Description
The Farberware 50124 Yosemite is an eight cup stovetop percolator in polished stainless steel, with a clear glass knob in the lid and a permanent filter basket. It has been on sale in essentially this form for decades, and the recorded first availability date of September 2001 understates how long the design has existed rather than overstating it.
Percolation is a different method from anything electric on this site. Water in the base boils, rises up a central pump tube, sprays over a basket of grounds, drains back and repeats. The coffee passes through the grounds many times rather than once, which is why percolator coffee is stronger and darker than drip coffee and why it divides opinion so sharply.
It Does Not Work On Induction
This belongs at the top because it is the one specification that will make the pot useless to some buyers. The listing states plainly that the percolator is not induction suitable, while separately listing gas stovetop compatibility as a special feature.
Induction hobs work by inducing a current in a magnetic base, so a pan must be ferromagnetic to work on one. Not all stainless steel is: the 18/10 and similar grades used for their corrosion resistance and shine are often non magnetic, and a pot made from them will simply sit on an induction hob doing nothing. This one is stated as unsuitable, which resolves the question. It will work on gas, on electric coil and on ceramic radiant hobs. If your kitchen is induction, a pot with a magnetic base is what you need, and the COLETTI Bozeman percolator or one of the electric models in the percolators we cover are the directions to look.
The Permanent Filter Basket
The basket is a permanent metal filter, and Farberware makes the reasonable point that this removes any need for paper. There is nothing recurring to buy and nothing to run out of at a campsite.
The trade is grounds in the cup. A perforated metal basket has openings large enough to let fine particles through, and percolation cycles water through the basket repeatedly, so fines accumulate in the pot. The answer is grind rather than equipment: a percolator wants a coarse grind, closer to what a French press uses than to drip. Supermarket pre ground coffee is ground for drip machines and is too fine, and the common complaint about grit in percolator coffee traces almost entirely to that. Disc filters that sit under the grounds are sold separately and solve the rest, and competing percolators such as the COLETTI include a starter pack of them.
The Glass Knob and Knowing When To Stop
The clear glass knob is the only instrument on the pot. Farberware describes it as letting you know when percolating begins, and that is exactly its job: there is no timer, no thermostat and no indicator that the coffee is done.
The technique is straightforward once you know it. When coffee starts appearing in the glass, turn the heat down so the pot perks gently rather than boiling hard, and give it roughly five to eight minutes before taking it off. Left on a high flame it will keep cycling indefinitely, pushing the same coffee through the same grounds, and the result is the bitter over extracted cup that percolators are unfairly blamed for. The colour through the glass tells you how far along the brew is and the pace of the bubbling tells you whether the heat is right. That judgement is the whole skill, and it is why an electric percolator that shuts itself off is an easier object to live with even though it makes the same coffee.
Materials and Cleaning
Heavy duty stainless steel, polished to a mirror finish, with a stainless interior and a stainless lid carrying the glass knob. Stainless is the right material for a coffee pot because it is inert: it does not react with the acids in coffee, does not stain and tolerates detergent, which aluminium does not.
The pot is described as fully immersible and dishwasher safe with two exceptions: the knob and the pump tube spring. Those exclusions are worth reading. Fully immersible is unusual and useful, because the pump tube and base are exactly where old coffee oils and scale accumulate on a percolator and where a quick rinse does not reach. The spring at the base of the pump tube is the one moving part in the whole appliance and it is the component that eventually fails, so keeping it out of the dishwasher is sensible advice rather than a formality.
Capacity and the Cup Question
The pot is rated at eight cups, and the listing does not say what a cup means. That is a gap, because percolator cups are conventionally smaller than drip machine cups, often five or six ounces rather than eight.
Taking six ounces as the usual percolator measure, eight cups is around 48 ounces, which is three or four mug sized servings. Comparing an eight cup percolator with a twelve cup drip machine on the numbers alone will mislead you. The other thing to know is that percolators do not brew well part filled, because the pump tube needs a minimum depth of water to start cycling at all. If you often want a single cup, this is the wrong appliance and something from the single serve brewers we cover suits better.
The Filter Type Contradiction
The attribute table records the filter type as Paper. The manufacturer description in the same listing states that the pot features a permanent filter basket so there is no need to deal with messy coffee filters.
Those cannot both be true, and the description is the correct one: this is a permanent metal basket. The paper entry appears to be a default value rather than a specification. Two other fields are wrong in the same table. The human interface input reads Buttons, and a stovetop percolator has none. The specific uses field reads Filter Coffee, which is the term for drip brewing rather than percolation, and describes a different method entirely.
What the Specifications Do Not Settle
No cup measure in ounces, as discussed. No grounds quantity for a given number of cups, which is the figure you actually need to brew it correctly and which is harder to judge on a percolator than on a drip machine. No handle material, which determines whether it needs a cloth on a gas ring. No base thickness, which affects how evenly it heats on an electric coil.
Nothing states whether replacement pump tubes, springs or baskets are available, which on an appliance with one moving part is the question that decides whether it is repairable. And nothing describes the basket perforation size, which determines how much grit reaches the cup for a given grind.
Who It Suits
This suits somebody with a gas or electric hob who likes strong dark coffee, wants an appliance with nothing to break, and would rather buy once than replace a plastic machine every few years. Being fully immersible and dishwasher safe makes it far easier to keep clean than most percolators, the mirror finish has not dated in twenty years, and there is nothing recurring to buy. The Primula TPA-3609 is the aluminium stovetop percolator at a similar size.
Skip it entirely if your hob is induction, because the listing states it will not work. Skip it too if you want a clean light cup, since percolation is the opposite of that and a pour over cone is the format for clarity. And if the appeal is the coffee rather than the ritual, an electric percolator does the same job with a timer and without the watching. The Farberware FCP280 is that electric percolator from the same brand.
