First of all, I'm an unemployed IT guy..I don't have a lot of money to work with, and I'm addicted to coffee. I had grown to hate drip coffee maker. I started looking into vac pots here, and other placs and decided that despite high probability of being homeless in the near future (especially if I keep buying Coffee/espresso stuff), I just had to have one. I stubled across a less than perfect Cory auto on eBay and bought it cheap. Luckily, the wife was only ticked off until she saw how cheap it was. It arrived with the minor cosmetic damage that the seller mentionedm most obviously a dent. I'm from Texas. Wtih the hail we have, we dont notice dents smaller than a softball, so it didn't matter to me. It had a metal filter consisting of a metal disk with holes drilled in it, and a mesh disk, with a rubber rim around the edge, both on a rod with a spring to provide tension.
So, first thing I do with any new toy I get is to screw it up. That little screw underneath was way to tempting, and I imediately adjusted it to far. Luckily I had not been on speaking terms with my drip coffee maker for some time, so I had a few bags of coffee laying around that were really past their prime. Pefect to experiment with. And my saeco had died the day before, so the withrawels inspired me to waste an inordinate amount of time with this thing. Here is what I found.
The screw on the bottom that adjusts the dwell time is very sensitive. I'm used to vintage motorcycle carbs (my other expensive hobby), where you turn the screw a few turns before you see any real result. Now, I don't know if it was due to my turning the adjustment screw too far, or just the age of the machine but in my obsessive searching on the net I ran in to at least one othr person that experianced this. One time it would turn it self off way to short. The next time, it would never turn itself off. I say never, but in all honesty I unplugged it after about five minutes of it spraying month old comunity coffee all over the kitchen. How I am still married, I dont know...its certainly not for my money.
Then, it would stall before the top funnel was even half full. it would just sit there. I could even unplug it an d let it sit, but until I broke the seal it was just sitting there with half the water on top, and half the water in the bottom.
Eventually, I turn the screw back in a few turns, ad started from scratch. with just water, an 8th of a turn at a time, until I got it close. The other lement to this puzzle is you hav tol let it cool completely down. Having been an aircooled motorcycle mechanic I was more prepared for this than most. Plus my son was school and I could take over his xbox. Then I started in again with the coffee. I think I just about have it(who am I kidding, I'm never ever satisfied with anything), and the coffee is almost strong enough that my friends will refuse to drink it. It is very good tasteing coffee, and I highly recomend this thing if you have the time and the patience to see it through. Or if your smart enough not to mess with the settings in the first place. |
