but a drip maker otherwise. Longest lasting (3 yrs) was a $10 Proctor Silex. Shortest life span (1 year) was Mr. Coffee. Best tasting was a Braun, but it was sort of expensive. Present maker is a Black & Decker Versabrew (now going into its second year). The more bells and whistles, the higher the cost. Consumer Reports says the difference in taste from the coffee makers is pretty universal, so I look for a machine that has no rough, unfinished edges, looks sturdy, and will be easy to fill, pour, and get the coffee ground container in and out easily. Our water is on the hard side, so I run a load of white vinegar through it to disolve the lime deposits when it seems to be slowing down.

[nappy]

Cabin Fever, did my mom, who also lives in Mn., teach you how to make egg coffee? I don't think she used the shells though. It is the best tasting coffee. However, I use a large Melitta drip coffeemaker purchased at the second hand shop. It's glass and makes at least one cup more than a 12 cup automatic drip. The drawback of it is that you need to pour the hot water over the grounds (8 o'clock coffee) into a cone shaped top. You must pay attention to what you are doing or get scalded. The #6 cone coffee filters sometimes are difficult to find especially since I like the natural brown ones best. What we do to get a great cup of coffee! And I really don't appreciate getting that funny tasting coffee, like hazelnut, when I am expecting regular coffee. I've learned to grind the beans at home after getting that funny taste of hazelnut in my coffee ground at the supermarket.

Nappy

I use a late '50s-early '60s Corning coffeepot, without percolator. Bring water almost to a boil, dump in coffee, remove from heat (preferably to a cooler area of the woodstove), wait 10 minutes, and pour.

[Shrek]

40 cup electric drip urn with wrap around heater coils

I like this:

http://www.filtron.com/howto.html

but DH doesn't. It is definitely homestead friendly--uses no electric. The coffee tastes very mellow. I don't mind drinking cold or room-temp coffee.

Otherwise, we use a Mr. Coffee. The new ones have better-pouring spouts on their carafes--the old ones were awful.

[HermitJohn]

Originally Posted by RAC

I like this:

http://www.filtron.com/howto.html

but DH doesn't. It is definitely homestead friendly--uses no electric. The coffee tastes very mellow. I don't mind drinking cold or room-temp coffee.

Otherwise, we use a Mr. Coffee. The new ones have better-pouring spouts on their carafes--the old ones were awful.

You really dont need the gadgets for cold brew. Use quality coffee, put in jar, add cold water, shake, let sit in fridge overnight. Carefully pour off liquid leaving settled sludge at bottom of jar. Use this liquid as a concentrate, make cup at time adding water to taste. Drink cold (its actually pretty good that way, has a chocolatey taste) or nuke your cup for 40 seconds or so for hot coffee. Surprisingly nuking doesnt seem to harm flavor of this coffee. Its nothing like reheating cold stale hot brewed coffee. Only thing, this method is not as economical as hot brew methods. You get less coffee from given quantity of grounds. It is the highest quality of coffee you can experience though. You do rEally want to use quality coffee grounds. This will not make crappy coffee grounds into a good tasting cup of coffee. I swear some cheap coffee from grocery store smells like used coffee grounds that have been dried and repackaged....yuck.

I dont regularly use this method due to getting more coffee from given amount of grounds from dripolator method and I also never remember to regularly mix the coffee the night before.

Amazing how many of us homesteaders use electricity to produce our coffee! We use an old enamel French drip pot. Best coffee in the world and it can be kept warm on the stove for quite a while by sitting the pot in a pan of water over a low flame.

That is true, HermitJohn, you could easily do it yourself--maybe pouring the concentrate through one of those gold cone filters or the plastic mesh basket filters (ours has lasted through at least 2 Mr. Coffees now) to get some of the sludge. I got mine Filtrons for $5 each (I have two) when Real Goods had an outlet store in Berkeley. I think people received them as gifts and returned them without trying them out! Their original instructions said to place the pad in boiling water a minute or two to keep it fresh--I don't see that any more. I should think you could microwave it, like you do a sponge.

Their new "commercial" model is an improvement with the spigot. My main gripe with the original is that it needs to be placed where someone is not going to knock into it accidentally.

Also, I don't know exactly what "coarse grind" is in regards to it. The finer the grind, the more sludge you get, and it is easy to do that with the little Braun grinders that you push down to turn on....

[HermitJohn]

Originally Posted by RAC

That is true, HermitJohn, you could easily do it yourself--maybe pouring the concentrate through one of those gold cone filters or the plastic mesh basket filters (ours has lasted through at least 2 Mr. Coffees now)

I have one of those permenant stainless mesh filters from back when I used electric drip. Think Walmart sold them at the time. Never even thought about using it for this cold brew method, if you are ever so careful not to disturb the sediment, you really dont need to filter. Courser grinds of coffee dont make as firm of a sediment so probably need to filter them. Or just drink your coffee through a clean hankerchief......