First New Coffeemaker in 9 Years!

[hrv]

I like Community Coffee - I have a soft spot for NOLA; we spent a few nights there in April 2021 for our first wedding anniversary.

Wish Community sold their whole bean in grocery stores.

Plus they treat the military well too...

 

[john_pifer]

Interesting choice to replace the Bunn. Looking forward to your report!
I've not had any issues with drip head and uneven saturation of the ground coffee with either of my Moccamasters. The heated water pulses through the head openings randomly and with a degree of force.
I do interrupt the brewing for 30 seconds but I'm still not sure if that's voodoo or if it improves taste. I honestly cannot tell.

The Moccamaster spray head "issue" may be overblown.

However, I have seen multiple comments online about it, and most serious coffee people who own them say that they stop and stir the grounds to ensure even brew water saturation.

And at least one enterprising individual at an outfit called Coffeehaus has come up with a design for an upgraded "shower head-style" brew spray head/arm for the Moccamaster.

https://coffeeha.us/products/moccamaster-kbgv-prototype-brew-showerhead

And there are many reports of folks who have switched from the Moccamaster to the Behmor Brazen or Breville Precision Brewer and say their coffee is improved.

But, again, the Moccamaster has a well-deserved rep for making very good coffee, and it's obviously well-made, with good customer service and support, and replaceable parts.

It would be very interesting to get to do a comparison between the two, side by side, especially a blind taste test. Of course, there are YouTube videos where it's been done.

Here's one:

 

[cdlamb]

I have had good luck with a Bunn My Cafe single serve coffee maker. I use the basket for grounds, but it also came with a pod holder.
I just checked the temperature of a fresh brewed cup with a candy thermometer and it is also set to 185 degrees.
My choice of coffee is Chock full O' Nuts Medium Original.

 

[john_pifer]

I have had good luck with a Bunn My Cafe single serve coffee maker. I use the basket for grounds, but it also came with a pod holder.
I just checked the temperature of a fresh brewed cup with a candy thermometer and it is also set to 185 degrees.
My choice of coffee is Chock full O' Nuts Medium Original.

Does that use pods?

 

[Cropduster172]

The Moccamaster spray head "issue" may be overblown.

However, I have seen multiple comments online about it, and most serious coffee people who own them say that they stop and stir the grounds to ensure even brew water saturation.

And at least one enterprising individual at an outfit called Coffeehaus has come up with a design for an upgraded "shower head-style" brew spray head/arm for the Moccamaster.

https://coffeeha.us/products/moccamaster-kbgv-prototype-brew-showerhead

And there are many reports of folks who have switched from the Moccamaster to the Behmor Brazen or Breville Precision Brewer and say their coffee is improved.

But, again, the Moccamaster has a well-deserved rep for making very good coffee, and it's obviously well-made, with good customer service and support, and replaceable parts.

It would be very interesting to get to do a comparison between the two, side by side, especially a blind taste test. Of course, there are YouTube videos where it's been done.

Here's one:

Prior to buying our two Moccamasters, I had two Motif Essentials that were rebadged Melittas. They met the SCA Golden Cup standard too and were inexpensive...$50 each on one of those deal of the day sites. Those had a bloom cycle switch...couldn't taste the difference with those either.
I've seen the modified shower heads...still don't see a need for them based on my experience.

 

[hrv]

I still have and use a 5 cup Gevalia coffe maker that I got for free in 1996 as part of joining there coffee club.. At that time the only way to get that coffee was this way...they were not in stores like they are now...It still works great and I do clean it out one a year....

 

[Ed in Tx]

I like Community Coffee - I have a soft spot for NOLA; we spent a few nights there in April 2021 for our first wedding anniversary.

Wish Community sold their whole bean in grocery stores.

They do. The "Breakfast Blend" medium roast, and the "Signature Blend" dark, which I have a cup of in front of me now. Bought a couple of bags last week at Kroger on sale for $4.49 a bag. You might want to check other stores.

 

[kschachn]

She does enjoy the pourovers I make, and drinks it black.

Yeah this is what we do, we haven't had an actual coffeemaker in probably 25 years.

 

[john_pifer]

I still have and use a 5 cup Gevalia coffe maker that I got for free in 1996 as part of joining there coffee club.. At that time the only way to get that coffee was this way...they were not in stores like they are now...It still works great and I do clean it out one a year....

I had one of those! Back about 20 years ago I joined the Gevalia subscription service. Man, I hadn't thought of that in a long time. Now I can't remember what happened to that brewer.

