Melitta vs percolator vs auto-drip.

[ArtieD2]

My wife and I just did a little experiment. Our reliable old Mr Coffee auto-drip developed a leak and needs to be replaced. A friend, at work, gave me a Gevalia "Melitta-style" pot that he wasn't using. It uses the cone-shaped, natural fibre filters. Our MC makes 12 cups and the Melitta only 8. I started off with the same amount of coffee. I assumed, since it was less water, that the coffee would be a bit stronger. On the contrary, it was noticeably weaker. I was surprised. So, we dragged out our seldom used Melitta Java Perk. Its just coincidence that its made by Melitta. Its a standard percolator. We again, loaded it with the same amount of coffee as the MC. It was even weaker still than the Melitta-filter pot.

I'm surprised by these results. It appears that the auto-drip maker is the clear winner. I'm wondering if anyone else has done any comparisons of these different style pots and what your observations are.

In all three cases, we used the same Gevalia coffee, that we love. Its only the Gevalia pot that fell short.

 

[ArtieD2]

Addendum: We used the Melitta-filter pot this morning with store-bought Folgers and the coffee is back to the strength we're used to. The Folgers is a much more coarse grind then the Gevalia that we drink on weekends.

Does a Melitta-style pot require a coarse grind, in general?

Thanks all.

Artie