Just before midnight on MOnday, December 20, 2004, I ordered the Presto coffeemaker from costco.com. By the time they carged $35.99 for the machine, a five-percent surcharge for my purchase as a CostCo non-member, collected my state sales tax and charged for shipping and handling, my total bill came to $48 and a few cents.
It arrived at my door about mid-afternoon of Thursday, December 23. I was almost shocked. Even though it had placed the order past the advertised deadline for having a gift orderd and shipped so that they shipper would guarantee delivery by Christmas, a 3-day turnaround is good any time of year, but especially during the heart of the Christmas shippng rush.
I received the machine's shipping box, with the shipping label pasted to one side, and the shipping statement shrink-wrapped in a pouch and glued onto the top of the box. The packing box was not packaged inside any additional box. I was a bit nervous. Would the carafe be broken? Would something be smashed? Would anything be missing. There was only a strip of tape across the top and a short way down each side holding the box closed. No slit-and-tab closures like you get on the boxes from Braun, or Krups, or a few other sellers. Nothing rattled inordinately, so, maybe everything's fine.
Among machines I have bought lately, this box felt considerably heavier than some other ones I've seen, heavier than the much larger 12-cup Kitchen Aid drip machine I bought a couple of years ago.
My initial reactions were mixed. The front with the tear-drop style tall, narrow carafe with the tapered filter basket reminds me a bit of the profile of the Braun FlavorSelect line of machines. The gack part of the machine is flat-sided and squared off. The whole thing has a nice solid, sturdy feel about it, good-quality plastic, nice fit and finish, polarized two-prong plug. So far, so good.
You get a sheet with information about reordering the carafe if you break it, $14.95 plus shipping and handling from the Eau Claire, Wisconsin distributor, Presto Industries, Inc. Ouch! It's a sturdy carafe, though, not something you're likely to break just by doing something stupid like breathing on it the wrong way. Just don't drop it!
The assumption is that you'll place this machine on the counter facing you broadside. Placed that way, the rounded part of the machine with the basket and the carafe and the warmer plate is on the rright and the narrower, squared-off part with the water tank opening, the tank fill-level marking tube, and the display and timer controls are to the left.
This machine is tall and narrow. The water reservoir is covered by a thin cover, which raises to reveal an opening that is about 3.5-inches square, not even a full 100 cm. The carafe is just over 5 inches in diameter at the bottom and about 3 inches at the top, and it is just about 7 inches tall. The machine body behind the warmer plate is shaped to fit the curves of the carafe. As with so many drip coffee makers, they don't want you using anybody else's carafes, especially not one of those so-called "universal" models like ones sold for use in machines that use the cupcake filter design, like so many Mr. Coffee, Black and Decker, and Proctor Silex machines. The handle is comfortable to hold, even if you have a large hand and fat fingers, and the spout is designed so that you can easily pour out a narrow stream of coffee without any dribbbling. I found it even easy to fill a tall slender insulated sport bottle from the carafe without needing to take extra care to aim precisely or pour very slowly to avoid getting a pour stream wider than the opening at the top of the bottle.
YOu don't get any extras with this machine. There's no water filter, and no place in the reservoir for one. YOu get no scoop, and no paper filters, not even the stingy three or four you get nowadays with new models from Braun or Krups.
Claimed capacity is ten cups. Think, small cups, five-ounce ones. A full pot fills my 16-ounce insulated steel mug three times with a little bit more to spare.
Now, to the filters. The Presto takes a Melitta-style No. 4 modified cone paper filter, or permanent filter. NOt all No. 4 permanent filters are created equally-sized. Some are wider at the top than others. Some are narrower or longer at the bottom than others, and some are considerably taller from the top to the bottom than others. Presto likes a smaller permanent filter.
The permanent filter that comes with the Braun FlavorSelect line fits nicely, but leaves no headroom for the drip-stopper to move up and down propperly. The filter for the the Braun AroMaster line is too fat at the top to fit the Presto's basket. Filters sold by Krups for their Cafe Aroma and Pro Aroma lines are too tall and two fat for the Presto's filter basket.
The permanent filters that come with the Cuisinart Grind and Brew models, and the ones that come with the Delonghi Elite series models fits perfectly. The Swiss Gold no. 4 filter fits perfectly once you remove that snap-on plastic ring from the top of the cone.
