Considering a coffee pot upgrade ...

[Fisherdude]

Our last one outlasted the warranty by a week.

Ok, that's one. How many Cuisinart coffee makers have been sold in the last ten years?

I'm not saying they're the best ever made, I'm questioning broad, generalized statements containing words like "all" and "always" and "never".

And "notoriously".

And statements lacking in qualifiers like "in my experience" or "in my opinion".

Chevrolets are famous for being pieces of crap.

 

[stereocuuple]

erin & i have the cuisinart ss700 single brew. and we love it. 192 deg water is fine as far as i care. the cuisinart 20 oz thermal to go bottle holds it so hot its hard to drink. we thought about the keruig B 70 platinum but the ss700 was far better built. as far as lifespan im thinking the cheaper drip units are more pron to failure. ours carries a 3 year replacement warranty. it still runs the K cups but it came with the my K cup filter & water filter. takes about 1 min and im drinking the beat home brew i have had to date. moral of this story is "you get what you pay for".

 

[KrisM]

Ok, that's one. How many Cuisinart coffee makers have been sold in the last ten years?

I'm not saying they're the best ever made, I'm questioning broad, generalized statements containing words like "all" and "always" and "never".

And "notoriously".

And statements lacking in qualifiers like "in my experience" or "in my opinion".

Chevrolets are famous for being pieces of crap.

Fords and Dodges, too. Corb Lund wrote a great song about that.

I can understand where the OP is coming from. It seems like if all one wants is a simple drip machine that works well, you'll be looking for a long time. I enjoy a pressed coffee, but sometimes simple is better. And there is no way I'm doing pressed or pour over coffee for a big get together.

I'll be reading this thread myself. My drip died a couple of weeks ago. I think it was an Oster. It was OK, and it did last quite a long time. Somebody loaned me a newish Black and Decker, and it is terrible. It doesn't get hot enough, and the carafe pours like crap. I probably lose a cup of water when I pour into the water in, and it spills coffee all over the counter for the first half of pot.

 

[stereocuuple]

here she is

 

[rnorton]

I've never heard that. What are your sources for this statement?

Personal experience and the experiences of friends and various cooking forum acquaintances. It goes beyond their coffeepots. The last (literally) Cuisinart tool I owned (actually a trade-in when they recalled a lethally defective coffee maker), a grinder, died irreparably in 2 weeks.

 

[rnorton]

similar circumstances in my new abode, which is right at 7000' AMSL. water boils right at 198 degrees F here, so, when the kettle whistles I'm good to go.

I lived at 7000' once. It made fine tuning my espresso machine VERY critical to keep the grounds from being steamed. Having steam re-condense into water in the middle of the puck is a truly awful way extract espresso. I don't think it can be properly made at 8000'.

 

[Fisherdude]

...It doesn't have to be huge (I'm usually just making coffee for myself), it needs to have an automatic timer function for workdays, and it needs to be affordable for a man of my means. An insulated carafe would be a real plus too. I can afford to spend about $100 right now. Do y'all have any recommendations for me?

Here you go, exactly what you asked for, at your local Costco:

 

[Ed in Tx]

197.6-204.8F (92-96C). It's not MY range, it's the Specialty Coffee Association of America's range ...

Getting down to the 1/10 degree is a bit much for me. I trust my taste buds. I'll check my Cuisinart again in the morning. It's about 2 years into it's 3 year warranty. Odd the maker of the Aeropress recommends 165-175°F water. :headscrat

BTW I buy the "drinking water" refilled from a local water store for 30¢ a gallon, has 001-002 ppm total dissolved solids "TDS", processed with reverse osmosis, carbon filtered, UV treated as it goes into my bottles. I never need to clean mineral deposits out of my coffee maker. Tap water straight from the faucet here always has a taste, either like algae in a lake, or chlorine, or a combination. Yuck. TDS can measure 150-200 ppm. This will certainly will effect the coffee, so no straight tap water in the coffee maker..

 

[Andy_H]

Thanks for the suggestions, Clay. Looks like there are a couple Cuisinart models that could work. That Kitchen Aid looks like a real nice deal (I think they have that at Target but it costs about twice as much) but I'd have to see if any of my friends or family have a Costco membership (I don't).

Anybody have any experience with Capresso? This one is a little over budget but I could stretch. Seems to be pretty well-reviewed. This Zojirushi looks interesting too.

It's nice to be able to read the online customer reviews on Amazon, but I dunno how much trust to put in them. I figure that they're not a representative sample of all of a product's owners - they tend toward the extremes. People who really love a certain product or really hate it would be most likely to take the time to write a review. The average user who is content but not ecstatic, probably not as motivated to do a writeup. Then again, I'm probably overthinking this. My $20 Black & Decker pot has seen daily use for nearly four years without a hiccup. I just figured I could get something better one of these days, no rush though.

