The Caffeinated Penguin

Posted By matt on April 5, 2005

So, the Krups Aroma Control coffee maker has been retired, because it's gotten quite scummy and no amount of cleaning and descaling seems to get rid of it (there's floaty things in the reservoir). So, we were at Macy's today, buying Liz's new table, and a Krups FMF4 was on sale (25% off) plus we had gift card from my friend Maurice, and Liz had gotten a Macy's credit card (to get 10% off her new table, which was nothing to sneeze at considering that what she saved paid for the delivery fee). Anyway, so we got this new coffee maker.

Differences:

• The new one has a water filter (because our water here is crap)
• The old one had a bimetallic coil in the basket that would allow the coffee to steep a bit before opening up to drainm giving it an almost “french press” style mouth feel. At least, that's what it was supposed to do. Owning a real french press, it doesn't really come close. So, I question whether it really makes a difference. We shall see (I'm not going to make coffee tonight to try it).
• Both have double wall stailess steel carafes.
• The handle design for this one is better than the old one. See, the old one had 2 attachment points – studs soldered on to the outer wall of the carafe. However, since you had to apply a lot of torque to open the top, I ended up snapping the studs off. This one uses a locking lid (rather than screw on), and the handle is attached to bands which run around the carafe. Hopefully it will be better.
• The old one had an odd pour spout. It was a wide arc which was supposed to be no drip; which it was. However, it ended up not always going into the mug where I wanted it. This new one is a more conventional spout-style design, which seems to have superior pouring characteristics

Oh, and a followup on the KitchenAid professional burr grinder:

• It definitely has less grind adhesion to the container than my old capresso burr grinder
• You can taste the difference in the coffee (definitely tastes better out of this grinder).
• The feeder needs to be redesigned. The beans almost never feed properly, and you have to poke them. The problem is that the angle of the input hopper is too shallow (kind of flattened on the bottom) where it needs to be a steep cone design. I'm going to send KitchenAid an email about it. Hopefully they'll fix it and sell a retrofit kit.

Anyway, for everyone who had coffee from the old coffepot, come on by and grab a cup out of this new one!

Category: LJ Import
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