As advertised, the Presto brewed up a full ten-cup pot in about eight minutes, maybe a few seconds more. I did not play with the timer controls, but found out that you press the Auto/Start button once to put the machine in Auto mode. Press it a second time to start brewing now. Press it a third time to turn the whole thing off. There is a button for, "Program", and one each for Hours, and Minutes. There are two status lights, all lined up around the under side of the tiny square digital display which is nestled behind the machine's oval window and display opening. The display and controls are mounted about 1/3 of the way up along the front side of the water tank, which seems to be fairly well protected from an accidental water spill. If you leave the machine on after brewing, the warmer plate shuts off automagically after two hours.
That extra heater element in the top of the Presto does make a difference. I don't have any way to obtain even aproximate temperature readings, but this unit ranks at the top of the range among brewers I've owned and/or used when it comes to high brewing temperature. It may even be a couple degrees hotter than my five-year-old Braun FlavorSelect KF-157 12-cup brewer that I was using at the time the Presto came in here.
That KF-157 brews its 12-cup full colplement in about 9 minutes. Braun's idea of a "cup" seems to be about 5-and-a-half ounces.
After the required vinegar/water brew followed by two straight water brews in the Presto, which also confirmed that the machine actually works, and does it more or less as advertised, and also providing me with my initial measurements of tank and carafe capacity, and brewing time for a full pot, I was now ready for the real test. Grind up some coffee beans, scare up a permanent filter, and make some coffee.
I used the KF-157's filter. That filter is a bit taller, and smaller at the bottom than your average permanent No. 4 filter. It restricted the movement of the drip stopper in the basket, so that it partially blocked the drain hole at the bottom of the basket. This allwed water to back up a bit into the filter during brewing, but not enough to overflow the basket with the beans and the grind selection I was using.
I had some Ethiopian Yrgacheffe beans that had been roasted to something just shy of what many alt.coffee members seem to call a "Full City" roast. These beans are also a little bit past their prime, but I'm not throwing out good coffee. I'm not shooting for a God shot of espresso here, just a nice-tasting single-origin auto drip pot of coffee that smells nice and tastes very good. I used the same grind setting on the three-year-old Solis Maestro grinder that I had found to be the best for that particular bean for the KF-157 using the KF-157's permanent filter. That grind worked out nicely for the Presto, also, so I did not need to fiddle with different grind settings the way I usually need to do when first trying out any new drip machine, even different models from the same manufacturer, and sometimes even different samples of the same model machine. From the KF-157 this particular batch of coffee comes out nicely estringent and earthy. From the Presto, it came out with slightly less bite, and with a slightly less earthy but slightly smoother profile, with just a hint more of floral notes in the taste profile. With everything else being as equal as possible, same coffee, same grind, same filter, same aproximate ratio of coffee to water, the brand new Presto beats the five-year-old Braun KF-157 for quality of brewed output by a hair.
The Braun's slightly more complicated drip stop mechanism still works better than that implementation on any other drip coffeemaker I've ever seen or used. The wider reservoir opening, and the larger carafe with its wider opening makes the Braun more convenient to use and easier to clean. I prefer the separate dedicated buttons for manual start or auto start found on the Braun FlavorSelect models with timer controls, such as the KF-180, KF-185, KF-187, and KF-190 than the single start button on the Presto. There is no way to say whether the Presto will match the Braun models for durability. Judging from how well the machine is put together, and the quality of the materials that are used, I expect it should be definitely above average when it comes to long-term reliability and trouble-free operation.
Right off the bat, there are several things I'd change about the Presto's design. I would like to lose the timer and LCD display in favor of three dedicated switches: one to turn it on and off, one to selct for a full or a small batch, and one to turn the warmer plate on or off. I would like more brewing capacity--12 cups would be good--16 would be great. I would make the overall dimmensions larger so the reservoir opening would be wider. And, I'd get rid of that silly keyhole type opening at the top of the back wall of the water reservoir. I never could figure out why so many manufacturers include that uh, feature?
I would make the filter basket larger so it could hold the larger No. 4 permanent filters, giving more space for more coffee, and to allow more "blooming" of freshly roasted coffee in the basket during brewing. I might even want to go up to a basket size that would hold a No. 6 size filter, especially if they offered the machine in a 12- or 16-cup capacity model.
I think, so far, that this machine is definitely a keeper, and I'll actually use it rather than set it back as a reserve model to be used with something else breaks and I need coffee.
I definitely would rate this Presto above several other machines I have now, or have had fairly recently, including Cuisinart, Bunn, Capresso, and Kitchen Aid models.
Brent Reynolds, Atlanta, GA USA Phone: 1-404-814-0768
"I used a hand phaser, and ZAP! Hot Coffee!" - Yeoman Rand, Star Trek.