Finally the new coffee pot is up and working. Of course, the color is not exactly a standard amber. Perhaps I should have waited the three weeks for the clear to get back in stock. The phone sales person made a good point though in saying that after a few months an "amber" plastic pot would look better than a discolored clear one. Glenda, my wife, claims the color is more orange than amber, but all I care about is the coffee. After all its a coffee pot not wall paper.
I found this one on sale at Herrington for $109.95 which is a lot more than the Black & Decker one that we had. It does seem slightly better than the previous Bodum model which we used a year or so ago until it broke. It is much easier to remove the upper part where the vacuum is created and the coffee boils. Perhaps I'll make a Quicktime movie of the process some day.
I'm glad to be back to my coffee routine though I guess I had come close to mastering the Bunn pot by the time the new Bodum got here.
Now I'll just go stock up on Dunkin Donuts coffee and I'll be set for nice morning reading.
If you can put up with the hassle of making coffee this way, I doubt you will be satisfied with a regular automatic coffee pot if you ever taste coffee made the vacuum way. Of course it helps to like gadgets.
I had a vacuum coffeepot a few years ago, but it wasn't electric: I heated it on the stovetop (with a heat diffuser, obviously). I no longer have it for a few reasons:
* The glass stem cracked. I don't know how I could have avoided this. The crack got worse quickly and I had to get rid of it.
* As much as I loved the process of making coffee this way, I was never very happy with how it tasted. Probably because the coffee was made with boiling water rather than just below boiling, which I prefer.
However, someone just told me that America's Test Kitchen strongly recommended vacuum pots in part because the water is *not* boiling by the time it's in contact with the coffee. They were referring to electric models (recommending, I believe, the Black & Decker). What's your experience with this?
Posted by: Sam | May 05, 2005 at 10:39 AM
We actually had the Black & Decker model and loved it. Unfortunately it developed a crack where it was attached to the plastic pot. Of course that was the end of the vacuuum. We thought the Black & Decker was a great pot. It was close to half the price of the one we have now, it kept the coffee a little warmer after brewing and was easier to clean. Black & Decker sometime in the last year stopped making them. I talked about that in an earlier post, but it is a shame. Once I get the coffee and water mixture right, I think this is the best home brewed coffee there is. Someone needs to figure out how to do a glass electric vacuum pot.
Posted by: ocracokewaves | May 06, 2005 at 11:28 AM
the coffee maker industry really have grown a lot over the years. You can easily make such quality coffee in your home. I like my coffee maker and finding the Krups parts I need is so easy.
Posted by: Sean Carter | June 06, 2013 at 04:26 PM