The way coffee was meant to be.
Awhile back I began searching for a more convenient way to brew my morning coffee than the Chemex pour over manual brewer I normally use. The Chemex makes a wonderful, full flavored and rich cup of coffee, but the glass carafe does not do a good job keeping the coffee hot. And, I really don't want to transfer the coffee to a thermos, as this adds an extra step, and an additional piece of equipment to clean. Auto drip coffee makers just don't do a really good job of brewing coffee due to the fact that they don't brew at the optimum 195-205 degrees. What was I to do?
I had looked into percolators for some time, but was reluctant to buy one because of all the negative information out there concerning the resulting brew from a percolator. "Percolators are the worst possible way to make coffee"; "Percolators boil the coffee through the grounds repeatedly, destroying all the flavor and causing the brew to be bitter". These are just an example of the comments I found on percolators. They seem to violate all the rules of making good coffee.
Yet, I remembered the smell of percolating coffee from my childhood; from the days before my mother bought her first Mr. Coffee machine. And all the reviews I read on percolators indicated that they made wonderful coffee. And these reviews were, for the most part, from people who had switched from auto drip coffee makers. I, too, had grown frustrated with these flimsy plastic machines over the years, but what could I do? Percolators make bad coffee; or so I was led to believe by all the "coffee experts".
I finally broke down and bought a Farberware 8 cup percolator, and conducted some fairly thorough tests on it before coming to any conclusions. The Farberware heats the water to a perfect 200 degrees, and it brews fast. Using a grind slightly more coarse than auto drip, the resulting brew was very rich and full flavored. It wasn't quite as complex as the brew from a presspot, but it was far better than anything I had made using any other method of brewing. All the experts were wrong!
Farberware's line of percolators brew at "cup a minute speed". This is on par with the best quality drip mahcines, and better than the low end ones. This percolator will keep the coffee hot without scorching it like auto drip machines, nor will it become stale as quickly. The coffee is piping hot, rich, robust, and NOT bitter. Using the Melitta 3 1/2" disc filters helps to significantly reduce the possibility of getting fine particles into the coffee. Another plus for Farberware's percolators is that you can replace the heating elements if they burn out. These heating elements are available through Marbeck Appliance, Goodman's, and other online retailers of small appliances, and are a fraction of the price of a new percolator. I have also found that a high quality grinder makes a dramatic difference in the final brew. With a blade grinder, the brew is okay; with a good conical burr grinder, the coffee is complex in flavor and intensity, rich and robust. If you get this percolator, look to investing in a good grinder. And then, don't look back.Read full review
