Drip Coffee Makers
by Evan
While at home you may not always require a perfectly timed espresso or a balanced cappuccino, you may want a consistently good, rich mug of good old fashioned coffee. Classic drip coffee makers are the way to go for achieving an easy and consistently good pot of coffee at home.
Automatic drip coffee makers are the most popular coffee makers on the market — especially in North America — and you’ll find them in a wide variety of styles, shapes, sizes and price ranges.
You’ll find everything from a single cup coffee maker, like the K cup coffee maker, to 12 cup electric drip coffee makers with timers for grinding and brewing your coffee so it is sitting there waiting for you when you awake. A timed coffee maker is a wonderful thing for those who love coffee first thing in the morning.
How Drip Coffee Makers Work
Tips for Brewing Great Coffee
How to Clean A Drip Coffee Maker
How to Buy Drip Coffee Makers
How Drip Coffee Makers Work
Drip coffee makers operate by pouring water through ground and roasted coffee beans held in some kind of filter. Water pools within the grounds, absorbing coffee flavor, oils and texture before slowly seeps through the filter and into a coffee pot or carafe. This slow process creates a drip beneath the filter and into the pot, hence the name drip coffee maker.
In most modern drip coffee makers, a paper filter is used. The paper filters allow for easy disposal of used coffee grounds and for easy maintenance of the coffee machine. However, paper filters also filter out some of the oils and sediment which gives coffee dimensions of flavor.
Metal and plastic filters are also becoming more common. These filters feature a mesh-like filter which needs to be rinsed or washed between each coffee brewing. These coffee filters vary in quality but are popular in places of the world where manufactured paper filters are difficult to find. These filters reduce the overall cost of making your daily coffee (no need to buy paper filters regularly) and are favored by environmentalists.
A quality gold filter brews coffee without affecting its taste while also allowing a little more of the oils and sediment through to the pot, providing a robust flavored coffee. Many coffee connoisseurs, particularly in Europe, prefer coffee with the oils and sediment intact. But this filtration method does change both the flavor and nutritional profile of a cup of coffee. Commercial drip coffee makers, like those used at Starbucks, use permanent metal coffee filters.
Drip coffee brewing is the most common method of brewing coffee, especially in the United States.
Tips for Brewing Great Coffee
These may seem like basic drip coffee maker tips, but in fact if you implement them all you will experience a significantly better cup of coffee.
- Start with fresh filtered water. Bad tasting or chlorine-tasting coffee will lead to an inferior tasting coffee brew. A simple Brita-style water filter with charcoal filter will do. Some more expensive models come with a charcoal filter for the water reservoir.
- Buy a grinder or a coffee maker with a grinder then buy fresh whole bean coffee instead of pre-ground coffee. Just as an apple begins to brown quickly when you peel it, coffee begins oxidizing as soon as the bean is broken. To really achieve quality pot of coffee, you need to use whole beans and grind them right before you brew your coffee A grind and brew coffee maker with a timer is great for this.
- Keep your coffee maker clean. Coffee includes all kinds of oils, essences and sediments. These matters accumulate in your coffee maker and become stale, affecting your fresh brews. So keep your coffee maker clean. See below for some simple ideas for how to clean a coffee maker.
- Drink soon after you’ve brewed your coffee. As a coffee lover, it pains me to see how often people brew a pot of coffee then let it sit on the warmer of their electric coffee maker for an hour before they really start drinking it. Both air exposure and reheating dramatically change the flavor of coffee in just minutes. So don’t grind the beans and start the brew until you’re ready to consume the coffee. If the coffee must sit for a period, brew the coffee directly into a vacuum-sealed thermal carafe to avoid air exposure and reheating.
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How to Clean A Drip Coffee Maker
I’ll describe two methods for cleaning drip coffee makers. I personally prefer the vinegar method because sometimes the baking soda method can be a little difficult to rinse, but some people hate vinegar and cringe at the prospect at pouring vinegar through their precious drip coffee maker.
To clean your drip coffee makers with vinegar, simply create a mixture of two parts clean, fresh water and 1 part vinegar. I suggest filling the reservoir. Then simply run your drip coffee maker as usual without any filter in it. When it completes, turn it off and dump the solution from the pot. Rinse the pot thoroughly with clean, warm water.
Then fill the reservoir with just fresh clean water to rinse the vinegar out of the coffee machine’s system. Run the coffee maker once more without a filter. You may be able to stop now and consider it clean, but some people like to run another round of clean water through the machine to make sure there is no vinegar residue left behind to affect your next coffee brew.
To clean a coffee maker with baking soda, create a solution of one part baking soda and four parts warm water. Make sure you mix and dissolve the baking soda before placing it in the coffee makers reservoir. Then proceed just as I described in the vinegar method. If I use this method, I usually do have to run fresh water through the machine twice to properly rinse away the baking soda.
Don’t underestimate the importance of cleaning your drip coffee maker. Even the highest quality coffee makers will start brewing stale-tasting coffee if you don’t cleanse its insides with vinegar or baking soda.
Tips to Buy the Best Drip Coffee Maker for You
Before you buy drip coffee makers, consider these tips to make the most of your time.
- I encourage you to budget how much you’re willing to spend in advance. A little extra money can go a long way, but before you start looking at all the fun new models of drip coffee makers out there, make sure you’ve set your limits. This will help you speed the process as well because you’ll be able to quickly disqualify coffee machines out of your range.
- Next you need to decide how much you will really use your drip coffee maker. It would be silly for you to spend a fortune on something you use only once a month or so, but by the same token, if you care about quality coffee and you drink it every day, you may regret going cheap. Also, you need to consider how much you’ll drink and how many people will be drinking from each brew.
- It would be silly to buy a drip coffee maker with a 12 cup pot if you only ever drink a couple cups a day, but you’ll find yourself frustrated and making multiple pots a day if you indulge in this caffeinated pleasure often or frequently server others and you only buy a 4 cup brewer. There are small drip coffee makers, so you don’t need to buy a 10 or 12 cup drip coffee maker if you don’t need one.
- Next you need to consider how much maintenance each coffee maker requires. This can vary quite a bit. For example, my favorite coffee maker requires extensive cleaning (because it features a gold filter rather than disposable paper filters and because it also grinds the beans before brewing), but I’m content with the cleaning process because I love my coffee and it is an integral part of my day.
- However, I know coffee lovers that think my coffee maker is just a pain because it takes extra effort to clean after every brew. So be honest with yourself. Do you need a low maintenance coffee maker or are you willing to take apart and clean your drip coffee maker every day? If you buy a harder to clean coffee maker then slack on cleaning it regularly, you’ll suffer the consequences of a shorter operating life with reduced quality of taste in each brew.
- Next, write yourself a list of must-have features. This isn’t a wish list, but a list of features your coffee maker absolutely must have. This will make it easier for you to quickly disqualify some models and narrow down the list of available drip coffee makers.
- And last but not least, be sure to shop around for the best prices. Sometimes it can be really tough to compete against Amazon (especially with their free shipping on items over $25 and if your state doesn’t charge taxes on online purchases), but occasionally you’ll find a great deal at local places like Bed, Bath & Beyond. Whatever you do, don’t just settle for the first price you find.
I hope this helps you better understand the origins and options of drip coffee makers. Please return soon as I will provide reviews of kinds of all the best drip coffee makers as well as links to the best prices I can find online.
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