Coffee Makers

Thank you for the info Happy. I really like coffee, so perhaps Coffee Fool is not the best site for me to go to, lol. I'm glad you wrote the bit about the coffee being fresh, because that's what I would wonder about in ordering coffee online. I'm really not too crazy about ordering from Amazon, but I might make an exception here.

 

I'd only spend more than $25 on a coffee maker if it was one of the programmable ones that wakes you up with coffee at a certain time that you set.
I love coffee but I have a mental block that won't let me spend $100+ on a coffeemaker when I know that coffee is just water and grounds.

 

I really love the natural coffee that I do work and cooked for myself, they are natural and emit very exciting smell

 

Wow, spend $100 so I can have a cup of stale coffee from a cardboard tube. I'll fresh grind my beans to use my $25 Farberware 5 cup maker (with the timer, or it would be a $15 Mr. Coffee.

 

I have a Mister Cappuccino machine that makes espressos or cappuccinos. I love making cappuccinos with it. Setting it up, hearing the shhhhh noise as the steam goes through the coffee grounds, warming the milk and frothing it with the in built frother. It's a tonic in itself! And makes great coffee! It was a Christmas present but I think they cost £35-40 or $50.

 

The best coffee maker I could find at a reasonable price is pretty much any maker by the brand 'Black and Decker.' This is and excellent brand and will generally last me several years before I get a new one. Not to mention, the prices start as low as 15 dollars.

 

Yep, same for me. I just buy a cheap one. They are all about the same anyway, if you don't need the bells and whistles. In fact, the one I bought for $9.99 lasted just as long as the one I bought previously for twice as much. It is getting ready to go out on me though, so I'm going to have to pick up a new one. It's brewing SO slowly right now that I know it's getting ready to quit.

It would be really nice to have coffee waiting when I wake up, so I always think about buying the programmable one. We have hard water though, so I'd probably have to buy bottled water if I was going to leave the water in it overnight every night. So, I guess I'll stick to the $10-15 models until I find a good water filter.

 

For many years I was a "Cuisinart" snob with all my kitchen appliances, and had to have everything in that brand, including my coffee maker. I also bought the Cuisinart burr mill grinder too. I think with many of these more expensive coffee makers you're not really getting as much bang for your buck, but are instead paying for the more premium stainless steel finishes on them and of course their brand names.

The Cuisinart coffee maker also requires a separate charcoal filter to be replaced in it periodically, which adds to your long term expenses of using it - and they aren't exactly cheap at like $8 a pack for like two filters. Plus I hated the thought of my coffee passing through some old worn out filter that's been sitting in my machine collecting bacteria and what not. And the filter produced no noticeable difference in flavor with the actual coffee - it was more like a "placebo" effect.

Their burr mill grinder works OK for the most part, but the cheap plastic box that catches the coffee grinds gets stained and scratched easily, making it look sloppy and worn out if you leave the device on your counter. The friction from the coffee grinds hitting it literally mars the inside surface and scratches it all up, which in turn trap more of the brown stains. Plus the coffee grinds spill all over the place when you remove the box to get at your grinds.

To be honest, I think my favorite coffee make these days is the classic Farberware electric percolator - no need to buy filters, it's all stainless steel and easy to keep clean, it's far less bulkier on your counter, and you can bring it directly to the table (after removing the plug) for serving to guests. Oh and it makes incredible coffee!

 

I don't blame you a bit, @kana_marie. I would certainly wait until the issue was resolved as well. I've done the pouring hot water through the filter thing on many occasions. Back in the day, a filter basket was my only coffee maker lol. It works though, especially if you pour the water through very slowly.

@ohiotom76 I used to use a percolator as well for a while. One was given to me when I was using a filter basket. I wish I would have kept it. They do work very well, as you described.

 

I used to have a one-cup coffee press that made a great cup of coffee, but while I wasn't looking someone threw it away. I haven't seen another one as cheap or good as that was. I se that they are available, and I understand that they are very healthy to use. Grind fresh beans for whatever type of maker you have, pre-packed stuff is only marginally better than instant.

 

Or you could bypass all that and buy a coffee maker at Goodwill for $6. I once bought a nice Cuisinart coffeemaker for $10 at Goodwill. It would have been $80 new. My crock pot, juicer, and panini press all came from Goodwill and they all work fine. People have different reasons for donating items. It doesn't always mean that something is wrong with them.

 

When I lived in Knoxville, I bought most of my stuff from Habitat for Humanity's thrift shop. My current GE 5 cup coffee maker was less than $20 from Walmart. I have a Mr. Coffee expresso maker that came from a thrift store.

 

I used to love Hamilton Beach coffee makers. I had one with a digital clock and buttons to getting it brewing coffee at a given time, and another to keep coffee warm for as long as left in the coffee maker hot plate.

Overtime all of the coffee makers brands suffered a radical change in design, and it was hard to find a boxed-like maker, which is my favorite kind of design.

Nonetheless, I found a small Mr. Coffee one-button coffee maker that I simply love it now. It keeps my coffee warm without needing to press another button for this purpose and while it's not a boxed-style brewer, being really small makes it look very cute.

 

Budget and high-end coffeemakers are quite similar as far as how they brew coffee, though more advanced brewing is available through certain models. It doesn't make a huge difference in that regard. A stainless steel, high-end coffeemaker doesn't require cleaning as often and the parts are made from higher quality materials. I use a $20 coffeemaker myself, though.

 

I love the canister style and not the pot style. It's more about maintenance on the unit anyways, a dirty $100 coffee maker's product will taste awful compared to a clean $20 one.
Clean out the coffee often don't let it sit, and was that area after every use. Only fill from a clean container never from the same pot you brew into. Clean the lines monthly with vinegar then flush with water twice. Wait 20 minutes between cycles as to not overheat the unit.

 

Overheating!

I found a nice 2-cup Master Chef coffee maker at Walmart with auto-start/stop, a very compact model that I used insanely day and night until it stopped dripping. I guess it was overheating what caused the problem. I have it still, with the hope to get someone repairing it.

This is my actual coffee maker, Mr. Coffee TF5GTF 4-Cup, switch coffee maker
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