 

[ARCOgraphite]

Filters make a big difference, Just like in oil filters - I like low efficiency.

Have a dusty Bunn in the attic as a wedding gift. Use them at work. Designed for quick 12 cup pot brewing. Can flood the filter and then you have a brew fail. In a semi-pro setting the shower head machine requires a large basket and massive quantities of coffee to get a nice rich cup. Wastefull for home use.

I ended up doing my own drip out of a small filter in a paper cup with holes punched in the bottom, just used the hot water tap on the machine. Takes about 2 mins and some patience.
Fantastic brew.

I very much appreciate how @Rand fresh roasts the beans. - hard to beat that for flavour and aroma.

 

[john_pifer]

Filters make a big difference, Just like in oil filters - I like low efficiency.

Have a Bunn in the attic form a wedding gift. Use them at work. designed for quick 12 cup pot brewing. Can flood the filter and then you have a brew fail. In a semi-pro setting the shower head machine requires a large basket and massive quantities of coffee to get a nice rich cup. Wastefull for home use.

I ended up doing my own drip out of a small filter in a paper cup with holes punched in the bottom, just used the hot water tap on the machine. Takes about 2 mins and some patience.
Fantastic brew.

I very much appreciate how @Rand fresh roasts the beans. - hard to beat that for flavour and aroma.

The BUNN brewer does require some experimentation with coarseness of grind.

Like you mentioned, if you put too much coffee in the filter basket that is ground too finely, it'll overflow.

I made a full pot today with no issues - 1470ml water (that’s to the 10-cup line on the decanter) to 86g coffee (about 17:1).

Ground at setting 7 on the Fellow Ode grinder, and could have gone a couple of steps finer.

 

[hrv]

I had one of those! Back about 20 years ago I joined the Gevalia subscription service. Man, I hadn't thought of that in a long time. Now I can't remember what happened to that brewer.

The irish creme was great... I wish they still sold it...but they dont..

 

[MParr]

They do. The "Breakfast Blend" medium roast, and the "Signature Blend" dark, which I have a cup of in front of me now. Bought a couple of bags last week at Kroger on sale for $4.49 a bag. You might want to check other stores.

Publix usually carries whole bean Community Coffee.

 

[cdlamb]

Does that use pods?

It has a basket for use with pods, but also another basket to use your own grounds. I never use the pods. Find it much more economical to just use regular ground coffee, & less waste.

 

[mrbreezeet1]

Just ordered a new auto drip coffeemaker!

For the last 9 years or so, I've used the BUNN Velocity Brew. Good brewer for medium and dark roasts, but over the last few years, and, especially, over the last few months, I've developed a real affinity for light roasts, and the sweet, fruity, and tangy notes that come through when coffee is roasted lightly.

Of course, the pourover brew method, with all the variables that can be tweaked and controlled, is ideal for bringing out flavor in light roasts. I really enjoy pourovers, and it's my go-to brew method on the weekends these days (V60 primarily, also have a Chemex for larger amounts).

However, there's not always time to do a proper pourover on early work mornings when I'm leaving the house at 0430 or before, and I just want to make a pot of autodrip.

Recently when trying some lightly-roasted specialty coffee through the BUNN, I noticed that the taste was flat and under extracted, and, having learned recently that lighter-roasted beans need a higher brew temp for proper extraction (due to their density), I suspected that the BUNN was just not cutting it for these light roasts.

I measured the temp of the brew water directly out of the sprayhead pipe, and it was only 185 degrees F, confirming my suspicion. And the temperature drop will be even worse - probably at least 5 degrees F lower - once it hits the coffee slurry.

See attached video:

So, I decided it was time to start looking for a new brewer.

I started watching video reviews of some of my favorite YouTube reviewers, including James Hoffman, who has a good video where he reviews some of the top SCA (Specialty Coffee Association)-certified auto drip brewers.

Which was where I learned about the Behmor Brazen Plus 3.0. (The 3.0 signifies that the brewer is in its 3rd iteration; it's been around for about 10 years, and it's been updated 3 times).

I'd orginally been just about sold on the Breville Precision Brewer, which @BeerCan has previously mentioned here in this forum. And the glass-carafe model had been on sale for $229 on Amazon ($50 off), which was a good deal. But in the last day or two, the sale ended and the price went back up to $279, which made me start looking again at other options.

