In , on
Mon, 6 Dec 2010 07:36:39 -0800 (PST), RS at work,
wrote:

Winston wrote:
My 'Mr. Coffee' finally konked out for the
last time. (Repair parts weren't in my stockpile
and would cost a significant fraction of a new
coffee maker, considering shipping and taxes.)


Winston,

Now that you have seen the inside of a Mr. Coffee, might I suggest
that you get yourself a Bunn coffee maker.

Perfect suggestion.

When you take one of those
apart, you find a stainless steel tank and industrial quality
components.

The machine is built to last however

.... if it jumps out of the sink in your travel
trailer, landing on the floor, "last" is not all that
long.

so the only time you take it
apart is for a very deep cleaning, and while you probably will never
need them, parts are available.

I bought a refurb'ed Bunn A10-series in 2002. I've
replaced both thermal fuses. One at about year 4 and
the other around year 6. Radio Shack online. They
were... I don't know... a buck a piece?

The A10 has an (internally) adjustable thermostat.
Going from 500' elevation to 5500' means a drastic
reduction in boiling point. At low elevation my
preference is to set it to 205F... which is completely
impossible at 5500'. I have it set to 197F here.
The B series (what you see in big box stores) has
a fixed thermostat.

Also you get a full pot of coffee in three minutes.

Three minute coffee as a convenience is the least
of the advantage. The quality of the coffee is much
improved over a Mr. Coffee. That's true of any method
using the "optimal" parameters for coffee brewing.

The temperature should be in the 195-205F. range.
Hotter extracts more bitters (caffeine being one of
those). Cooler fails to extract many of the body
components.
Optimal brew time is 3 to 5 minutes. Longer
extracts more of the bitters. Shorter... well, just
plain isn't enough time to extract much of anything.

Coarse grind / light roast can somewhat make up for
too hot or too long brew times.
Fine grind / dark roasts can better withstand too cool
or too short brew times.

It's all about getting a nice balance between the
sugars, acids and bitters. Many people think of a
bitter cup as "strong" so reduce the amount of
grinds they use. This is exactly the wrong direction
to go. The beginning of the brew process gets the
very soluble compounds; mainly the sugars. Only after
the bulk of easily dissolved compounds are extracted
do the less soluble compounds start to extract.
The more grounds you start with, the more time
it takes for the extraction of bitters to start.

So, if your coffee is "strong" aka, bitter, use
the correct amount of grinds, 17:1 water to grinds by
weight(*), cooler brew temperature, shorter brew time,
coarser grind, lighter roast... in whatever combination
floats your boat.

(*) For a typical 50 oz. coffee pot, that amounts to
2.9 oz. of grinds. With our 48 oz. pot, I generally
go with 76-79 grams.

For less caffeine, use 100% arabica. For even less
caffeine, try Monsooned Malabar specifically.
If you don't care about flavor, and just want the
caffiene jolt, go for blends high in robusta.

The key to "great" coffee is all the above, using
coffee roasted no more than two weeks prior and
ground no more than hours prior. Grinding creates
orders of magnitude more surface area, and oxidation
begins immediately.

Bunn takes care of time and temperature, but the
rest of the quality cup is still in your hands.