 

[rnorton]

Getting down to the 1/10 degree is a bit much for me. I trust my taste buds. I'll check my Cuisinart again in the morning. It's about 2 years into it's 3 year warranty. Odd the maker of the Aeropress recommends 165-175°F water. :headscrat

BTW I buy the "drinking water" refilled from a local water store for 30¢ a gallon, has 001-002 ppm total dissolved solids "TDS", processed with reverse osmosis, carbon filtered, UV treated as it goes into my bottles. I never need to clean mineral deposits out of my coffee maker. Tap water straight from the faucet here always has a taste, either like algae in a lake, or chlorine, or a combination. Yuck. TDS can measure 150-200 ppm. This will certainly will effect the coffee, so no straight tap water in the coffee maker..

The actual recommendations are in degrees Celsius and are whole numbers: 92-96.

Some mineral content greatly improves the flavor of coffee or tea. SCAA has water recommendations on their site, also. I've found that the jugs marked Spring Water make a much better cup than the one's marked 'Drinking Water'. I descale all of my coffee equipment every 6 months so mineral buildup from this has never been a problem.

The SCAA water page is at:
http://www.scaa.org/PDF/ST - WATER STANDARD V.21NOV2009A.pdf

The maker of the Aeropress knows absolutely nothing about coffee and his recommendations for use have been thoroughly debunked on a number of coffee forums. He got lucky making a device that really works but he thinks that it makes 'espresso' and can't be convinced otherwise. They have annual Aeropress competitions among professional baristas in Scandinavia who have developed a number of superior ways to use the Aeropress, none of them resembling the maker's instructions.

 

[rnorton]

Anybody have any experience with Capresso? This one is a little over budget but I could stretch. Seems to be pretty well-reviewed. This Zojirushi looks interesting too.

Capresso has a generally good rating and is likely to be a better machine than a Cuisinart or Kitchen-Aid. I doubt if it will run hot enough but who knows. Temperatures are all over the map with most brewers, even between two units of the same model, thanks to poor quality control. You might get lucky. I had a Melitta machine years ago that was spot-on temperature-wise but when I replaced it with another of the same model it ran 10F colder and made really bad coffee.

 

[palasr]

Unless you reach the 197-205 degree range specified above, you fail to completely extract the aromatic oils and organic compounds, which leaves a decidedly flat, generally bitter, one-dimensional tasting cup of coffee, even with good beans. Personally, I tend to go around 199-201 when making espresso, but I have a PID controller that adjusts the thermostat automatically on my Quick Mill machine.

For general drip coffee, I use a Capresso MT500 (now the MT600), which brews into a stainless carafe, with no heating element in the plate. With a laboratory thermometer (mercury!), the unit consistently measures at 201 degrees at the coffee basket. While it's not inexpensive, it has reliably worked on a daily basis for over 6 years now.

 

[hjames]

How about a decent drip type coffeemaker without the clock? Just a basic coffemaker with an on-off switch that I can leave ON and control with an external power switch?
Got the whole house set with X10 outlets, and that way I can make a change via my computer at night when I want to change auto-start times (like for varying weekends) and not have to fiddle with funky internal timers that often fail or loose their settings.

 

[jimfet]

How about a decent drip type coffeemaker without the clock? Just a basic coffemaker with an on-off switch that I can leave ON and control with an external power switch?
Got the whole house set with X10 outlets, and that way I can make a change via my computer at night when I want to change auto-start times (like for varying weekends) and not have to fiddle with funky internal timers that often fail or loose their settings.

Again go with the Bunn. Just an on/off switch and brews between 201 and 205°. They almost last forever

 

[js1138]

Again go with the Bunn. Just an on/off switch and brews between 201 and 205°. They almost last forever

I have a commercial Bunn coffee maker hooked to my refrigerator water line. I got it brand new for fifty dollars because someone had dropped it and dented the stainless steel case.

I've had it in continuous use for over ten years. I've set it to make a smaller pot than standard. I really like the fact that it always brews at the same temperature -- somewhat lower than boiling, so it doesn't make the coffee bitter.

 

[rnorton]

For general drip coffee, I use a Capresso MT500 (now the MT600), which brews into a stainless carafe, with no heating element in the plate. With a laboratory thermometer (mercury!), the unit consistently measures at 201 degrees at the coffee basket. While it's not inexpensive, it has reliably worked on a daily basis for over 6 years now.

Great that you got one that falls within the range. Apparently the one that SCAA tested didn't do that. Capresso's seem to hold up pretty well compared to most other brands.

 

[jimfet]

Great that you got one that falls within the range. Apparently the one that SCAA tested didn't do that. Capresso's seem to hold up pretty well compared to most other brands.

Bunns are made for that range. Always have been. You can go to their websight now and they will say so. If your Bunn does not, then something is wrong. But that could be the case for any one pot at anygiven time off of the production line.

 

[media]

I'm a fan of the aeropress. Works sort of like a french press but so much easier to clean. I keep one at work and one at home. They're only $20.

Makes one hell of a cup.

 

[rnorton]

I'm a fan of the aeropress. Works sort of like a french press but so much easier to clean. I keep one at work and one at home. They're only $20.

Makes one hell of a cup.

I used an Aeropress for 2 years but since I got my Clever Coffee Dripper from Sweet Maria's ($15) I haven't used it once. It just can't compare. Beats the hell out of my Technivorm, too.

 

[JohnVF]

Well, you convinced me. Clever Coffee Dripper on the way...