One reason that I really gravitated towards the BUNN 9 years ago was the (fairly) uniform brew temperature, due to the nature of how it operates (water is constantly kept at brew temperature in a heated reservoir in the back of the machine). It's just that it loses too much heat as it flows up through the (fairly long) pipe that takes it up to the spray head.

Well, the Behmor solves that problem with its design. The water reservoir is at the top. Water is poured in, where it's heated to whatever brew temperature is set by the user (selectable, anywhere from 190-210 degrees F, in ONE-DEGREE INCREMENTS!). It even pauses a few degrees below the set temperature to prevent the set temp from being overshot (it creeps slowly up to the set temp). There's a valve at the bottom, which opens to allow the brew water to flow through the sprayhead and into the filter basket, but only after the water has reached the selected temp. And, because of the design, the water has a very short path to travel before it hits the spray head, minimizing heat loss.

Additionally, the computer controller in the machine prevents heat loss in the brew water by "pulsing" power to the heater, preventing deviation from the pre-set brew temperature, either up or down. Water is "pulsed" at 15-second intervals, a little at a time, creating turbulence, which improves extraction. There is also a pre-infusion mode in order to "bloom" the coffee (CO2 release from freshly-roasted coffee), the length of which is also able to be set.

Another design feature I was impressed with, which also influenced my decision, was the spray head itself.

One of the biggest complaints with the TechniVorm MoccaMaster, which is perhaps the most well-known auto drip coffeemaker amongst those who enjoy specialty coffee, is the inadequate spray head, which is too narrow, resulting in less-than-ideal distribution of brew water, and un-uniform soaking of the coffee grounds.

The Brazen's sprayhead, on the other hand, is the most substantial spray head I've ever seen on a coffee maker. In fact, it more resembles a shower head. It's very wide, and the flow is reminiscent of that produced by pourover drip-assist devices such as the Hario V60 Drip Assist which ensures very wide dispersion of brew water over the grounds.

Another cool thing that the Behmor offers is the ability to use it with other brew implements such as the Chemex, V60, Kalita Wave, etc. All you have to do is remove the Brazen's brew funnel and place the pourover dripper of your choice underneath. The Behmor has a mode for this - You can manually control the flow/pulses of water to your liking.

Perhaps not something I'll use much, as I enjoy manual pourovers using my kettle, but it's something fun to play around with, and the wide dispersion showerhead on the Brazen will certainly produce a different flavor profile than manual pourover with a kettle.

Another feature I may not use much, but is still nice to have, is the ability to set the brewer up and have it brew a pot of coffee at a set time. I like to grind my beans immediately before brewing, because I've long believed that it makes a positive difference in the flavor of the coffee. But hey, sometimes you might be willing to sacrifice a few percentage points of flavor to have coffee waiting for you the next morning, especially when you're short on time!

Something else that might be of interest to BITOG coffee fans who live at higher elevations - the Behmor has altitude settings to compensate for the lower boiling point of water at higher elevations. This only needs to be done once, when the machine is set up. You just enter the elevation where you live, add water to the calibration mark in the reservoir, and the machine does the rest!

Anyway, I've sort of rambled on here, but I can't wait to get the new coffeemaker and try it out! I'm looking forward to playing around with this brewer, trying different temp settings, etc.

Anybody else had one of these?

Incidentally, this isn't the only brewer on the market that functions in this way. A couple of years ago, BUNN came out with a copycat model of its own, which is called the Heat 'N Brew. It works in the same basic manner, though it does not have user-selectable brew water temperature, and the shower head is not as wide. It is cheaper, however. Might be an option for some. But I really wanted the selectable brew temperature.

l want one l can just holler at to make coffee.

 

[mrbreezeet1]

And see that little girl "Delilah" in my profile picture?
I got her one of those things that pumps water into her little water bowl, and you know what she did?
She was scared of it

 

[mrbreezeet1]

And see that little girl "Delilah" in my profile picture?
I got her one of those things that pumps water into her little water bowl, and you know what she did?
She was scared of it

That's "Killer" the watch cat! If a mouse came in the house, I think the mouse would beat her up.

 

[JHZR2]

I generally cold brew coffee and drink iced. But I’m intrigued by the settings on that brewer.

 

[UncleDave]

I've been using a super automatics for the last 20 years.

Saeco then Phillips - who bought Saeco for like 240M.

I like drips, but feel compelled to drink a standing pot vs. waste which results in overconsumption.

The s.a. is one fresh ground cup per button push.

I dislike puck machines.

 

[mrbreezeet1]

I am going to get a "smart outlet" though, so I can turn my coffee on in the AM from my room.