On 2004-04-04 sbt snipped-for-privacy@silcom.com said: Newsgroups: rec.food.drink.coffee > The main criterion is whether the machine heats the water hot >enough, to ensure proper extraction. Brewing temperature should >be 92 to 96 degrees C; I believe the Cuisinart machines, as well >as some of the Capressos, meet this standard (as well as the Philips). I wonder how to go about determining what temperature a coffee maching is actually heating the water to before dripping it through the coffee since most machines have hotplates under the carafe? Also, does any company other then Braun specifically claim that their machines properly heat the water? Why bother with gold-tone filters since, in my experience, they increase the likelihood of the machine to overflow during brewing? Is the flavor of coffee improved by not using a paper filter? And regarding paper filters, any idea why the cone type cost about 3X as much as the basket type?
The hot plate under the carafe is designed to keep the coffee hot after brewing. It does not effect the brewing temperature in most models, with the possible exception of some of the cheapest models where the same heating device serves to both heat the water for brewing and keep the coffee hot in the carafe after brewing.
MOst of the brand lines that have been traditionally considered to be among the better brands have people who claim they all heat the water to the optimum reccommended brewing temperature.
I have seen ads and statements from Bunn claiming that they make the only machines for the home market that get the water hot enough to brew a good cup of coffee. The last three times that Consumer Reports tested coffeemakers and actually listed the temperature of the coffee of the tested models in the carafe immediately after brewing stopped, the Bunn machines were among the coolest machines tested. They usually measured the temp in the carafe right after brewing, not the temperature of the water at the point where it leaves the nozzles just before going into the ground coffee.
I tried two different KitchenAid machines, I believe it was either KCM-200 or DCM-200 12-cup models a couple of years ago. I liked their rounded body styling, and I liked the way the controls were mounted midway along the front of the machine, well above the warmer plate. When I saw the nice heavy-duty three-prong electrical cord, I felt reassured that this machine just might be a good hot brewer. No matter what variety of coffee I used, how I ground it, or whether I used a permanent filter or a paper filter, I could only get rather bland, nondescript brew out of those machines. Almost none of the distinctive characteristics of a given origin of coffee bean, or a given roast profile stood out in the output from those KitchenAid machines. I did not keep either one long enough to determine whether the problem lay with water not hot enough, or contact time not long enough, or water not agitated enough inside the filter basket, or some combination of any or all of those things was the cause of the insipid output. My old early 1990's-vintage Krups Cafe Aroma 12-cup model, and my 12-cup Braun FlavorSelect models brew a good enough cup of coffee that I have a hard time trying to justify spending $185 to $225 plus shipping and handling to see if those Philips Technivorm models are any better at all.
As for paper versus gold-tone or other permanent filters, the big strike against paper is that it tends to soak up and blot out from your carafe and your cup, a large percentage of the volatile oils that carry the components that give good coffee much of the aroma and flavor characteristics that set good coffee apart from the older, cheaper, more stale run-of-the-mill stuff that most people drink most of the time. The cone-shaped or modified-cone-shaped filters are considerably more expensive than the flat pleated cupcake-style filters used in machines from the likes of Mr. Coffee and Black and Decker, and Sunbeam, and Hamilton-Beech. The quality of the paper is better and thicker, and in the case of the Melitta brand filters, they actually have what Melitta calls, "flavor pores" that are supposed to allow more of those volatile oils to get through the paper and into the carafe or cup.
Some of the price difference may be due to quality of materials and extra production costs, but I'm sure some of it is also due to smaller production runs, and even a certain amount of hype and snob appeal. After all, it's those more expensive European-brand models that use the cone type filters. Even a few "Euro-styled" Mr. Coffee models now use those cone type filters.
As for the issue of the gold filter holding water in the basket longer and overflowing the brew basket, you have to play around with different grind settings any time you change filter brands or types, or machines, and sometimes even different types and roasts of coffee beans to get your machine's optimum combination of filtration and drip rate for a given filter type or coffee type.
Reply to: snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.net Brent Reynolds, Atlanta, GA USA