Filters are the cheapest component in drip brewing and one of the few that changes the coffee in ways you can taste immediately. They are also the part most likely to be bought wrong, because the sizing system is inherited…
Two machines can hold the same amount of coffee, take the same filter and offer the same buttons, yet produce noticeably different coffee from identical beans. The difference is usually invisible from the outside, because it comes down to how…
A 12 cup drip machine covers a household. It does not cover a church hall, a family reunion, a school fundraiser or a campsite with eight people in it. Somewhere above about twenty cups the format itself stops making sense,…
A drip coffee maker gets dirty in three separate ways, and most owners only deal with one of them. Rinsing the carafe handles the visible mess. It does nothing about the coffee oils coating the brew basket and the showerhead,…
Brewed coffee is about 98 percent water, and the small fraction that is not water has to be pulled out of the grounds by it. That makes the water supply an ingredient rather than a background detail, and it is…
Grind size is the variable that separates a drip machine making acceptable coffee from the same machine making very good coffee, and it is also the one most owners never touch. A coffee maker gives you a strength button and…
Almost every mid range drip machine has a button that promises stronger coffee. It is called Bold, Strong, Rich, Robust or simply Brew Strength depending on the brand, and it is one of the most misunderstood controls in the category.…
A programmable coffee maker sells one promise: coffee ready before you are. The mechanism behind it is simple, but the settings are named inconsistently across brands, and buyers regularly find after purchase that the machine does something slightly different from…
Coffee makers are sold by cup count, and the number on the box is one of the least useful specifications on it. A 14 cup machine is not twice the machine a 7 cup one is, a 5 cup brewer…
Every drip coffee maker has to answer the same question the moment brewing stops: where does the coffee sit, and what keeps it drinkable. Two answers dominate the market. A glass carafe rests on an electric warming plate that keeps…